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First impressions have the power to make or break sales opportunities in service-oriented organizations. With an excellent interaction, customers are more likely to make an initial purchase, become a loyal customer and refer a business' solutions to others. A bad experience, on the other hand, drives customers to the competition. Given the huge impact on a company's success, AnswerNow outlined how to boost customer service in its latest white paper titled "5 Most Important Steps to Improving Customer Service." The document provides industry research highlighting the enormous costs of bad service, along with the dependable tactics you can use to ensure your business doesn't miss the boat when it comes to making good on customer expectations. The Impact of Lost Customers A company's call center is the major player in service delivery. It has the power to develop and maintain favorable customer impressions for the company and its solutions. Conversely, just one bad service encounter can cause a hit to your bottom line. For example, it costs far more to replace customers than it does to retain them. According to findings reported in a Parature Customer Service blog, poor service encounters cost U.S. companies approximately $83 billion each year! Tried-and-True Tactics for Stellar Customer Service Fortunately, businesses have several ways to elevate service levels. The top five things you should do to improve customer service and protect your financial well being include: 1. Establish a solid "front line" for your business. You don't want to water-down the efforts of your support teams. So, consider transferring front-line duties to a call center provider. Then, you don't have to risk escalating costs and plummeting profitability because you don't have adequate resources to serve your customers. 2. Lower your customer service wait times to a bare minimum. Nobody likes to waste time on hold for service. If your customers are waiting long periods, you're causing their frustration to build and increasing the odds the encounter will be less than positive. To ensure interactions have the best opportunity to get off on the right foot, you can outsource customer service to an experienced call center with the expertise and technology to answer calls within seconds. 3. Utilize contact services centers to assist with call volume during peak periods. If your call volume fluctuates, you must address service levels during peak calling hours. Otherwise, the bottleneck created from backed-up calls can turn into a service nightmare. Investing in additional customer service personnel is an expensive option. Why hire additional service reps when you really only need additional staffing during certain times? Instead, you can maintain service levels and keep costs down by relying on an outsourced call center to handle the overload. 4. Provide live chat support. In today's online world, customers expect services such as live chat. A chat application is an economical way to raise service levels and reduce costs. It's much cheaper to "talk" with a customer online than it is to participate in a phone conversation. And for those customers who don't want to waste time on the phone, chat is a perfect solution for addressing their needs. 5. Create a company-wide culture around customer service. A customer-centric organization lives and breathes service. The customer service culture is highly valued and engrained throughout the organization, from top to bottom. And when the company's leaders set the right example, the rest of the organization follows suit. You need your existing customers to help your business grow and prosper. Therefore, make sure you do everything to support them at the highest levels so you can count on long-term relationships and positive word-of-mouth. Every company should set a goal to deliver "WOW" customer service in each encounter. By doing so, you'll build stronger brand loyalty, create deeper customer engagements and be on target to achieve your overall business goals. Working with AnswerNow By partnering with AnswerNow, companies ensure a results-driven first impression on each and every customer interaction. Businesses of all sizes and types leverage AnswerNow's real-time accessibility and highly trained team members. Our focus remains on reducing costs and contributing to profitable growth. Companies can expect a WOW customer experience and measurable returns in our contact call centers. AnswerNow solutions offer: * A multi-touch contact center with bilingual engagement 24/7/365 * Full service staffing and training * Quality assurance and recorded interactions * Immediate data access that leads to actionable information * Sophisticated reporting to identify trending and alerts * Customizable applications for all service types and levels * Personalized service and dedicated account management * Demand forecasting and overflow * A branded extension of a company's in-house team To learn more about how you can create the WOW! experience for your customers, download our latest white paper or call 1-800-226-0491. About the Author: Michelle Weiss is Vice President of AnswerNow, a premiere answering service and bilingual call center service provider. Learn more about Call Center Services by visiting http://www.answernowinc.com/.
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