What’s the #1 Way to Improve Customer Service? #INFOGRAPHIC

Research from Forrester has found that 80% of companies want to use customer service to differentiate themselves from the competition.

So if every organization wants their customer service to be the best it can be, how do those who really stand out from the competition actually do it? Rather than just rehashing the same old suggestions that anyone can find online, we turned to the customer service experts to help answer that most critical question: What’s the #1 way to really improve customer service?

A recent OneReach report found that the best way to improve your customer service is to focus on the people that provide that service: your employees. Of the 63 industry influencers interviewed (including Win The Customer’s Flavio Martins), 16 experts said that the best way to improve customer service was to concentrate on the employee experience. The next highest ranking response was the walk in the customer’s shoes (13 responses), followed by defining and reviewing service values within the company (11 responses).

What’s the #1 Way to Improve Customer Service?

But let’s return to the employee experience for a moment. How employees feel and react is an essential part of the customer service experience. If agents are treated well and are engaged with their job, they’re likely to pass those positive feelings on to customers. In fact, Dimension Data found that agent knowledge and empowerment is one of the top three factors impacting customer satisfaction.

And having an engaged, happy employee work for you isn’t just good for your staff—it’s good for your bottom line, as companies with engaged employees outperform those without by over 200%.

See what some the influencers had to say about the employee engagement in the OneReach infographic below, and don’t forget to check out the rest of the responses on the OneReach blog.