What Is Customer Service?

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Customer Service is not a department - it’s an attitude.......

......and the responsibility of everyone in the organisation.

It’s about ensuring customer satisfaction with your products and services at every stage of the sales and the after-sales process.

It’s the lifeblood of any business if repeat purchases are important to you.

It's your reputation: and remember a wise man once said

"your brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room".

If you have any doubts about the impact of customer service, or you need some customer service statistics to support your customer service training, have a look at this customer service infographic

The first thing to recognize is that whatever environment you work in, you always have a customer. Any organization can be compared to links in a chain that should be working together to deliver and exceed customer expectations.

What is customer service?

Quite simply it's the level of service that a customer receives when dealing with a company or organisation.

Customer experience is the sum of all the customer contact with an organization, from visiting its website to purchasing a product or service to have an aftersales query or problem.

The debate before you introduce any customer service training needs to be 'what is the most appropriate level of customer service for your business and organisation'.

Good customer service

• separates you from your competitors
• adds values to your customers
• gets talked about - your front line customer service people are you PR department
• gets it right for the customer, which means they want to return and continue to do business with you. It's a simple truth, happy customers will buy more with you
• makes for more engaged and happier customers and employees

We've asked people to share their good customer service stories here

Bad customer service

• loses customers
• causes complaints
• affects your business reputation
• can go viral - people can spread the work easily about customer service through social media

We've asked people to share their poor customer service experiences here

Different customers expect different levels of service so it's important that any business or organization tunes into the level of service which is appropriate for their customers.

What is customer service? Some definitions for you.

“Customer service is an attitude that can be summed up as I care and I will do my best to help you, every time”.

It is the day to day actions which when done consistently well build trust in the relationship and deliver a great customer experience

Consistent levels of service and the occasional random acts of kindness, signify investment in a relationship, an investment that brings satisfaction and reward, even if that reward in business terms is off-setting potential future problems.

"Customer service is a series of activities that are designed to improve the level of customer satisfaction"

- a feeling that a product or service has met or exceeded the customer's expectations. And that is at the heart of bad or good customer service.

The key for your organization is having a consistent understanding and response to the question, what is customer service in your organization?