As competition in manufacturing increases, businesses cannot sustain themselves solely on products delivered. Customer satisfaction emerges as an additional performance motivator, and manufacturers need to focus on building customer relations for this very reason: customer loyalty and business expansion depend heavily on offering superior service to their customer base.
This article explores the growing significance of customer service within the manufacturing industry, along with some benefits and best practices for offering excellent customer care.
Customer Service
What is customer service? Customer service entails helping customers solve problems, demonstrating how products should be used properly, and responding to inquiries about those products or services they already own or plan to buy in the future. Put, customer service means providing solutions and answering questions on behalf of its clients; its name encapsulates its definition: serving customer needs is what customer service means in its purest form - such as troubleshooting an installation, downloading software updates, or processing returns and refunds.
Customers typically seek customer service interaction as an avenue to express requests, make inquiries, or report any problems. A representative then steps in quickly with support, expertise, and assistance for quick resolution of issues or questions. Customer service quality - be it good or bad - plays an integral part in driving business success. Of all consumers surveyed, 60% have chosen one brand over another based on what service they expect to receive from that business.
Customer experiences that go poorly can have devastating repercussions for business: seventy-three percent of customers who had multiple negative encounters said they'd switch brands; nearly fifty percent left after just one negative meeting. Customer support (or customer service, as it's commonly known) shouldn't stand in the way of customer success. Instead, it plays an essential role. Forty percent of businesses consider customer service to be their main source of income.
Want More Information About Our Services? Talk to Our Consultants!
In manufacturing, Customer Service Is Essential
Manufacturers that want to meet the higher expectations of modern consumers need not only to use technology effectively in producing premium quality products but also to use it effectively for customer experience enhancement. As previously established, consumers today are more empowered and connected than ever. 52% of executives from manufacturing companies reported that it was difficult for their companies to compete only on the basis of product quality, according to the Manufacturing report.
Of this same group of executives, 86% believe customer service in manufacturing can now serve as a key differentiator in manufacturing companies, no longer just seen as an additional value-add but an absolute requirement. By taking an individualized customer-first approach and offering customized service offerings, manufacturing companies can increase customer retention while simultaneously winning new ones.
Advantages Of Manufacturing With A Customer Service-Focused Approach
Customer-centricity in manufacturing offers many benefits that go far beyond simply keeping and winning over existing clients, including retention. Integrating customer service-related cultures throughout your organization can have profound effects that extend far beyond customer retention efforts and new client acquisition efforts. Let's examine this further:
Higher Repeat Business
Customer service plays an integral part in customer happiness. Most manufacturing companies now utilize performance-based contract models wherein large firms often outsource production to smaller, dedicated firms that then renew contracts depending on how the manufacturing company performs. Unattentive businesses will typically fail to receive contract renewals compared to companies that invest more in their customers and produce superior performance for them.
Technology allows manufacturers to collect an incredible amount of data both about their clients and internal processes, which is invaluable when developing deeper customer insights, building stronger customer relationships, and optimizing efficiency and output. Utilizing quality control or manufacturing execution systems can greatly enhance customer service for manufacturing companies by ensuring products meet standards promptly while promptly responding to any potential problems that may arise.
Improved Relationship Between Production Teams And Sales Teams
As manufacturers strive for efficiency and profitability in their production processes, two departments that must come together are production and sales. Through investing in customer service and technology stack, manufacturers can now gain a full picture of their customer base, giving them more insights to be proactive on sales opportunities, identify growth areas, and boost revenue growth.
Production-wise, they can more precisely predict their production pipelines to reduce wastage and cut costs, creating a leaner, more effective, and profitable enterprise. Thus, adopting an experience-led customer service mindset and providing memorable experiences is paramount if your manufacturing business wants to stay ahead of its rivals in terms of profitability and longevity. But how can you achieve that goal? By adopting some of these customer service best practices.
Read More: Navigate Customer Support Challenges: Maximize Impact, Minimize Costs
Best Practices For Customer Service In The Manufacturing Industries
These best practices for customer service could include:
Addition Of New Customer Support Channels
Due to the nature of manufacturing industries, on-site support and phones will continue to serve as effective customer care channels. Digitization has had an outsized effect on manufacturing, leading to new customer service channels emerging as it expands. Customers now expect their manufacturers to be instantly available via email, live chat, and video-based support for remote diagnostics and resolution - according to Customer Service Benchmark Report, over 60% of companies now provide multichannel customer support, making sure you remain ahead of the competition by meeting this need.
Utilizing Cutting-Edge Technologies
As part of their focus on adopting AI, IoT, and Big Data technologies for field service capabilities improvement, manufacturers must also utilize virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR). Manufacturers can leverage AR/VR technology to collaborate with their customers and enable them to diagnose any potential issues remotely and resolve them without incurring field service technician visits.
Extending this concept further, manufacturers can set up regular training sessions for customers about using their equipment optimally and provide updates about upgrades - without ever needing to be physically present at each training session.
Allowing Customers To Self-Serve
Though customer service should focus on being more people-driven, sometimes your customers want fast solutions without human interaction. Self-service resources that empower customers to help themselves are invaluable in such situations. Establishing an extensive knowledge base can assist your customers with finding the information they need and troubleshooting issues without calling customer service teams for support. Check manufacturing website designs as inspiration for structuring content similarly.
Implement A Data-Driven Customer Service Approach
The key idea behind this approach is moving beyond traditional manufacturing KPIs (such as Production Volume, Asset Utilization Rate, and Operations Effectiveness ) towards more holistic KPIs that include customer service KPIs such as Customer Satisfaction Score, Response and Resolution Times, and Net Promoter Score (NPS) etc.
Employing a help desk tool to measure customer service metrics can help foster an environment focused on satisfying the customers and help you gain an accurate overview of where your current metrics stand and what needs to be done to increase them - keeping customers satisfied in turn.
Breaking Down Silos
Manufacturing companies tend to operate within siloed environments. But in order to offer excellent customer service, it makes more sense for manufacturing firms to adopt an all-team, customer-first mentality rather than maintaining siloed within each team. This philosophy may involve encouraging all team members - not only customer service specialists -to embrace it.
C-suite executives of manufacturing firms should take charge by creating organization-wide goals and objectives as well as investing in customer service training for each department to ensure everyone works cohesively together.
Finalizing Customer Experience By Collecting Feedback
Ask customers for feedback after every interaction to stay abreast of how satisfied your clients are with the quality and speed of services provided. Doing this allows for instantaneous insight into customer satisfaction levels with your offerings. Customer feedback collection can also help detect potential lapses, modify processes, and address them immediately before they escalate further.
Want More Information About Our Services? Talk to Our Consultants!
Conclusion
Outsourced customer services for Manufacturing industries, which tend to be highly competitive environments and where customer acquisition costs up to 25 times more than customer retention, can make customer service an essential aspect of operations, so they must make this priority themselves.
Traditional manufacturing industries should take note: this will require leaving their comfort zones, reviewing processes and technology, and trying out various new approaches until one proves itself as successful. So, take some time for some organizational soul-searching and create a framework to see where to begin. Things of this size take time and money. Still, through small experiments, you may chart out an effective path toward customer satisfaction and, ultimately, customer loyalty.
