Customer experience plays a critical role in your relationship with any particular customer. This is precisely why businesses always aim to deliver good customer service and ensure a positive customer experience. Without further ado, here are some examples of negative customer experiences and how you can fix the issues associated with these situations.
Positive vs. Negative Customer Experience
Generally speaking, a negative customer experience happens when the customer’s expectations aren’t met. These can be expectations about your service quality, response time, overall experience, etc. According to research by Microsoft, 58% of customers switch companies due to bad customer service experience.
To deliver a positive customer experience, you will need to ensure the timely and effective resolution of the customer’s problem while following good etiquette and asking for the customer’s feedback. You should always aim for good customer service to uphold an appealing brand image, build long-term relationships with customers, and so on.
№1 absence of customer service etiquette
This is more of a general concern, but it can be detrimental to the quality of your customer service at an individual level. When your team doesn’t know basic customer service etiquette, your agents can’t ensure a positive customer experience because they will be the problem in the first place.
To solve this issue, train all your customer service agents and any other employees who will communicate with customers in some way. All of them need to know the principles of customer service etiquette and behave in an appropriate way.
№2 Usage of Negative and/or Rude Language
One issue that is related to the absence of customer service etiquette is the use of negative and/or rude language. Not only is it socially expected for people to communicate politely, but it is also a requirement for a customer service agent who wants to do their job the right way.
Unfortunately, the reason why agents use negative or rude language is usually that the customer does it himself. It is hard to be polite when you are being treated like trash. That being said, with the right training, your agents will have enough patience to handle even the most problematic customers in a polite manner.
№3 Lack of Empathy from the Agent’s Side
In theory, the agent’s job is to solve customer problems, but in practice, it is also about communication and creating a positive customer experience. This is why showing empathy and understanding is critical for agents when communicating with customers.
Once again, appropriate training is necessary. If some of your agents are still struggling to show empathy, you can brainstorm different scenarios and create scripts they can use. Hire an experienced writer from the writing services reviews site Best Writers Online to help you write the scripts.
№4 Directing Customers to the Website
Positive customer experience is not only about customer support which is why you need to make sure that your website operates well. You can already answer many customer questions there. That being said, if a customer has contacted your support team, your agents have no right to direct them to the website.
Even if all the information the customer is interested in is already on your website, your agents are still responsible for communicating with them and explaining everything they are curious about.
№5 Inefficient Customer Support Team
Another general problem could be the inefficiency of your customer support team. An inefficient team could be the result of a number of issues, so you will have to solve them all:
- Poor training of customer support agents.
- Poor communication within the team.
- Lack of internal guidelines and policies.
- Lack of performance tracking of the team.
- Low productivity of individual agents.
№6 Making Customers Wait for Too Long
One of the most important metrics that customer support teams need to analyze is the time it takes to solve a customer’s problem or handle their request. This is why putting a customer on hold for too long is not a good idea. You can’t leave them waiting like that.
There could be different reasons for this problem ranging from the personal irresponsibility of the agent to the lack of guidelines, so you will first need to determine what the cause of the issue is. If it is the lack of guidelines (on how to behave in different situations and solve problems), you can hire an expert writer from the custom writing company Trust My Paper to help you finally create this set of guidelines and policies for your team.
№7 Transferring Callers Again and Again
While putting the customer on hold is bad enough, transferring callers again and again is not a good idea either. When you keep transferring callers, the customer gets impatient and may start thinking that your support team is inefficient.
The best way to avoid such situations is to have well-trained customer support agents how to deliver good service and are knowledgeable about the technicalities as well. Having too many specialists in different topics may be the reason why your agents keep transferring callers.
№8 Failure to Offer Real-Time Support
Real-time support has become so mundane that customers now expect companies to offer it in some form. Whether it is by phone or via a live chat, offering real-time support should be one of your priorities.
Of course, you should still have other options (eg email) that may take longer but can provide equally good support. You just need to make sure that the time it takes you to deliver that support isn’t too long.
№9 Inability to Resolve the Problem
The number one goal for any customer support agent is to solve the customer’s problem, so if they fail to do so, it will affect the entire experience of that customer with your company. No matter what the problem is, your agents need to be able to resolve it.
There are no rules that can magically help you avoid any situation like this, but good training is definitely essential. And then, the more experience your agents get, the easier it will become for them to solve any and all customer problems.
№10 Forgetting to Ask for Feedback
Lastly, your agents shouldn’t forget to ask for customer feedback. Feedback plays an important role in helping your customer support team improve as well as for your entire team to improve the overall customer experience.
Agents can ask for feedback right after providing support or at other times. Just make sure that nobody is forcing your customers to provide feedback. Not every customer will want to do so and that’s okay.
Final Thoughts
All in all, delivering high-quality customer service and ensuring a positive customer experience should definitely be one of your top priorities. Consider the examples of negative experience listed above and fix any issues you may have in your own organization.
Kristen Bray is a professional writer and blogger. She mainly covers topics such as blogging, digital marketing, and self-education. In her free time, she practices yoga and also travels.