Why invest in your customer service? 5 investments that deliver more than they cost

1. Investing in the right systems ensures more efficient operations

We often see customer service organisations with outdated, home-grown or inefficient systems. As a result, employees often spend unnecessary time on tasks that could be made easier, faster or simpler with the right systems. An investment in the right system can quickly pay for itself, especially if it offers good reporting capabilities that allow you to improve productivity. With the right systems, you can do more in less time.

2. Investing in people ensures higher customer satisfaction

Happy employees make for happy customers. The moment you design customer service in such a way that it is pleasant to work there, it has an effect on customer satisfaction. Investing in training, for example, can lead to better conversation skills and faster handling of customer contacts. This results not only in an increase in productivity, but also in higher employee satisfaction. Invested employees stay longer and work harder.

3. Investing in process optimisation reduces avoidable customer contact

Efficient processes ensure that fewer avoidable customer contacts need to be handled. As a result, you save a huge amount of time. In many companies, more than 50% of customer contacts are avoidable. That's a lot, a lot of time. So invest in optimising those processes. In doing so, you can, for instance, use a external advisor who can look at processes with fresh eyes unbiased. Costs a little investment but even if you reduce avoidable contacts with 10%, that investment will pay for itself in no time.

4. Investing in good accessibility ensures better service

Good accessibility provides distinctiveness. We are then talking about dual accessibility.

1. Availability at the right moments via the right channels. It is important that the right moments and the right channels are tailored to your target group. As a webshop, you simply have to be available in the evenings and at weekends. That is when most visitors are likely to be on your website and you will increase your conversion rate if you are available and your competitor is not.
2. Having the right employee available quickly. Many channels and wide opening hours are worthless with very long waiting times. Therefore, it is important to keep customers waiting as short as possible.

Investing in good reachability pays off. Customers are more satisfied, and if you are accessible, they are more likely to order something from you. Especially the importance of out-of-hours availability is seriously underestimated. Far too many companies still think it is not necessary and would be too costly. This is absolutely not the case. Besides, if you cannot or do not want to set up extended opening hours yourself, you can always use a outsource part, for example in the evenings or weekends.

5. Investing in good service delivers competitive advantage:

A good customer service department delivers competitive advantage. Customers are less likely to switch to a competitor if they are satisfied with the service. Investment in customer service is therefore not only cost-saving, but also a strong marketing tool.

In short, investing in good customer service may cost money, but the returns are always greater. If you want to determine where your investments will yield the highest returns, we can help!