7 Benefits of Good Customer Service for Your Business

Ever wondered what makes a customer return to a certain brand or product and even rally behind it strongly? The product/service quality matters, yes, but when combined with high-quality customer service, it leaves an indelible impression on customers that keeps bringing them back. The benefits of good customer service cannot be expounded upon enough. Customer retention is just one of them.   

Up to 74% of customers believe their loyalty to a brand grows when it makes them feel understood and appreciated. On the flip side, six in 10 Americans will abandon a brand over bad customer service. When done right, customer service extends far beyond standard troubleshooting — it transforms into a tool for building trust, fostering long-term customer relationships and boosting brand reputation.  

In short, exceptional customer service has the potential to turn one-time buyers into lifelong advocates for your brand, catapulting it to success. 

In this blog, we’ll tell you what good customer service looks like, its advantages and specific systemic and operational changes that you can make to reap the benefits of good customer service.  

What is good customer service? 

Good customer service refers to the practice of providing reliable, timely and personalized support that meets and exceeds customer expectations throughout their journey with your brand. The aim is to ensure that customers have a memorable and positive experience with your brand before, after and during their purchase. So, what constitutes good customer service? While there are countless aspirational ways to think about good customer service, here are six components or pillars of good customer service that characterize it most aptly: 

• Accessibility 
• Personalization 
• Customer empathy 
• Responsiveness 
• Customer-centricity 
• Clarity and transparency 

It might seem like a tall order, but the payoff is worthwhile. The advantages of delivering good customer support are too big and too many to ignore. Let’s learn about them in detail. 

Top 7 benefits of good customer service 

If you’re able to imbibe the critical qualities of good customer service we spoke about, you’re well on your path to derive massive gains in the form of: 

1. Increased customer loyalty and retention 

All good relationships hinge on trust. An important benefit of good customer service is it builds trust and establishes connections that extend beyond transaction value. For instance, a business that is upfront about its products or services, pricing and policies fosters confidence among customers. Customers will appreciate this honest communication and return to the business in the future, fostering customer loyalty. 

Loyal customers tend to be repeat buyers, more than new customers who are anyway too costly to acquire in the first place. The likelihood of repeat sales is ~70% with existing customers while it’s a mere 5-20% with new ones. Acquiring new customers is also 5 to 25 times more expensive than retaining existing customers.   

How to foster customer loyalty: 

• Prioritize consistency in good customer service by standardizing call center scripts and customer service workflows. 
• Train customer service agents on the importance of customer empathy. 
• Consider implementing a loyalty program to reward long-term customers. 

Stellar after-sales service can be the key to improving customer loyalty. Watch our video where we address how you can go about it.

2. Brand advocacy 

A ripple effect of loyal customers acquired through exceptional customer service is the new business they bring in. Happy, loyal customers have a 97% possibility of giving positive recommendations and becoming staunch brand advocates. This really adds up, given that 81% of people tend to trust recommendations that come from friends and family to make purchases.  

In a saturated marketplace, organic word-of-mouth marketing is hard to come by and worth its weight in gold. Positive reviews from real customers are not only authentic but also cost-effective compared to traditional advertising. And delighting your customers with great support is the way to do it!   

Take a cue from Spotify - a legendary champion of good customer service. With always-on, personalized care, the brand has earned many loyal advocates who shower it with social currency and promotion without being asked. Here’s one enthusiastic Spotifier: 

Source 

How to build brand advocates: 

• Appreciate your customers through thank-you notes and special offers. 
• Encourage satisfied customers to not just leave reviews but also talk about your company to friends and family either directly or through sharing on social media. 
• Implement referral programs to reward customers who refer more business. 

Learn More: How Brand Advocacy Can be Your Secret Weapon to Growth 

3. Higher sales and revenue 

Good customer service has a direct impact on your bottom line. “Happy customers buy more” might seem like a cliche but it’s rooted in facts. Latest customer service statistics show that 42% of customers wouldn’t mind paying a premium if they get friendly and welcoming brand interactions in exchange. Moreover, positive past experiences with a brand can lead customers to increase their spending with the brand by nearly 140%.  How does that happen?   

