Your Loyalty Program's Secret Weapon: Superior Customer Service

Confession time. Whenever I have to call customer service, I always cringe, waiting for that dreaded phone tree before I ever get to talk to a person. Even modern AI-driven phone trees with the polite voice asking “I think you said…” takes forever to navigate.

My record was 18 selections before I got frustrated and pounded 0, which wasn't listed but thankfully sent me to the operator anyway.

I prefer to use a company's website to find hours of operation, pay bills, and all the other automated tasks you usually find in a phone tree. So unless one of your options is just for amusement’s sake, like “press 3 if you would like to hear a duck quack" then I'm probably not going to get what I need out of your automated system. 

If I'm resorting to dialing a number, I want to talk to a person, dang it.

Rant over.

If you think I'm extreme, think again. In fact, 77% of consumers say that valuing their time is the most important thing a company can do, and 83% of customers expect to interact with someone immediately when they contact a company. When it comes to customer engagement, the demand for human connection remains stronger than ever.

Ok, NOW rant over.

All employees have a stake in the member experience, but few interact with them at their most influential moments as customer service agents.

Businesses of all kinds could benefit from a second look at the level of dedication put into their customer retention strategies. Those willing to step up those efforts can reap great rewards of elevated customer engagement and member loyalty.

Customer Service: Face to Face, Computer to Computer and Beyond

The customer experience encompasses every interaction with your product or service, with any employee whether in-person or otherwise, with any of your apps or technology, etc. It even includes the moments they think about your brand (hopefully with fondness) or discuss it with others.

Customer service is a vital part of the customer experience. Sometimes a single encounter can turn the tide—for better or worse—in one's perception about a brand. In a worst case scenario, one bad customer service encounter can destroy the experience, negating all positive products or services your business has to offer.

But what makes a customer service experience "poor" or "great?"

The funny thing is, businesses and their customers can't even agree on what constitutes great service. One oft quoted statistic shows a shocking gap in perception: 80% of companies believe they deliver superior customer service, but only 8% of customers agree with them.

There is a huge variance in how much effort businesses commit to dedicated customer service teams. This is especially true for "contact us" types of customer service. These are the options customers have to contact the company in case of a question or issue, including phone numbers, email addresses, and live chat.

What have the employees on the other end been trained to do? Do they know how to answer questions? Diffuse anger? Upsell? Escalate issues to other departments?

Hopefully, they're doing the very minimum to not make a touchy situation worse. But why set your standards so low? Imagine what a powerful department this could be if they were able to end every conversation with the customer feeling more appreciated than before.

Poor Customer Service Destroys Customer Retention

One reason customer service efforts are sometimes neglected is because they aren't often reported as a reason new members join up. But all this does is prove that companies often place too much emphasis on acquisition. Member acquisition is important. A large number of new customers certainly looks impressive on reports.

However, those brands are forgetting the major impact customer service can have on customer retention, which can actually be more profitable in the long run.

This fact is made pretty obvious by the overwhelming number of people who reported poor customer service as a reason to abandon a brand. The statistics below paint a compelling picture of how customer service directly impacts customer loyalty and retention. 

Negative experiences drive people away:

• 56% of customers won’t complain about bad customer service, they’ll quietly switch to a competitor. 
• 32% of all customers would stop doing business with a brand they loved after one bad experience.
• 3 in 4 consumers say a bad interaction with a business can ruin their whole day.
• 43% of consumers say they won’t make a repeat purchase after a bad service experience.

Excellent Customer Service Fuels Customer Retention

Fortunately, the opposite is true, and positive experiences with customer service bind members to you even more firmly than before:

• 97% of consumers say excellent customer service is key to gaining their loyalty.
• 73% of consumers say they will spend more money than planned after receiving good customer service.
• 65% of U.S. customers find a positive experience with a brand to be more influential than great advertising.
• 72% of customers will share a positive experience with six or more people.

Many companies have found great success by making customer service their top priority. Notably, Zappos has a policy of “delivering WOW” and has implemented many customer-first policies to support that. The company keeps warehouses fully stocked and open 24/7. It offers generous shipping and returns, and will even direct customers to competitor sites for out-of-stock items. Each of these policies cost the company money, but as a result, Zappos has a very high return-customer rate (75%), excellent reviews and high rates of referrals, all of which have contributed to its monumental growth. 

Great Customer Service: A Necessity for Loyalty Programs

Any company that promises a great member experience as part of the package deal will only hurt themselves by ignoring the customer service component.

While every business would benefit from enhanced customer service efforts, businesses with loyalty programs need them more than most. These companies want to see members using and enjoying their member benefits often. After all, the entire reason to offer benefits in the first place is to encourage greater customer engagement and affinity for the brand.

Sometimes the barriers that prevent members from using their benefits are simple issues that could be resolved with a little education or encouragement from a customer service representative. It could mean the difference between a lifelong member and one who deletes your app a day after downloading it.

When partnering with a benefits provider, you’ll want to ask if they provide their own customer service for that benefit, or if it will be up to you to support it. If they provide the support, you’ll want to know the quality of that support because it will reflect back on your business.

Here at Access Development, we specialize in discount programs for associations, loyalty programs and other membership groups. We back products with industry-leading customer support, which is available to all clients. 

The Human Touch is More Important than Ever in the Age of AI Customer Service

Customer service continues to evolve, and not always for the better. Websites/FAQs, outsourced call centers, chatbots and the like can field a large amount of general questions less expensively than any in-house customer service team. Recently, the rise of AI in customer service has been impossible to ignore. By 2025, AI is projected to handle 95% of all customer interactions, and it promises to improve the customer experience overall. 

However, 64% of customers would prefer that companies didn't use AI in their customer service. 

The smart approach to AI in customer service is to use it as a tool that enhances, not replaces, human interaction. AI can handle routine inquiries, provide 24/7 availability for simple questions, and free up your customer service team to focus on complex issues that require empathy, critical thinking, and genuine human connection.

When it comes to customer retention, nothing beats the power of a real person who can listen, empathize, and solve problems creatively. 90% of customers prefer to get customer service from a human rather than a chatbot for complex issues, and maintaining customer trust is cited as the top challenge by 44% of businesses using AI-enabled customer service.

The best customer retention strategies leverage AI for efficiency while keeping in-house, person-to-person service at the heart of the experience. Your human team is what builds loyalty, creates emotional connections, and turns satisfied customers into brand advocates.

Customer Service: Costly? Yes. Profitable? YES YES YES!

In a world where so many businesses treat customer service as a "cost center" and a necessary evil, those who develop a customer-centric business plan will be the ones that find success.

Still not convinced? Let me leave you with a few stats that show just how much a business can gain through improved customer retention and developing a deeper relationship with existing members:

• Increasing customer retention by 5% increases profits by 25%-100%.
• Acquiring a new customer can cost 5-25 times more than keeping an existing customer.
• The probability of selling to an existing customer is 60-70%, compared to 5-20% probability of selling to a new prospect.
• Returning customers spend 67% more than first-time customers.

These customer retention examples make it clear: investing in superior, human-centered customer service isn't just good ethics—it's good business.

Make Your Customer Service Team Shine

If you're ready to take the next step and put your members first, stay tuned for our follow-up article coming soon. In it, we'll give you some of the tips and best practices Access learned along the way as we've developed our own top-performing team. We discuss how to improve customer retention through exceptional service, especially in regards to white label travel platforms which recent travel statistics show are in high demand (and also demand high levels of customer service.)

The best member discount programs all back their discounts with the most firepower in the form of great customer care. In the meantime, feel free to contact us or post your questions below.