By Caroline Forsey

We all know the importance of customer service for retaining customers and scaling a business — and it’s only increasing in value over time.

Consider, for instance, what happened when I called CorePower Yoga’s customer service team last week to complain about an incorrect charge to my account. What could’ve been a stressful and frustrating experience turned into me actually upgrading my membership.

That’s the power of good customer service — it’s where your customers’ loyalty starts, or ends.

Unfortunately, the past two years have been anything but easy on customer service teams. While customers’ expectations for customer service hit an all-time high, customer service reps simultaneously saw more difficult calls and increased escalations in 2020.

HubSpot’s Industry Data, for instance, shows a consistent rise in support tickets since the beginning of the pandemic — from 6% in March of 2020 to over 90% as of August 2021:

Image Source

However, as customers’ challenges and requests increased exponentially as a result of the pandemic, most service teams were still struggling to adjust to a fully remote setup. (Imagine the stress of a conversation with an unhappy customer from your kitchen table, where you might lack a strong phone connection or easy access to peers for help. Yikes.)

All of which is to say: COVID-19 had a strong impact on customer service, and in 2022 and beyond we’ll continue to see the ramifications of the pandemic on what customers expect from customer service, and how service reps will need to adjust to handle those new expectations.

Here, I spoke with six experts in the customer service industry to gather insights into the future of customer service. Let’s dive in.

How COVID-19 Impacted Customer Service

1. Service reps needed to adjust business offerings to meet new customer demands.

Microsoft’s Worldwide Support Leader Kirsten Gudmundson told me it’s vital service teams learn to adjust to their customers’ unique needs, which might be different than they were pre-pandemic.

“Listen, learn, evolve — quickly,” Gudmundson told me. “During the pandemic, our customers’ needs were evolving at warp speed as many had to quickly go through a digital transformation to stay relevant.”

Gudmundson adds, “It was imperative that we actively listened and adjusted our offerings to meet new customer demands and identified innovative ways to engage with customers.”

The pandemic required all businesses to re-route existing strategies and refocus their efforts. If you work for a B2B customer service team, then, it’s important to keep in-mind that part of your job is exhibiting patience and empathy when working with your customers.

Additionally, the ‘rule book’ you followed pre-pandemic might not work anymore. Part of the challenge of the service industry today is having the flexibility to alter your approach — and your business offerings …read more

Source:: HubSpot Blog

Author: Aaron