Happy customers are more receptive to upselling and cross-selling campaigns by brands they trust. Thanks to the great customer service they’ve witnessed over time, they are primed to purchase more, thereby giving you the opportunity to pitch premium products, deals and complementary products unabatedly. Not only does this boost overall customer lifetime value but also sets up a steady revenue stream for you.  

How to boost sales and revenue: 

• Personalize customer interactions for better customer satisfaction. 
• Rely on historical insights and analysis when upselling and cross-selling. 
• Make customer checkpoints such as checkout, returns or even customer support convenient and transparent. 

4. Enhanced customer-centricity 

Focusing on great customer service enhances your value proposition as a business. When you put the customer at the focal point of your decision-making process, you start prioritizing customer needs and preferences above material gains. Customer-centricity becomes rooted in your ethos and trickles down into every customer interaction, making it more memorable and delightful.  

The result? A solid customer connection and positive brand perception become a key differentiator setting you apart from 48% of your competitors who are not customer obsessed.  

How to be more customer-centric: 

• Bake customer centricity into your end-to-end customer service strategy and position it as a core brand value to be implemented across ranks.  
• Leverage customer testimonials and success stories to show other customers what you can do for them.  

5. Better agent retention 

The advantages of good customer service are not limited to customers. They also spill into customer service teams. For starters, any business that’s focused on customer-centricity understands that agent experience is the key to customer experience. 73% of customers claim they are loyal to brands because of their friendly and knowledgeable customer service agents.  

Happy agents are more motivated to work hard, hit their service level agreements (SLA) and deliver quality service, even amidst grueling conditions in call/contact centers.  

A positive work environment helps agents combat workplace stress and burnout, gives them a common goal to work towards and thus, improves their morale.   

Well-structured customer service objectives improve agent productivity in one more way. Brands that focus on delivering exceptional customer service are more likely to make systemic changes for agent empowerment. They won’t cut corners before investing in agent productivity tools or customer experience solutions if it makes their agents’ jobs easier, which invariably adds to job satisfaction and therefore, increased retention.   

How to improve agent retention: 

• Invest in agent training and coaching with personalized learning pathways and regular performance measurement.  
• Recognize and reward employees who make a direct impact on customer experience. 
• Arm agents with productivity tools like customer service chatbots and generative AI to make their lives easier. 

6. Drives innovation 

An underrated benefit of good customer service is the culture of innovation it fosters. When a brand is obsessed with its customers, it is constantly innovating to reach solutions that would help it exceed customer expectations. Many successful brands are where they are because they listen to their customers. 

Take Amazon for instance. The brand relies extensively on customer feedback to lead its innovation efforts and improve its offerings. Amazon Echo and the famous Alexa voice assistant came into existence because of growing customer demands for smart, hands-free experiences. Customer-led innovation is the heart of the brand, echoed by Founder Jeff Bezos when he says “We’re not competitor obsessed, we’re customer obsessed. We start with what the customer needs and we work backwards.”  

Customer service teams with exceptional listening skills can be a bridge between customers and businesses, relaying the unique needs that customers have, which can then drive innovation and help the business stay competitive.  

How to foster innovation using customer service: 

• Customer feedback management through advanced tools like conversational surveys can help get a 360* overview of customer needs. 
• Data analytics tools can also help identify patterns and trends in customer feedback efficiently. 

Use Contact Center Analytics to Consolidate Feedback

Sprinklr Service comes equipped with an AI-powered analytics and reporting tool that can analyze billions of data points across 30+ channels to give you refined insights into customer feedback. As a business, you can use this information to drive product innovation and drive out-of-the-box results. 

You can also read about how French e-commerce company Cdiscount used Sprinklr Service to analyze 75,000+ customer conversations to improve its customer service. And if you want similar benefits, book a demo with us and discuss your unique use cases. 

