Customer Support

Customer experience management, service, or care: whatever the name, it’s about the human contact between a company and its customers.There is an old business truism: failure to provide satisfactory customer support (also called customer service) is the single biggest reason brands lose their hard-won customers.Customer care is much more important for a service than a product. Most people need to visit their bank at least occasionally to speak to a live person. Not many people feel the urge to visit the makers of their toothpaste or baked beans.Good customer support involves more than reacting well to a routine problem like a lost suitcase. The term “customer care” is apt: when customer care is good, employees care about their customers. They do a little extra to make sure they’re satisfied. They treat them well. They exceed what the customer expected; sometimes by a lot.Providing a level of customer service that exceeds expectations is the best way to generate “buzz” and get people talking about a brand. Smart brands will fall over themselves to impress their most influential users—especially the early adopters who try out a new product or service before it becomes really popular—knowing that those users will then spread the word among the rest of the population, effectively doing word-of-mouth advertising on the company’s behalf.