Customer experience (CX) is your biggest competitive differentiator when retaining customers and driving revenue. However, most businesses and customer support teams operate with limited resources under tighter budget constraints. But should this influence the quality of your customer interactions? Absolutely not.
Despite resource limitations, CX leaders can build a terrific customer service function by following established best practices and implementing some smart technology. We have compiled a list of the five scariest customer experience nightmares.
As we celebrate Halloween, now is the perfect time to look at some cautionary tales of horror that businesses frequently overlook.
We’ve rounded up five of the scariest CX nightmares to help you design a better CX strategy for your brand:
1. The drive-through of horrors
A man drove into a restaurant's drive-through with his nine-year-old son for a quick meal. However, after waiting 15 minutes for his order, the man requested a refund. And that’s when things quickly escalated. The cashier called in the manager, who was visibly upset about the refund request. She told the customer, “Yes, we are tired of people coming up here telling me it takes too long. Go somewhere else!”
The cardinal sin of customer service is losing your cool during a customer interaction. The customer promptly uploaded a video of his experience on social media, and that didn’t go well for the brand.
Key takeaway: Courtesy is perhaps the simplest yet most high-impact customer service practice that can help brands engage with dissatisfied customers.
Also Read: The 6R's of an Awesome Customer Service
2. The unexpected wait time
Despite the numerous channels available for customer support, phone calls still dominate for customers. After all, there is no substitute for real human interaction. Customers vent their grievances to a customer service representative until they feel their concerns have been heard.
Customers don’t like being put on hold and having to listen to a pre-recorded voice or being left on hold for hours while trying to resolve a ten-minute issue like a demand for cancellation. Sometimes, such small but crazy customer nightmares are a boon for phone support.
As businesses, if you want to improve your phone support, consider using great customer service tools available in the market. For instance, live chat can be the best way to provide instant assistance to your customers. Check out the features of the tools and come to a conclusion to improve your service desk productivity.
3. The silence of the reps
Transparency is customer service. Don't keep your customers in the dark. They'll move to your more transparent counterparts. Customers are more confident about the businesses/products that are open and ethical to all customers. For instance, customers prefer products with transparent pricing or zero hidden costs. It's more comfortable for them to rely on the brand and make buying decisions faster.
Some businesses often resort to staying quiet or just do not respond to getting back to difficult customers. Such a situation frustrates and frightens customers; they feel alienated and lost.
Also Read: Exceptional Customer Service: 5 Tips for CX Leaders
4. The negative note
Negative emotions are powerful—they leave you worked up and stressed and can ruin an otherwise perfect day. Similarly, negative word of mouth is a risk for every business regarding poor customer experience.
Statistics show that,
90% of customers are more likely to read all of the reviews and then decide whether to deal with a business or not.'
Both positive and negative reviews influence consumers' purchase decisions. The truth is, a negative customer note can break your brand, and a positive one can make it. Of course, negative feedback isn’t the end of the world. Customers complain, and that’s a common thing. But you should always know how to handle it, don’t let them walk away or get angrier. We have some simple yet powerful tips to help you do that correctly.
Also Read: How to Deal with Difficult Customers: 5 Tips
5. The scary interaction
Even if you provide the sweetest candy treat, you aren’t the only one.
How can you give your customers a memorable experience by interacting with them and not scaring them away? The answer is the right communication strategy.
Nine out of ten consumers expect the companies that they interact with to deliver the right content.'
Customers do like hearing from you. Communicate with customers through their preferred channels, interact in a more personalized way, and understand their sentiments. Implement Omnichannel support or employ AI to analyze interactions, if required.
Also Read: 3 Reasons Omnichannel Contact Centers Are the Future
But stay in the know, interact with customers, and create content that’s relevant to them. Most importantly, interact politely, professionally, and peacefully.
The bottom line
We learned from the examples above how you should NOT treat your customers if you want your business to be among the high-performing ones. The key to winning out over your counterparts on Halloween is providing a devilishly good customer experience. Try to keep the nightmares and tips to overcome in your mind - if you dare.
So, this Halloween, stop tricking your customers and blow their minds by treating them with an exceptional experience. Also, if you’re still figuring out about an extra-scary Halloween costume, we recommend dressing up as a sub-par customer experience.
Also Read: Halloween Fun: AI Answers What to Wear and How to Scare
It’s time to avoid nightmare customer service situations and handle each request. Try to monitor customer-centric behaviors, understand the end-to-end customer journey, and take action.
Combine advanced customer service software capabilities with your brilliant support team experts. You can sign up for ThinkOwl right now to give it a shot – so there are no nightmares, just fun.
Have a spooktacular Halloween!