Every customer interaction is an opportunity to gain future business. The best customer service focuses on the customer's needs – it listens and provides solutions. To achieve high customer satisfaction, you will need to invest in systems to monitor feedback, empower consumers, and deliver rapid solutions. Companies that fail to meet this level of issue resolution risk driving their customers away.

Ultimately, the difference between the best and worst customer service lies in how a company uses data to continuously adjust to consumer needs.

How to provide the best experience for customers.

If you want to really dazzle your customers and keep them coming back, you need to monitor their feedback patterns and adjust accordingly. Of course, this isn’t always easy.

According to PWC, 70% of executives say that consumer expectations are evolving faster than the company can adapt. With 52% of users in that same survey walking away from a brand due to a bad experience, companies need to find a way to quickly get it right. This requires rapid adaptation while simultaneously monitoring the customer experience.

Provide Personalization

A recent report surveyed 65,942 respondents to see how customers distinguish between the best and worst customer service. There were clear differences between customer preferences at the top and bottom of the ratings. What separates the best and worst support?

The best brands have found ways to personalize customer communication and experience while also delivering rapid solutions. Users can call or work online to solve problems quickly. Despite the large size of these companies and the millions of users, they have built systems that leverage data, AI, and personalization tools to deliver effective solutions and positive feedback. Many customers expect personalization – is your company providing it?

Give the customer a choice.

Data should determine your approach, and often, that means providing multiple options for a wide range of users. Some users prefer self-driven solutions. AI can deliver both speed and personalized service.

Choices are another layer of personalization, however, and AI should not be your only customer service strategy. Bucking trends, for example, another recent study found that 71% of Gen Z would prefer to use a live phone call for consumer service rather than chat or other online solutions. Companies hoping to meet their users' diverse needs must invest in a range of solutions.

How to prevent a negative customer service experience.

There is a large gap between the best and worst customer support, and that gap seems to be ever-widening. Companies with the worst customer service have a few similar traits.

Avoid Insufficient Communication

Many of the companies at the bottom of the best and worst customer service list have some serious communication gaps with customers. These companies might use franchises or independent contractors without a centralized communication model or oversight.

Customers may not have a way to address the issue, or there may be too many layers between consumers and solutions, with no accountability. A lack of training in empathetic and responsive customer service, as well as a lack of a streamlined communication center, can drive clients away.

Strive for Human Connection

Brands that are excellent at personalizing service interactions are more likely to retain customers. This also means that companies that fail to make that personal connection will drive users away.

A personalized, human connection comes through empathy, concern about the problem, and active problem-solving. If your company relies too heavily on AI, your CX will become sterile or frustrate customers who wind up caught in a digital loop. If your users do reach a human agent, those interactions should be warm, kind, and focused on solutions – not just getting the customer off the phone as quickly as possible.

Beware of Blind Spots

If you’re not open to feedback, you’ll miss important information and potentially sabotage your efforts to build your brand. It’s easy to develop a blind spot when you’re looking at a preferred area of your business. If you personally designed something, for example, it’s hard to acknowledge when that design isn’t effective.

Are you defensive about your current practices? Are you actively avoiding looking at problems? If you are, you are likely to convey a message to customers that their opinions and purchases don’t matter. Blaming the consumer for their problem is an easy way to wind up with terrible customer service.

How to stay on top of customer preferences.

While designing top customer service, you must simultaneously build a feedback loop. You must continue to monitor what is being said about your company through online reviews, surveys, social media posts, and direct interactions with frustrated (or satisfied) consumers. This feedback should drive your continuous CX innovation.

AI not only has allowed brands to accelerate and expand customer service channels, but it also provides an opportunity for companies to monitor interactions and analyze that data. Use analysis tools to monitor patterns in your site and company data. Then expand your lens to the millions of posts and reviews outside of your company. What are customers saying about your brand and products in other places?

Using automation to spot trends can easily speed up solutions and provide you with feedback on areas to address before they become issues, as well as on the current issues actively driving your customers away.