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[MUSIC PLAYING] Hello, and welcome to creating exceptional customer service experiences. In this course, we're going to learn why customer service matters, how to set up your customer service team and systems, and then how to scale those systems as you grow your customer base. My name's Matt Patterson. I'm going to be taking you through this course. Why should you listen to me? That's a good question. I work at Help Scout.
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We build customer service tools, like an excellent help desk and a knowledge base. But we also produce articles and interviews and videos about customer service, about building a business, and remote work. But before I joined Help Scout, I spent a decade building and running a customer service team for campaign monitor. And after personally resolving more than 50,000 customer questions, I have learned a bunch. I have made plenty of dumb mistakes, and I've seen the value that great service can add to a business.
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Unless you're really lucky, you have to carefully manage your cash flow and prioritize your spending for greatest impact. So is customer service worth spending that time and energy on? Well, the short answer is yes. A US study showed that it's six to seven times more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to keep a current one. In another study, 67% of customers mentioned bad customer service experiences were a reason that they would churn.
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And it takes 12 positive experiences to make up for only one unresolved negative experience, according to a third survey. And finally, in an Office of Consumer Affairs study, on average, loyal customers are worth up to 10 times as much as the value of their first purchase. Exceptional service helps you earn more from each customer, retain customers longer, and it can create word-of-mouth marketing that brings customers into your business.
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And for e-commerce customers, that is critical for two big reasons. Number one, competition. If your potential customers can find equivalent products from your competitors with a two-second web search, it can be so hard to differentiate yourself. The second reason, reviews and ratings. E-commerce customers, they have instant access to global reviews.
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And any negative customer service stories hanging around there can really affect you for a long time. You need that constant flow of happy customers coming in and spreading the word for you, acting as a form of marketing. Great service typically makes it much harder for your competitors to replicate than low prices or broad product range. When I think about great service, I think about my mechanic.
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I've taken all my cars to Peter for decades now. And even though there's tons of closer mechanics and cheaper mechanics, I would never go anywhere else. I trust that when I take my car to him, he's going to be reliable and honest and friendly. And he's earned that loyalty through years of great service. And I tell everybody about Peter, even you, who probably live on the wrong side of the planet foreign. Now think about your own experiences as a buyer.
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Which stores would you recommend, and why? And what could you do that will give your customers an experience good enough to make them want to recommend you to their friends, or to come back every time they want to buy? Customer service can be a really powerful tool in building a long-term, successful business. And in the rest of this course, we're going to talk through some really practical steps you can use to grow your business and create great customer service experiences.
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Your call is important to us. Well, that's what they say, but then they don't answer the phone. Almost everybody claims to offer great service, and yet so few actually deliver. And one reason for that is there's no definition of good service. The specifics are going to differ for every business. The better you know your customers, the better you can understand what they want from you, and what good service looks like for them.
