Speed Kills: Research Reveals Good Service Beats Fast Service Every Time

When it comes to customer service, from the perspective of the customer, there is nothing better then getting "out" of a situation in a quick and pleasant manner. Speed is an important part of the customer service process, that much you likely know, but research has revealed that there are times when speed can kill.

There seems to be a threshold for many businesses where cutting down on time can start to effect the quality of their customer care. The problem then becomes: how can businesses (and specifically for this article, online businesses) keep customer service speed up while not creating a rushed and unpleasant experience?

We'll be getting into that later in the post, but for now, let's take a look at some research that displays the adverse effects of customer service when it becomes "too fast."

“Better” > “Faster”

In a recent study conducted by the Gallup group, the interaction between customer's and service employees at a bank was observed and later evaluated.

Gallup did find that customer's appreciated a prompt and speedy interaction with their customer service representative; Customers  who felt the bank provided speedy service were 6 times more likely to be rated as "engaged" (in support of the brand). However, customers were 9 times more likely to be engaged with the brand when they evaluated the service as "courteous, willing, and helpful."

In Gallup's own words:

Customer perceptions of the tellers' courtesy and their apparent willingness to help were far more important than speed of service in generating customer engagement.

This emphasis on courtesy was also aided in customer's perceptions of the representative as "competent" and "knowledgable":

...other people-performance factors, including a teller's  product knowledge or his/her sincerity and ability to explain the bank's policies and procedures [aided in customer engagement].

Speed is one factor, but it is markedly less important than having tellers who can deliver services in a friendly and competent manner.

It seems that an inept, rude, and unwilling representative is not  going to be given a pass just because they "help" people quickly.

Although speed is certainly a factor, and tied to the overall experience, it has shown to be not as big an indicator of customer engagement with a brand when compared to "better" service.

Things don't stop there though...

Why Customers Leave

We find similar results when we look at dissatisfied customers as well.

According to RightNow's Customer Experience Impact study, the number one reason that people cited as to why they would stop doing business with a company was a poor customer service experience.

Things get even more interesting when we look at the top 2 specific reasons people claimed were the catalysts for abandoning a previously favored brand:

1. 73% cited rude & incompetent staff as the issue
2. 55% stated that issues weren't resolved in a timely manner

Again, we see that speed is an ever-present factor, it just isn't as important as the quality of service received. This is important to keep in mind given some other data included in the same study:

79% of U.S. consumers said they blabbed about their negative customer experiences in public and amongst friends.

There seems to be a marriage between competent, helpful customer  service and speed, as both are essential ingredients to a successful customer service experience. And yet, they also seem to be at odds with each other: better service takes more time, and longer waits creates a less optimal experience.

So, what's to be done?

Have Your Cake ... and Eat It Too

So, we seem to have found ourselves in endless loop in determining what to do: we don't want to sacrifice customer service speed because we know it's important, but we also know that it takes more time to provide excellent customer service...

So, what do we do?

The answer is to cut down on the non-essential aspects of customer support. This means eliminating repetitive processes that consume time but that don't provide any additional value to  customers. It also means utilizing tools & strategies that help eliminate bits of "wasted" time that are involved in the customer  support process, but that don't aid in a customer's experience.

When it comes to online customer service, we find a heavy focus on email support, with over 66% of people claiming that they prefer email support when dealing with issues (compared to 12% who preferred live chat).

Other forms of support (phone, forums and social media help) are  certainly useful in creating other options of maintaining customer contact and help areas, but I can't think of a single online business that sells products or services that doesn't offer email support (if they don't, you have to wonder why...).

For freelancers, we would highly recommend using Help Scout's "Saved Replies" feature, or a tool like TextExpander for maintaining sanity with email support. There is no bigger time sink in email support than writing the same things over and over,  answering questions you've already explained 100 times before. Both tools allow you to create shortcuts that will auto-fill a response that you've pre-written.

Imagine being able to type a single word to fill out a whole email that explains "Thing X that many people find confusing", saving you many precious minutes and keystrokes, allowing you to get back to your business and your customers.

We also recommend creating content that answers frequent questions, but that goes beyond an FAQ page. This would mean article creation in the form of user guides and tutorials, which would initially take time upfront to create, but that would (in the long run) save time as you now link to them instead of answering constant emails on the same issues.

As an example, instead of writing out 500 word emails to a common  question, a courteous response to a customer could resemble this quick but effective email:

Hey ________,

Thanks for getting in touch with us, hope you're enjoying [Our Product] so far!

As for [Customer's Issue], I've compiled a super detailed 'how-to' guide on that exact topic, you can find it here: [linkgoeshere.com/link]

Hope that's helpful for you, please feel free to follow up if you  encounter any problems or have any other questions, I'd love to be of assistance!

Take care,

[Your name]

Genuine, courteous, willing to help, and it took you less than 30  seconds to write, rather than 10 minutes for each email like this.

What If You Need More?

A lot self-starters like yourself have moved beyond your freelance and "single employee" days of your business, and now your team needs to be able to tackle customer service issues promptly and effectively.

While creating resource pages & how-to guides and using tools like TextExpander to create templates for common questions might be enough for the solopreneur, your team needs a cohesive system to tackle a large pile of customer questions.

From collaboration to elaborate customer profiles to personalized emails and reports, HelpScout serves as a comprehensive solution for those looking to cut down on wasted time and get back to making awesome products and creating happy customers.

reference-https://www.helpscout.net/blog/speed-kills-research-reveals-good-service-beats-fast-service-every-time/