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Three fifths of consumers believe customer service isn’t seen as being important enough (IWP survey). In the form of workshops, our bootcamps are available to book now, and are aimed at improving customer service within your business, be it a small independent, or large chain of stores. Our experts can offer advice, practical solution, demonstrations and mystery shops to improve your service, people and profit. Contact bootcamp@insightwithpassion.co.uk to find out more or enquire about booking.
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What effect does customer service have on your life day to day?
An online survey is launching to discover the time we’re spending on customer service and the impact it is having on our mood and daily lives. The results of the survey, which opens on 28th June and runs until 3rd September, will be published in October to coincide with National Customer Service Week and will, for the first time, offer an insight into the effect of bad, and good service on customers.
Bad customer service damages business and switches off consumers.
Good customer service makes us feel empowered and means we keep coming back for more.
Good service isn’t just about being friendly and making eye contact. It’s about much more than that; how easy is it to find what you’re looking for? How far are staff able and willing to help? Is the store clean, well laid out? Do you have a good experience from the minute you walk through the door to the minute you leave?
Customer service is increasingly becoming part of our day to day lives. Dealing with our bank, utilities firms, supermarkets, the post office as well as retailers, cafes and restaurants if we think about it we probably interact on average with up to five businesses a day.
As a customer imagine if each of those interactions was frustrating, if we didn’t get what we needed, if we felt our questions weren’t being answered. How would we feel? Stressed, irritated, angry?
Too many businesses aren’t listening to our demands for great customer service. We want to be able to celebrate the good, not complain about the bad.
The survey is launched by the Customer at the Heart Awards. Established by retail expert Kate Hardcastle, the awards are designed to celebrate independent retailers who offer the very best in customer service. The survey will be open from 28th June until Monday 3rd September. Anyone can enter their experiences of customer service. The results will be published in October to coincide with National Customer Service Week.
Kate says, “We always hear about the impact of customer service on a business or the economy. Often we forget the impact on the most important element – the customer. A lot of us walk around feeling frustrated and angry about the service we get. What we’re hoping is to pride an outlet, to give people the chance to highlight the impact customer service has on them day in and day out.
We are all consumers but many of us don’t feel we have any control over the way we are treated or the service we get. Hopefully, what this survey will do is provide proof that the service we get has an impact on how we behave and how we feel. This should help give a voice to every frustrated customer, every tired shopper, every one of us hanging on the telephone waiting for an answer from a call centre”.
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Kate Hardcastle is a founding member of Insight with Passion, a retail expert and ‘The Queen of Customer Service’.
Kate has a proven and award-winning track record in helping businesses to achieve their potential and engage with their customers. Her message is simple. You need to be switched on to a consumer’s needs. You need to be prepared to sacrifice a sale in the short term to send the customer somewhere they can get the right size, right product or an item that’s stocked by a competitor.
It takes real strength and confidence in your own product. It takes a need to put the customer heart and above and beyond the call of duty.
Sadly, Kate recognises that this isn’t the experience many customers are going through day in day out.
Customer Service Bootcamp was born from an ambition to help not only retailers but businesses to recognise the impact they’re having on customer’s lives when they fail to give them the service they need, deserve and pay for.
Consumer’s need to be able to shout from the rooftops when they have great service and force a change when it’s bad.
Only by understanding the impact customer service is having on the consumer, and how it’s witching them off, will retailers and businesses realise how vital it is to get it right.
This is at the heart of Kate’s approach to clients. Insight with Passion is a business transformation company that helps turn client’s vision into value. By understanding and engaging with their customers only then can they achieve their potential and succeed.
In 2012 Kate established the Customer at the Heart Awards, celebrating the best in customer service among Britain’s independent retailers.
