Brands with the best customer service 2022: No more status quo
The brands with the best customer service in 2022 have not ranked before. Discover the brands that have risen and fallen in rank since 2019.
Customer service is the assistance and guidance a company provides to people before, during, and after they buy a product or service. There’s a direct correlation between satisfied customers, brand loyalty, and revenue growth.
Customer satisfaction has always been a fundamental part of business, but it’s more important than ever now. Consumers expect a lot from brands – and have eternal brands to choose from. Service needs to be part of each step of their journey, from initial interactions through post-purchase and beyond.
Simply put: Brands need to step up with great service that provides the experience customers expect or risk losing out to the competition.
The brands with the best customer service in 2022 have not ranked before. Discover the brands that have risen and fallen in rank since 2019.
The days of customer service being a number that you call to get help are gone. Today, service is a crucial element of any product, service, or business, and needs to be baked into all platforms and channels of your brand, including via:
More than pricing, and even the product itself, service is the biggest driver of customer loyalty.
Time and again, research shows that service excellence is essential to building customer loyalty and driving business growth. But service has changed dramatically over the years, expanding far beyond phone calls and email. There’s a lot to know and keep up with.
In a digital-first economy, customer service is critical to the customer lifecycle and loyalty. To avoid churn, sales and service must be able to work together in real-time – and efficiently (and securely) share information about each customer to gain insights and understand what’s expected from consumers:
Other terms often used interchangeably with customer service include:
There’s overlap with these and all are essential to customer experience, but it’s important to know the differences. While customer service encompasses the entire buying journey, customer support generally means providing technical help to a customer after a purchase, like installation help and troubleshooting.
Customer aftercare, or customer care, also takes place after a sale, but is broader than technical support. As the term implies, it means taking care of the customer. It goes beyond a one-time fix to a series of communications and actions designed to keep your customers satisfied.
Customer aftercare refers to post-sale customer service. It includes all of the steps, actions, communications, and processes that take place after a sale to keep customers satisfied, engaged, and loyal.
Customer service has come a long way from the days when a phone call or a visit to the store were the only options a customer had for reaching a brand.
Today, the explosion of e-commerce, mobile devices, and social media has created a multitude of ways for customers to connect.
Here are some of the types of customer service:
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Every customer is unique, and will expect something slightly different based their preferences as to how they want to communicate with a brand. This is a crucial point for companies to understand when it comes to providing exceptional customer service. Good customer service involves a few key elements:
When embarking on a journey to plan your service strategy, don’t forget: Your first step must be understanding your customer.
To do this, you should ask two important questions:
Meet Machine Learning, your new favorite colleague, who will dramatically change customer service both for customers and for customer service personnel.
Service is a core element of business, and can help companies thrive, or be their demise if service isn’t up to par. Here are the key considerations for a customer service strategy:
Many organizations today are turning to service cloud technology to help them deliver the stellar service experiences customers expect. They’re modernizing service by leveraging cloud software to boost efficiency, increase customer satisfaction, and drive business growth.
If you support your customers when times are difficult, it’s highly likely they’ll stick with you for the long term.
Customer service trends in 2022: More companies will make service a priority to drive growth, customer loyalty, and C-suite strategies.
Still doubting the importance of great service? Let’s explore hard data regarding how the modern consumer prefers to shop and do business.
Omnichannel customer service
Omnichannel service is the name of the game for business success. Companies need to engage with customers on their terms, anywhere at anytime, but they also need to provide consistent, seamless experiences.
If a customer contacts a company via one channel – say a chatbot – but also calls about the same issue, the conversation should carry across channels.
The service rep should have the history of the customer’s communication, so the customer doesn’t have to repeat themselves and the rep can provide better, more personalized service.
While many companies provide multi-channel customer service by offering customers a variety of communication channels, omnichannel service is different. It goes beyond siloed service channels via integration that provides agents with a single desktop with contextual information about the customer and recommended solutions to speed resolutions.
A business benefits in many ways when it provides excellent service.
Be the food truck: Modern service requires that you go to the people, where and when they want, serving up the best that you can offer. If you do this, folks will begin flocking to you wherever you go. It’s a virtuous circle.
Businesses with a reputation for delivering sparkling service include:
Chewy: The online pet products retailer has won over pet parents with its personalized customer service. Agents are trained to answer all kinds of pet questions, new customers receive handwritten notes, and all customers get holiday cards. Chewy even surprises customers with oil paintings of their pets.
#Chewy sent paintings of my baby's! Such a cool surprise. ❤ pic.twitter.com/CSwomLBclf
— La La (@phillybaby29) July 7, 2021
Costco: The membership-only, big-box retail giant is known for its high-quality goods, warehouse prices, and generous return policy. Low employee turnover and high morale help drive great CX and service.
Five Guys: This burger chain beat out stalwarts like Wendy’s and McDonald’s to win the top spot in the American Customer Satisfaction Index’s recent restaurant study. “Five Guys outperforms the other burger chains in most customer experience benchmarks,” ACSI said in a blog post, citing the restaurant’s helpful and courteous staff, accurate food orders, food quality, speed, and reliable mobile app.
Finally…
We've not been to a Five Guys since Feb last year due to shielding!
How happy are we right now 😊🥰❤#fiveguys#bestburgers#ourhappyplace #dayoff #couple #ourfavouriteburgers #happy @fiveguys @FiveGuysUK
@nkaemenaphotography pic.twitter.com/OHTu3nu8ik— Claire Austin (@VoodooDollEnt) July 15, 2021
Nike: The footwear company scored high marks in ASCI’s Retail and Consumer Shipping Report, shining in the areas of store cleanliness and layout, and impressing customers with its in-store speed, staff courtesy, and mobile app.
Publix: The food retailer with nearly 1,300 stores across the Southeast ranked No. 1 in the supermarket category of Newsweek’s 2022 America’s Best Customer Service list. The company, which is the largest employee-owned company in the US, scored well in the areas of communications, range of services, and customer focus.
Wanted to say THANK YOU to the wonderful pharmacists @Publix here in St. Petersburg, Florida. You are appreciated! #ThankYouPharmacists #Publix #StPetersburg #Florida pic.twitter.com/HwQW2ZFeBo
— StorySpirit4U (@StorySpirit4U) September 25, 2021
Ritz-Carlton: The luxury hotel chain is well-known for a culture focused on service excellence. The brand adheres to its Gold Standards, which includes three steps of service: a warm and sincere greeting by name, anticipating and fulfilling each guest’s needs, and a fond farewell.
Great resort! Amazing service! Everything is top quality!! Enjoying my stay at @RitzCarlton Ras Al Khaimah ! Loving the pool #Staycation #RAK #RitzCarlton pic.twitter.com/eqNpnqfyND
— Rashed Al-Suweidi (@3eemany) July 22, 2021