Have you ever walked into a shop, bought something, and left feeling like the staff were incredible and gave you an amazing experience? People seem to think that good customer service is a rarity nowadays.
The British Ombudsman Service announced that last year over 38 million customer service complaints were logged; that’s one every 1.2 seconds! We believe that these shocking figures highlight a real problem, of course, but when we had a look at a few Facebook pages and Twitter handles we also saw the real good some companies are doing in this area.
Think about it, would you be more likely to call up a company or go online to speak to them publicly if you were happy with their service, or angry with it? We’re pretty sure we know the answer to that one and feel it’s about time to praise and give credit to the companies that are getting customer service so right!
What is good customer service? The definition of customer service is different for all of us and ranges from how you’re treated in-store, online or on the phone, to how you’re concerns are dealt with if something goes wrong.
For some companies, it’s not as easy as giving you a great face-to-face interaction because they don’t have a centre for you to speak to someone in person, or you’re more likely to want great service over the phone. EE have taken the importance of customer happiness to heart, and as such are going to be creating over 1000 new customer service roles in their UK branches this year. Their aim is to increase customer satisfaction, both over the phone and online, something we wish them luck for and hope they succeed in!
What about unconventional great customer service? Not sure what that means? Well, we weren’t either until we spotted a few reports from companies going above and beyond when customers have been affected by weather such as floods or drastic snow, which we have seen a lot of in the past few years. There is the promise of free delivery, adjustments and
By now you might have guessed that there isn’t an award for any one company’s customer service; which we think is a real shame! We had a browse of a few companies social media pages, and it’s fantastic to see how many people have had amazing buying experiences though – and companies seem to really love the feedback. The Body Shop is a great example of this.
So why is bad customer service good for you? Of course, it isn’t, and you should never put up with any bad service if you receive it! However, with so many companies now stepping up their customer service game now we have the very public social media to contend with, you can rest assured that any company treating you badly will either be working on improvement or falling behind compared to its competitors.
Let your bad experiences make you appreciate the good and the outstanding. Don’t keep it to yourself, let people know on Twitter or Facebook. Let’s recognise those companies we really love for their service so that they can keep providing it to us. Let us know in the comments below what your favourite company for customer service is and any great service you’ve experienced recently!
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