What Does Customer Service Really Look Like For Retailers?
While the retail sector looks forward to the year-end festive shopping season, it’s no secret that this can be an incredibly challenging time for our customers. As the year winds to a close and the 25th December looms in all its tinselly glory, stress levels rise steadily, and the pleasure of retail therapy can turn into a frantic nightmare for some. What can retailers do to ensure a pleasurable shopping experience during this time when customer service is key?
Interestingly, customer service is often understood to be a pleasant smile, a helpful attitude, saying “Thank You” and being respectful.
However, we believe that there is more to great customer service than a smile and a wave. Sales – indeed customers – can be won or lost based on elements which we seldom consider. Let’s explore this together.
Speedy Transaction-Based Applications for Excellent Customer Service
Consumers are demanding at the best of times, but the festive season shopping period may result in higher expectations and shorter fuses. Ensuring a secure transaction is the bare minimum for retailers who should have a safe and efficient system for processing card payments. However, more than that -your transactions need to be fast.
Nothing will scare a customer away faster than a long queue filled with the frustrated faces of people who are slipping out of happy-shopper mode and into a just-get-me-out-of-here frame of mind.
QMinder had this to say, “A customer wait time analysis has conclusively shown that people won’t wait very long before leaving your store for good. In fact, customers are willing to wait only 14 minutes before being served. In one survey, businesses reported that they lost 75% of customers due to waiting times. And when a customer leaves the door with nothing in their hands but frustration, they’re unlikely to ever come back.”
Long wait times, especially during the busy retail periods of Black Friday and Christmas, are incredibly frustrating. Quite literally, every second delay that you experience while your POS device tries in vain to connect, or your system decides it’s time to turn up its toes, gives you a longer and angrier queue of customers.
The Beauty of Inter-Branch Connectivity
“Do you have this in yellow?” This question can floor some retail staff as they scan through an outdated stock system or search for the number for the nearest store to call and find out the answer to this question.
For retailers with multiple branches, connecting them into one safe, reliable, manageable system via dedicated lines and robust connectivity solutions makes for a responsive team and a happy customer. On the right system, calls to other branches are simple and free, as are calls to suppliers and customers.
A reply of, “Sorry, our systems are down” is likely to lose you another customer, so maximum uptime and always-on connectivity are essential.
Can Your Customers Call You?
And while on the topic of calls – are your customers able to get hold of you quickly and easily? Besides the obvious of having people readily available to answer incoming calls, a stable and dependable PBX system which connects to the right person in the shortest time is a must-have in today’s economy.
Consider these facts:
“Despite the emergence and stabilisation of other valuable channels, the phone remains the most used (48%) and preferred (80%) method for reaching support agents.
“Lacking a prominently displayed phone number on your website makes an unfavourable impression: in 2013, 47% of people reported feeling “frustrated or annoyed” and “more likely to explore other brands” when unable to contact a business directly.” (Source)
The Balance Small Business lists a number of customer service tips, with number one being, “The first rule of good customer service is that your business phone needs to be answered. Get call forwarding… Hire staff if you need to. But make sure that someone is picking up the phone when someone calls your business.”
Customer service, customer satisfaction, service excellence – whatever you prefer to call it – quite clearly rests on a pivotal point: that of reliable robust connectivity.
We can smile and be respectful, but if we can’t render a fast, efficient and reliable service which makes the entire customer experience a great one, then we stand to lose a lot. And this is exactly why retailers and store owners should carefully examine their telecoms solution before the year-end rush and ensure that they have the fastest, most reliable connection for the ultimate in customer service.
Take a look at the awesome connectivity solutions from Huge – we look forward to chatting with you.
