Excellent customer service is crucial for the success of any company. For Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in particular, it is essential to satisfy their customers and retain them in the long term. But what makes good customer service? In this blog post, we look at the key criteria, expectations and preferred communication channels of customers, as well as some effective tips for improving the customer experience.
Main criteria for good customer service
According to a survey by Esendex, in which 5,000 people worldwide took part, the following five criteria are decisive for the evaluation of a company’s customer service:
- Fast response times: 38% of customers expect a response within five hours.
- Friendliness and helpfulness: Friendly and helpful support creates trust and satisfaction.
- Choice of contact options: Customers appreciate being able to contact support in a variety of ways.
- Fast troubleshooting: Efficient and fast solutions are particularly important to customers.
- Good accessibility of support: Customers also want to receive support outside regular business hours. You can find out more about this in our blog post on 24/7 customer service. Mehr dazu erfahren Sie in unserem Blogbeitrag zum Thema 24/7 customer service.
Customer expectations and behaviour
The survey results also show that customers’ expectations are high and that they do not hesitate to switch providers if these are not met:
– 85% of customers will give a company a maximum of two chances after a negative experience before switching to a competitor.
– 68% of respondents have shared a negative customer service experience in the last month.
Find out how you can proactively counteract a change of provider in our blog post.
Frustrating aspects of customer service
In order to improve customer service, it is important to understand the most common customer frustrations:
– Problems not being resolved: customers expect quick and effective solutions.
– Long waiting times for a response: Fast response times are essential.
– Repeatedly explaining the issue with changing contact persons: Consistency and traceability are required.
– Repeatedly explaining the issue due to a chatbot timeout: Chatbots need to be efficient and reliable.
– Being treated as a number instead of a person: Personalisation in customer service is crucial.
Tips for a better customer experience
Proactive customer communication
Proactive communication can intercept many customer enquiries in advance. Automated post-purchase messages, video tutorials and FAQs are helpful measures to clarify customer concerns before they contact support.
Use of SMS for customer communication
With an open rate of 95%, SMS is an excellent choice for customer communication. In comparison, 12% of consumers receive more than ten emails from companies every day, while only 2% receive ten or more SMS messages from companies every day.
Self-service
Self-service Self-service solutions are a key technology implementation that can significantly reduce call volume and call duration (AHT). They enable customers to resolve many of their concerns independently, which not only increases satisfaction but also improves the efficiency of customer service. Examples of effective self-service solutions include self-service apps, knowledge databases, detailed FAQs, interactive chatbots and community forums. In our article on the experience of success with self-service you can find out more.