![\"customer_service_agent\"](\"https:\/\/www.corporate-eye.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/customer_service_agent.jpg\" "\\"customer_service_agent\\"")
How do your company’s customer service tactics affect your brand?\u00a0 Have you researched the relationship between customer service and brand image in your company and with your customers yet?\u00a0 If not, you need to.\u00a0 Customer service and brand image change in direct proportion to one another.<\/p>\n
In other words, poor customer service (whether it actually is poor or is just perceived<\/em> as poor doesn’t matter) leads to a negative brand image in consumers’ minds.\u00a0 Great customer service, on the other hand, can have a significant impact in positive brand perceptions.\u00a0 The power of social web conversations can boost these perceptions exponentially higher or lower.<\/p>\n How many times have you called a customer service line in need of help and found yourself spending 10 minutes navigating through automated services, desperately trying to connect with a human being.\u00a0 However, when you finally can connect with a human being, that person provides you with inaccurate information or chooses not to be helpful at all.\u00a0 Often there is a language barrier that makes it more frustrating for customers.<\/p>\n Sometimes, customer service agents are simply so unfriendly, bored or aloof, that the caller ends up feeling like he did something wrong by seeking help.\u00a0 I understand that customer service is a thankless job (I’ve gotten on the phones in corporate customer service call centers more than once to get a better understanding of how the process works in order to better market it).\u00a0 However, as a customer, you still deserve to be treated kindly and as if your call is important.\u00a0 On more than one occasion, I’ve ended calls with customer service agents who have sounded particularly bored saying to the agent, “You’re getting paid to talk to me, right?”\u00a0 The agent always answers in the affirmative to which I respond by saying, “Then you should really cheer up.\u00a0 You are getting paid after all.”\u00a0 I’m sure it doesn’t make a difference to the agent, but perhaps they’ll try to be a bit friendlier.\u00a0 I can hope, right?<\/p>\n Of course, companies need to cut costs, and customer service is an easy place to do it.\u00a0 However, the negative implications to your brand when customer service suffers are far-reaching and long-lasting. That’s damage that can be hard to erase or reverse.<\/p>\n Human nature makes it far more likely for disgruntled customers to tell people about their negative experiences with your company.\u00a0 Happy customers are usually less likely to go out of their way to tell the world about how great your company is.\u00a0 It’s important to go the extra mile to build loyal customers, but it’s also important to do the simple things that customers expect — such as giving them an easy way to get effective and friendly help when they need it.\u00a0 After all, an essential part of brand-building is setting and meeting expectations for your brand.<\/p>\n Bottom-line, make a point to study how customer service affects your brand in the minds of consumers and how consumers react to those perceptions.\u00a0 It’s more important than you might think.<\/p>\n