29.05.2024

What makes good customer service

Excellent customer service is crucial for the success of any company. For Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in particular, it is essential to satisfy their customers and retain them in the long term. But what makes good customer service? In this blog post, we look at the key criteria, expectations and preferred communication channels of customers, as well as some effective tips for improving the customer experience.

Main criteria for good customer service

According to a survey by Esendex, in which 5,000 people worldwide took part, the following five criteria are decisive for the evaluation of a company’s customer service:

Fast response times: 38% of customers expect a response within five hours.
Friendliness and helpfulness: Friendly and helpful support creates trust and satisfaction.
Choice of contact options: Customers appreciate being able to contact support in a variety of ways.
Fast troubleshooting: Efficient and fast solutions are particularly important to customers.
Good accessibility of support: Customers also want to receive support outside regular business hours. You can find out more about this in our blog post on 24/7 customer service. Mehr dazu erfahren Sie in unserem Blogbeitrag zum Thema 24/7 customer service.

Customer expectations and behaviour

The survey results also show that customers’ expectations are high and that they do not hesitate to switch providers if these are not met:

– 85% of customers will give a company a maximum of two chances after a negative experience before switching to a competitor.

– 68% of respondents have shared a negative customer service experience in the last month.

Find out how you can proactively counteract a change of provider in our blog post.

Frustrating aspects of customer service

In order to improve customer service, it is important to understand the most common customer frustrations:

– Problems not being resolved: customers expect quick and effective solutions.

– Long waiting times for a response: Fast response times are essential.

– Repeatedly explaining the issue with changing contact persons: Consistency and traceability are required.

– Repeatedly explaining the issue due to a chatbot timeout: Chatbots need to be efficient and reliable.

– Being treated as a number instead of a person: Personalisation in customer service is crucial.

Tips for a better customer experience

Proactive customer communication

Proactive communication can intercept many customer enquiries in advance. Automated post-purchase messages, video tutorials and FAQs are helpful measures to clarify customer concerns before they contact support.

Use of SMS for customer communication

With an open rate of 95%, SMS is an excellent choice for customer communication. In comparison, 12% of consumers receive more than ten emails from companies every day, while only 2% receive ten or more SMS messages from companies every day.

Self-service

Self-service Self-service solutions are a key technology implementation that can significantly reduce call volume and call duration (AHT). They enable customers to resolve many of their concerns independently, which not only increases satisfaction but also improves the efficiency of customer service. Examples of effective self-service solutions include self-service apps, knowledge databases, detailed FAQs, interactive chatbots and community forums. In our article on the experience of success with self-service you can find out more.

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Technological implementations

Live chat function on websites

Live chats have a satisfaction rate of 73%. Compared to emails, the satisfaction rate is 61% and for phone calls it is only 44%. Live chats allow customers to do several things at once and avoid annoying queues.

Chatbots

Chatbots can answer frequently asked questions and solve simple problems in 90% of cases with ten or fewer messages. They are an efficient and fast option, especially outside of business hours.

Real-time analyses

Real-time analyses are another powerful tool. They enable support teams to recognise problems immediately and solve them proactively, which increases customer satisfaction and prevents escalations. They also help to use support resources more efficiently and predict future trends, enabling long-term optimisation of support processes. You can find out more about the importance of real-time analyses in technical customer support in our blog post on the topic.

Channel preferences of customers

Favourite communication channels

– Self-service, email and telephone: These channels are favoured by almost all customers.

– Live chat: Accepted by a quarter of customers, but only a few want to clarify complex questions via chat.

– Web form: An increasingly popular channel for communicative concerns.

– Social media: Mainly used for complex questions in the community.

Unpopular communication channels

–SMS and chatbots: These channels are the least popular of all types of communication.

– Automated systems: Accepted by one in seven, with voice systems more accepted than chatbots.

Conclusion

Good customer service is characterised by fast response times, friendliness, a range of contact options, quick problem resolution and good accessibility. To fulfil customer expectations, companies should introduce proactive communication strategies and self-service solutions and invest in new technologies such as live chats and self-service. By taking customers’ preferred communication channels into account, companies can offer a first-class customer experience and retain their customers in the long term.