Phone-Based Customer Service Still Reigns Supreme

Reaching customers has never been easier. However, is reaching the same as connecting?

The number of internet users is in the billions. That means if you want to connect with customers and prospects you have any number of ways to do it. Text, email, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn.

There is simply no way you can discount all of these ways of interacting with your customers. After all, these modes of communication wouldn’t still be around if they weren’t effective at getting in touch with people and aiding businesses in areas such as lead generation and business development. These channels also offer a relatively simple and affordable way to keep in touch with clients and prospects.

Despite these new modes of communications, a recent study shows that almost 80 percent of customers are frustrated when they cannot talk to a live person when they believe it is necessary. Further, a whopping 75 percent of customers believe that when it comes to customer service issues they should always be able to have a conversation with a real person. They also report frustration that many times they are unable to do just that.

Many companies mistakenly believe that phone support is too expensive to maintain. While this may be true if they try to manage this type of support in-house, outsourcing with a telemarketing firm is actually very affordable. More importantly, since the frustration of not being able to connect with a customer service representative quickly and easily can lead to unhappy customers, the question becomes can you afford not to offer phone support. Consider this statistic: 68 percent of today’s consumers expect customer support interactions to take place on the phone.

It is not hard to understand why phone communication is preferred by customers. Not only are these phone calls more personal, they also allow a customer service representative to provide issue resolution much faster and more efficiently. That’s because during the course of the call there is a back-and-forth that allows the issue to be fixed in a manner which the customer finds satisfactory.

Today’s consumers have little patience for long or frustrating customer service menus or electronic exchanges that never allow them to speak one-on-one with a customer service representative. If you want to keep current your customers happy, and attract new prospects to your business, it is important that you keep the phone lines open.