Catch up on your prescribed dosage of customer service with this week's latest and greatest content on the Service Blog.
Enjoy,
Flori Needle
HubSpot Service Blog
How to Calculate Customer Lifetime Value
Customer lifetime value (CLTV) is one of the most important metrics to measure at any growing company. By measuring CLTV in relation to cost of customer acquisition (CAC), companies can measure how long it takes to recoup the investment required to earn a new customer — such as the cost of sales and marketing. If you want your business to acquire and retain highly valuable customers, then it's essential that your team learns what customer lifetime value is and how to calculate it.
Customer service is the backbone of every business, as its relationship with its customers directly affects its success. Take Trader Joe's and Amazon, for example. Forbes lists both companies as one of the 100 most customer-centric companies. Why? They focus on the customer service experience. Trader Joe's customers love the company so much that the chain has the second highest American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) score. Amazon, the e-commerce giant, constantly implements new ideas to please its customers, like one-day and same-day shipping on select products. They have also implemented easy returns and fast refunds — a business model that addresses and fixes customer problems. Amazon and Trader Joe's are likely able to excel because they monitor critical metrics related to the service they provide. In this post, learn about critical customer service and service desk KPIs that will help you understand your support strategies and improve customer satisfaction.
Whether your title suggests it or not, every employee who has any contact with end-users, clients, or customers must understand what it means to provide excellent customer service. While you may not be in charge of handling issues per se, it's still important that you be focused on providing the best possible experience for customers, and assisting your internal team so they can provide the best service possible. Besides having a good mindset and a positive attitude, the next thing you can do to provide excellent customer service is learning the lingo. Throughout this piece, we'll discuss the crucial terms you need to know.
What a Crisis Manager Does and How to Be a Great One
You may be familiar with the adage, "Hope for the best, but plan for the worst." As much as we don't want to think about the terrible things that can happen in business and life, negative occurrences are inevitable. Whether it's a product defect that leads to a recall, a security breach that leaves our customer's data vulnerable, or violence or disasters in the workplace, bad things are bound to happen at some point. While it's not the happiest of thoughts, it's realistic. Unfortunately, we don't have the luxury of opting out from negative occurrences. Still, we do have the ability to plan ahead so that when the unthinkable happens, we've already thought of it, and have a plan in place to limit the damages. If none of what you've read has you rocking in the corner, and you're actually excited by the possibility of being the person a business turns to in times of crisis, you might be perfect for a career in Crisis Management. Throughout this piece, you'll learn what a crisis manager does and how to be a great one, according to service experts.
Customer Courtesy: What It Is and 8 Best Practices to Do It Right
Do you ever think about the little acts of courtesy we tend to take for granted? The little wave you get from someone you let into your lane in traffic. A coworker making a new pot of coffee after finishing the last one. A nervous but polite, "I like your shirt" from that girl you work next to — even though she, you, and everyone else at the office knows your Judas Priest album cover shirt is way too intense for casual Friday. The point I'm getting at by referencing these three totally universal, not-at-all-specific-to-me acts of common kindness is that courtesy can mean a lot. It goes a long way in day-to-day life — and an even longer one in the context of customer service.
Every week, we ask HubSpot's support team to answer questions about customer service. Have something you want to ask? Submit it below!
What is the difference between churn rate and retention rate?
"Retention rate is the ratio of customers that return to do business at your company. This differs from churn rate because churn rate refers to the number of customers you've lost over a period of time."
