Introduction
Customer service is about services to customers. Customer satisfaction becomes one of the most important factors that the companies are valued upon, especially in retailing. Bad customer service will have negative influences on businesses and even affect companies’ reputations. Therefore, customer satisfaction is highly valued by companies. This paper will focus on poor customer service in retail: the causes, examples of retailers with failed customer service programs, and how to avoid such situations.
Common Causes of Bad Customer Service
Here are the most common causes of bad customer service. First of all, companies fail to hire the right people. Many companies only hire people who have …show more content…
Finally, many companies have inconsistent customer service. These companies fail to provide consistent and outstanding customer service all the time. According to the above, hiring people without a positive aptitude, having an unclear vision of customer service, training employees inefficiently, giving ownership to wrong people and having a lack of consistency are the five common causes of bad customer service.
Example of Retailers With Bad Customer Service The top five retail stores with the worst customer service in the United States are Walmart stores, Inc., Rite Aid Corporation, CVS Caremark Corporation, Walgreen Company and Macy’s Inc.. Among these five retailers, Walmart is rated as store with the worst customer service and it receives the lowest score on the American Customer Satisfaction Index. There are four reasons to explain why Walmart has become the most disliked retailer in the United States. Firstly, Walmart does not always win on prices. People can easily find items are cheaper in other stores like dollar stores and Amazon.com rather than in Walmart. Secondly, Walmart has a lack of placing goods in an organized way. Many customers complain that they cannot get in and out stores efficiently due to wrong placement of …show more content…
It requires companies and their employees to come up with a detailed plan before customers find reasons to complain. If companies provide excellent customer service at the beginning, it is not likely that customers would be dissatisfied. Secondly, it is important to build a good relationship with customers. To respect customers, serve them properly, and have a strong relationship with them will make these customers satisfied and loyal.
Moreover, it requires full and quick service. Employees should respond immediately to any questions that customers have, placate customers, give them extra attention and follow up fast after fixing the problem. Finally, companies should keep updating their visions of customer service and make changes frequently based on the feedbacks from customers. Overall, if companies pay attention and value the quality of their customer services, they should swift focus to the steps that are mentioned. It definitely will help companies to avoid bad customer service.