In such a fast-changing competitive landscape, bad customer service has never been more detrimental to brick-and-mortar retailers. CX leaders need to rethink their business models and identify ways to turn their stores into experiential hubs by identifying recurring pain points that cause more walkouts, longer waiting times, and poorly organized queues.
When customers come into your stores, they’re looking for great service and fantastic experiences. Here, we’ll reveal some of the most common causes of bad customer service and how to fix them.
What is Bad Customer Service?
By definition, bad customer service is an unsatisfactory delivery of customer support by a business based on factors like service quality and speed of service.
We recently asked over 2,000 consumers about the top causes of bad customer service.
They told us that the following were the biggest indicators of a negative store experience:
- Long waiting times
- Unhelpful staff
- Unavailable stock
- Lack of available staff
- Unable to find a product due to store design
How does poor customer service affect your business?
This impacts your revenue potential in four critical ways:
- Increases walkouts: The worse your service offering, the harder it will become to keep customers in your stores. For instance, the average retailer will lose 10% of its footfall due to queues and waiting times for service.
- Less loyalty: After walking out on a retailer, most customers won’t return. In fact, they’ll probably switch to a competitor with better service.
- Negative word of mouth: Shoppers are much more likely to share negative experiences with their friends, family and followers than positive ones. If they experience terrible customer service, expect everyone they know to hear about it.
Four examples of bad customer service
The following are common examples of terrible customer service:
1. Long wait times
Routinely voted the most significant cause of poor customer service, long wait times cause a whole host of problems. For instance, if shoppers have to wait more than a few minutes for service, you’ll see an increase in customer complaints and a higher number of new customers entering your store.
Bad customer service example
“I was in a shoe store just the other day and I’m not kidding you–I spent over half an hour sitting around waiting for someone to go into the back of the store to pick up some shoes in the right size. I was told several times they were coming to me next, but they kept forgetting the order. Several people who came in after me were served first. Infuriating.”
Solution
Generally, customers expect to be served within three minutes. However, if you’re using technology to improve the waiting experience and keep customers updated, they’re much less likely to walkout.
With Queue Management, the customer can check the wait time in real-time via a weblink. They’ll also receive personalized SMS and email notifications to let them know when their turn for service is approaching.
Ultimately, investing in wait time technology is the most effective way to prevent long wait times and deliver excellent customer service.
2. Lack of real-time support
Consumers want support right now—not later. Having quick responses to problems is incredibly important to shoppers. We all know how frustrating it can be to send an email to customer support only to hear back weeks after the incident.
Bad customer service example
“I bought a sofa from a furniture retailer. I only noticed when I got home that the discount hadn’t been applied. So I emailed customer service and waited… And waited. After several days went by without a response, I sent a chaser and submitted a refund request. Long story short, I ended up canceling the order and buying a sofa from a different company.”
Solution
Consider implementing programs like live chat and channel automation to help speed up your reply times and roll out real-time support services.
The beauty of using a chatbot is that customers can reach out with queries 24/7. If they need further support, the chatbot can either connect them to a human agent or log their query for when your contact center agents return to service.
3. Poor listening-skills
As the standard of customer services rises across all industries, it’s more important than ever for organizations to make their customers feel valued.
To do that, your agents have to listen to customers when they’re upset. After all, there’s nothing more frustrating to feel that you’re not being listened to.
Bad customer service example
“I called the customer support team for an airline to find out why I was allocated the wrong seat. I’m six foot six, so I really do need the extra leg room. I paid extra for it too, but on the day I was put into a standard seat. Instead of acknowledging the stress this may have caused, the call center agent simply said that nothing could be done now to resolve the issue. I hung up in absolute disbelief. They weren’t in the least bit empathetic. I don’t even think they really understood the issue.”
Solution
Train your customer support agents to use the following strategies to better manage complaints:
- Remain calm no matter how confrontational the customer becomes
- Remember that upset customers just want to be feel heard
- Being patient can encourage the customer to calm down
- Be an active listener and make sure to apologize
- Outline how you’re going to fix the problem
4. Customers have to repeat themselves
Consumers now are more likely to switch between service channels than ever. For example, they might first ask for support via the chatbot on your website, before deciding to call up your team.
Typically, in this instance, the customer would have to repeat their entire conversation each time they contacted your organization via a different channel. This pain point leaves your services feeling impersonal to customers and will likely drive them to your competitors.
Bad customer service example
“I called customer services to explain that some of my groceries were missing from my delivery. I spent several minutes going through which items hadn’t appeared on checking prices before the agent basically said I needed to send an email. They didn’t even give me a support ticket, so I had to rehash everything from the phone conversation over email.”
Solution
With an omnichannel contact center solution, all your service channels are connected. Effectively, this means that the customer’s entire conversation history is synced between channels so they can seamlessly switch without having to repeat any information.
It also means you can better understand the customer journey between different channels while driving automation.
Invest in the customer experience
Poor in-store experiences can have a negative impact on customer retention. They also lead to negative social media reviews and customer walkouts. To negate this, retailers need to invest in their stores and look at enhancing the customer journey.
Retailers can significantly reduce walkouts in their stores by better greeting customers at their point of entry and by being more transparent about the wait time. Just doing this makes customers significantly more likely to stay in store.
If you’d like to find out more about how Qudini by Verint is helping enterprise brands to improve the customer experience using our award-winning Retail Choreography applications, get in touch using the form below.
