Learn how investing in customer care builds loyalty, and explore strategies to implement an effective customer care program for CX success.
How much are you investing in your current customers? Our research reveals that customer experience (CX) professionals say their number one priority is improving customer retention (43%), followed closely by boosting customer loyalty (41%).
Because many CX teams focus on improving customer loyalty and retention, you need to stand out. One way is with a solid customer care program, which sounds like a big investment. But it really takes getting all your employees to adopt a customer-focused mindset.
Here’s how you can make it work for your business.
Customer care is the process of building positive emotional connections with customers through consistently respectful, empathetic interactions.
Customer care is a facet of your overall customer experience program. It includes how people are treated when they interact with your company and brand. From the pre-purchase steps to buying products to after they become a customer and beyond, everything comes down to customer care.
A company that invests heavily in customer care makes its customers feel valued, considered, and heard.
Good customer care, or a customer care program, happens during any part of the customer experience: before, during, and after a purchase.
Customer service is any support that your business offers to its customers. Customer service agents should be able to support your customers both before and after they buy your products or partner with your services.
Customer service is an important part of your customer experience strategy. Just because it’s not the same as customer care doesn’t mean it’s not vital. It’s how your customers get support with their most basic needs and issues, like instructions for setting up their new software or replacing a broken part in a product.
Great customer service means resolving issues quickly and effectively for the vast majority of your customers.
Related reading: 5 tips for improving customer service and driving retention.
Customer experience represents the full extent of a customer's interactions with your business. It covers every single touchpoint and extends across the entire customer journey.
Your customer experience strategy should account for both customer service and customer care to be maximally effective. They work together to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty, but they do so in different and complementary ways.
Customer care and customer service might just seem like different terms to describe the same thing—taking care of customers when they need you. But they’re actually separate concepts, though they do work together to create your overall customer experience.
In customer care, you build a personal and emotional connection with the people who interact with your business. In customer service, you provide assistance or advice to customers who need help. Customer care isn’t as easy to quantify as customer service, and it’s more personalized.
Customer care | Customer service | Customer experience | |
Definition | Personalized interactions over the customer journey help a customer build a relationship with your brand. | Solving issues or answering requests that customers may have when scoping out or using your products. | The overall customer journey and how you interact with customers across individual touchpoints. |
Focus | Companies focus on building up a positive and lasting relationship with customers. | Companies focus on creating easy ways for customers to solve their issues or get help. | Companies focus on creating a streamlined, pleasant, and positive customer experience. |
Measured by | Customer loyalty, satisfaction, and retention rates. | Customer satisfaction scores (CSAT), problem resolution time, customer service feedback. | Net Promoter Score, Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), Customer Effort Score (CES). |
Now more than ever, customers have seemingly limitless choices on where to shop. With more options than they can count, the only businesses they’ll stick with are ones that treat them right.
According to SurveyMonkey research, 91% of consumers are likely to recommend a company after a positive experience. When you implement customer care into all of your interactions, you ensure that your customers have a pleasant experience with your business.
Providing excellent customer care is your chance to differentiate your brand and increase customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention.
When businesses decide to invest in customer care programs, they begin to actively improve the customer experience they offer.
Based on SurveyMonkey research, customer experience teams prove ROI in several ways:
Customer care programs allow businesses to give customers the great experiences they deserve. Here are some of the leading benefits of customer care.
According to SurveyMonkey research, 81% of consumers say they’re likely to share a poor customer experience with friends or family. Without good customer care, you could be losing customers and feeling the effects of negative word of mouth.
Fortunately, our same research revealed that 91% of consumers are likely to recommend a company after a positive experience with them. If you’re committed to great customer interactions, you could be building your customer base and keeping your current customers around.
Related reading: How to improve customer loyalty and retention: A complete guide.
If you want to boost employee engagement, build a customer-centric culture.
Our research shows that feeling connected to customers is a big factor when it comes to employee happiness and retention:
Are you unsure how connected your employees feel to customers? Use our Customer Centricity Survey Template to see where you stand and make improvements.
You’ve likely heard that retaining a customer is much less expensive than attracting a new one. Plus, there are many benefits to customer loyalty and retention, from increased customer lifetime value (CLV) to improved profits.
The more care you show for your customers, the better. As your customers like your business more, they’ll even start recommending your brand to their coworkers and friends. Word-of-mouth marketing can be a considerable factor in your future growth.