Some take the saying that “a good product sells itself” to mean that no matter how bad your customer service is, if your product is good, then it will sell regardless. That  line of thinking is wrong to the letter. Let me explain what that saying really means, as that will give us a good platform for this discussion.

A good product sells itself means that when you have a good product, customers are more moved to let others know about the product. This leads to an even bigger customer base. This does not mean that you do not need customer service. This is actually when you need more customer service to help reach more people with news about the product and keep the existing customers fully satisfied so that they can be better moved to inform others to come aboard.

Let us discuss 5 ways good customer service can improve profitability, productivity and your business as a whole.

1) Customer Loyalty

Good customer service encourages customers to stay loyal to your business. Any business that is devoted to the full customer satisfaction circle, will always build and retain loyal customers. Customers come to the realisation that they matter to the business and in turn the business and its products will matter to them, making it easy for them to stay loyal. Loyal customers promises a steady flow of customers for your goods or services, this in turn leads to profits.

2) Competitive Edge

One of the biggest fears when opening a business is competition with existing ones or upcoming businesses providing similar services. A good customer service setup can be all you need to get a foot forward on this. Research shows that customers are more attracted to businesses that care for them. They tend to begin to see themselves as part of the product community and in turn support the business. This certainly can give you the needed edge to come above the competition.

3) Reduce Negative Word Of Mouth

It has been a proven fact, that the most effective form of advertising is word of mouth. Word of mouth in lay mans terms means:- (A) hears about a good product or service and tells (B) about the business/service and (B) decides to buy same product/service. If the feedback your business gets from your customers are bad, of customers feel that your customer service towards them is not satisfactory, then they will not be obliged to use word of mouth positively towards your business and this can affect profit negatively.

4) Helps To Improve Product And Services Through Constructive Customer Reviews.

This is a powerful tool, as it helps businesses to design projections of where they are and where they could be going. A good customer service setup aims at getting feedbacks and reviews from the customers. This will help the business see what areas to focus more resources on, what areas to make cutbacks and what areas to leave entirely. With the emergence of online shopping, customer feedback has become a huge part of advertising. It not only sways new customers to have belief in your products, it also helps you as a business to redefine your focus from as and when needed.

5) Customer Retention

It is cheaper to retain customers, than it is to get new ones. A lot of funds go into advertising in order to get a new customer. Meanwhile one loyal customer can bring 10 more customers without the added cost through word of mouth- still statistically the most powerful marketing tool. The need to retain customers can never be overlooked in any business because essentially they are the life of the business. A good customer service agent can help a business grow by retaining and building new customers.

In Conclusion

The demand and supply cycle will never be complete without customers. Africa has greatly improved in its customer service ethics, but more work still needs to be done. We need to aim at building a network that aims at total customer satisfaction for businesses and sectors across Africa. This will not be possible, unless we up our game on training customer service representatives and allocating resources to make sure customers are satisfied.

At Top 100, we are providing the best training to customer service representatives across board, for every service we hold. We are changing, redefining and improving the narrative, one customer at a time.