Customer Expectations and Customer Service (500 word)

Are customer expectations too high when it comes to customer service? I think so. Customers today feel entitled, so they have high demands when it comes to getting their way. In 2015, if a customer didn’t feel that their needs were met when receiving customer service, they had no problem going online to bash the company. I feel that customers expectations are getting out of hand. Customers today expect an answer or solution from a customer service representative within a half hour or they get irritated. Back before technology was available, people sometimes had to wait a day or more to get a response and it didn’t kill anyone. Entitled customers have forced companies to have to spend more money on customer service just to make the customer happy. I understand that good customer service should be expected, but it shouldn’t be to the point where customers are bashing a company because a customer service representative didn’t get back to them within a half hour. Along with entitlement comes customer personalization. Customers today want personalized experiences. This means that the customer expects to get information they want when they want it. In the article that I’m using as my source for this blog it says that half of consumers will dump their online cart if they can’t find quick answers to their questions. This is just ridiculous. Five years ago this type of behavior was unheard of. Technology has caused people to be impatient and demanding. Customers today want everything personalized. It doesn’t matter if it’s self-service, voice, digital, or social customers expect the experience to be personalized. I could see how this might be stressful for a company. Now instead of focusing on how to make products and services better, companies have to worry about having perfect customer service too. I’m not saying that I don’t appreciate quick responses and personlized products and services, what I’m saying is that it wouldn’t ruin my day if everything wasn’t exactly the way I wanted it. I also understand that the consumer is the one spending their hard earned money on products and services so they deserve good treatment. I’m talking about the people that are demanding and are quick to jump on social media to bash a company if a customer service representative makes an honest mistake. The one thing I found really interesting about the article I used for research for this blog is that consumers still choose the telephone as their preferred method of contact wit customer service. This doesn’t mean that the consumer is any less demanding when it comes to telephone customer service though. Customers refuse to wait on hold in todays world so companies have made a callback feature which stores the customers phone number and an agent calls them back in the order in which they called. I have to admit that I appreciate this trend though. It can be uncomfortable holding the phone up to your ear for 15 minutes while you wait for someone to answer. The bottom line is that companies work hard to provide products and services that consumers enjoy, so we should cut them some slack on also providing perfect customer service.

Sources:

http://www.customerexperienceinsight.com/customer-expectations-you-must-meet-now/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/micahsolomon/2015/03/26/are-these-5-customer-service-trends-about-to-blindside-your-business/#2715e4857a0b7e740f7615d0

2 thoughts on “Customer Expectations and Customer Service (500 word)

  1. Joel Cervantes says:

    Well done! Customers expectations have certainly increased. I also agree that customers want faster and accurate information nowadays. If they don’t, have that, they use different platforms to complain about their bad experiences with businesses.

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  2. triciahpb says:

    Yes, customer expectations are on the rise. But I feel without that vibe of expectation, it is rare to receive great customer service. Perhaps that speaks to a sensibility on the side of customer service providers. I think about my last service encounter at a car dealership. The lady ahead of me at the intake lane exuded attitude and the technician bent over backwards to assure her everything would be handled with excellence. I was more matter-of-fact in my manner and was rewarded with apathetic customer care. Did my manner and lack of performance–with regard to my expectations as a consumer–send the message that I did not expect excellent customer care during my $1,000.00 tire replacement and service?

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