I get my coffee at the same café every morning. It isn’t the closest café to my apartment, and it isn’t the cheapest cup in my neighborhood. The real reason that I keep going back is that they make me feel like family. Every day when I request my drink, they remember my order, they call me by name, they wish me a fabulous day with a smile, and ask how I’m doing and how my boyfriend and even my dog are. I always leave there feeling light, calm, happy, and valued. And the best part? They manage all of this magic quickly and efficiently and never make me late for work. They appreciate my business and value my time.
The Importance of Superior Customer Service
Theoretically, we all know that good customer service is fundamental. Yet as recorded back in a 2017 report by SuperOffice, 80% of businesses claim they provide “excellent customer service,” while a mere 8% of their customers agree. The same year, according to Forbes, in the U.S. alone, over 62 billion dollars of revenue was lost due to poor customer service. According to Accenture’s yearly report, this number has grown drastically since the beginning of the pandemic, reaching $1.6 trillion at the end of 2020.
Furthermore, in Microsoft’s 2020 “Global State of Customer Service” report, a staggering 90% of consumers believe customer service is important in choosing a brand. While 58% of consumers will actually sever a relationship with a business due to poor customer service.
Whether choosing where to get coffee or lunch, what bank to trust with our money, which doctor’s office to get checked at, what store to buy our clothes from, or what freight forwarder to use, we take many different factors into account. From price, convenience, and size to customer service, numerous things impact the way we feel about different businesses. However, it is undeniable statistically that the most important thing is our experience as customers. No matter how close, far, expensive, cheap, big, or small a company is, if we felt that our business was valued and that we matter, we are more likely to frequent it. Whereas if we felt that we didn’t matter and that no one cared about our experience, then we are less likely to stay and purchase and, most definitively, will not come back.
a staggering 90% of consumers believe customer service is important in choosing a brand.
In the fluctuating Covid-19 economy, the importance of maintaining quality service has grown. As many businesses have lost everything and others have struggled to keep their head above water, those who survived and thrived did so due to the superior customer experiences they afforded. An 89% of businesses differ from their competition in customer service alone, meaning that they offer exactly the same services as the competition, just some do it in a way that makes things easier and better for the customer.
These statistics include online businesses and service providers. And as we’ve all experienced first-hand, in our ever-changing world, online options are constantly growing and have become necessary in just about every field.
Fast Response Times Are Critical
According to Forbes, one-third of American consumers in 2019 expected companies to respond to them within one hour to earn their business. Furthermore, 51% would without a doubt move on to a competitor if a company takes more than six hours to answer them. A survey taken by Zingle discovered that the #1 thing customers said would improve their service experience was faster response times. This shows that consumers find customer service to be the most important thing when choosing which business to patronize. And suppose response times are the most critical part of a customer’s experience- in that case, response times are the most crucial factor for consumers, hands down.
There is a universal need to channel the power of tech to shorten response times so that returning customers and prospective clients alike feel that their business is valued and that their time is appreciated.
Furthermore, 51% would without a doubt move on to a competitor if a company takes more than six hours to answer them.
The need to provide the quickest, highest quality customer service humanly and technologically possible has become more critical every passing year. Now, entering 2022, businesses that survived the Covid-19 economy must continue to bring their A-game and deliver a superior customer experience if they want to thrive.
Digitization in the Freight Forwarding Industry
In the freight forwarding industry, the need to digitize has recently become crucial to keep up with the competition and stay afloat. Furthermore, tech can save time for sales representatives, which has led to the vast digitization of the international freight industry. When deciding how to digitize and what tech options to choose from, forwarders must consider the customer service factor and not sacrifice the connection they have with their clients. Instead, they should search for ways to elevate their clients’ experience.
How can a prospective customer trust a freight forwarder to ensure that their cargo is delivered in the most efficient way if the forwarder cannot even answer an email in a timely manner? The way in which businesses address their clients’ simplest questions and emails have a massive effect on how the customer sees the company and can make or break the relationship. Providing prompt and quality customer service experiences from start to finish can help forwarders bring in new business, close more deals, and retain more clients in the long run.
Harnessing Technology to Improve Customer Experience
There is a need for Freight Forwarders in the digital era to achieve better response times and keep up with self-service options and automated responses. As experts in the field and after rigorous research, Wisor.ai invented the perfect algorithm to solve this critical issue. Wisor’s SaaS end-to-end digital plug and play tool for freight forwarders researches and creates quotes within minutes, doing 80% of FFs’ manual, time-consuming work.
Wisor’s algorithm uses the perfect combination of AI and NLP technologies to aid FFs by answering clients within minutes of receiving a request. All forwarders have to do is personalize the email depending on their client before clicking send. Using Wisor to promptly answer customer requests within minutes has proven to help forwarders close more transactions successfully, bring in more new business, and retain more existing clients. This solution harnesses the power of technology so that clients need not wait more than a few moments before receiving a response. Businesses that use Wisor are viewed more favorably than the competition because of the truly superior customer experience they provide.
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