BOOK A DEMO

7.  Breaks organizational silos 

Exceptional customer service plays a vital role in dismantling organizational silos, which often lead to inefficiencies by separating teams and customer insights. Research suggests that silos can lead to up to $3.1 trillion loss in productivity.  

How can customer service help? Focusing on delivering peak customer service automatically leads to an organization that is collaborative and does not work in silos. A business that delivers great customer service needs healthy communication and collaboration among different teams. Customer agents will often need to speak with product or sales departments to solve customer issues. Uninterrupted knowledge sharing can help shorten response time and the overall customer experience. 

A unified customer experience with consistent messaging also requires integrated strategies that can only be developed through different departments working together. From knowledge sharing to customer data exchange, everything becomes seamless when there are no silos.  

How to break organizational silos: 

• Implement an integrated customer experience solution that collates customer data and insights across various departments. 
• Create a centralized knowledge base for everyone to access. This can also help with customer self-service, which will boost customer satisfaction. 

Real-world examples of businesses deploying good customer service  

Now that we’ve looked at all the benefits of good customer service, how exactly do you implement a great customer service strategy for your business? Let’s look at real-world examples.  

Disney strives to always keep the magic alive for its customers 

Disney is of course known for its array of fun characters for kids. Yet, what customers or ‘guests’ who visit Disney World always remember is the magic that the company never fails to create. Be it providing ‘makeovers’ for lost dolls of little girls or reducing wait times for impatient adults, Disney leaves no stone unturned to up its game.  

A big focus for Disney is its front-facing employees they call ‘Cast Members’. All employees are trained to ‘play a part’ in a ‘show’. This means providing positive, warm and customer-centric experiences so that every guest feels appreciated. The company also provides apps like MagicBands to improve personalization and help pre-plan facilities, making the whole experience seamless. With a customer experience strategy like this, it is no surprise that Disney manages to have a 70% return rate for its first-time visitors! 

Hyatt’s commitment to customer care 

Who hasn’t heard of hospitality specialist Hyatt Hotels & Resorts? The brand claims customer care is part of its DNA. But as Hyatt continues to grow, its customer query volume has also expanded. Instead of diluting its customer service quality to keep up with the increasing demand, Hyatt chose to make a commitment to keep offering premium care to all its customers across 1000+ global properties.   

To power this, Hyatt invested in a digital customer service solution that was scalable, allowing the company to meet its customers where they were and delight them with personalized service.  

As a result, Hyatt’s customer service team could handle inbound customer requests 34% faster and support 700 employees in distributed teams, arming them with the tools to provide consistent service to all its customers, irrespective of where they are located.

“Our ability to recognize someone in a way that allows us to really care for them in a more personal way helps us drive loyalty,” explains Vander Ploeg, Global Head of Digital and Technology.  

Honda adapts to an era of online car sales 

Accelerated by the global pandemic, Japanese carmaker Honda needed to quickly adapt to and excel at selling cars online. Technology became the cornerstone of Honda’s approach to meeting savvy buyers at whichever channel they chose. Additionally, Honda needed to ensure consolidation of disparate solution points to optimize costs, ensure brand voice consistency and use customer engagement data to deliver exceptional service.   

Instead of going after many different technology providers and vendors, Honda chose a unified technology to manage its customer experience - Sprinklr Service, one among many of the other solutions Honda adopted, enabled it to take a digital-first approach to 360* care for its customers. Chief of Honda Ontario, Yoshiaki Inoue, said this unified approach to customer service would be one of the leading reasons for the online car sales site’s success.  

Read Honda’s full story here. 

Reap the benefits of good customer service with Sprinklr 

If you want to join the likes of Hyatt, Honda and thousands of other leading brands and revel in the benefits of great customer service, the time to act is now. Check out Sprinklr Service — our AI-powered customer service solution that unifies all traditional and modern channels and helps cut contact center costs by up to 33% on the back of features like: 

• Advanced AI and Generative AI integration 
• Widest channel coverage on 30+ channels 
• Agent dashboard with integrated productivity tools 
• Complete customer feedback management, and more.  

Sounds interesting? Grab your personalized demo of Sprinklr and get started with great customer service today!