Although the character actor, meaning an actor specialising in colourful supporting roles, is sometimes a disputed definition, most people subscribe to this description of what a character actor is. 

Can You Make a Career Out of Being a Character Actor?

Character actors are highly skilled actors, and it is possible to navigate a career as a specialist character actor. If you succeed in playing a particular type of character in a high-profile production, there is a chance that more work requiring similar portrayals comes your way. 

It will be up to you to decide whether you have artistic objections to being typecast or are happy to keep on portraying a specific type of supporting role. However, there are actors who have built successful careers from doing so, so being typecast may not be a bad thing from a career perspective. 

On the other hand, there are character actors who are known for their ability to slip into a wide range of eccentric roles. This may become a route towards a career as a comedy actor, crime drama actor, or period drama actor. Although this limits your scope somewhat, you can hope that your talent is recognised in other contexts too. 

Can You Achieve Fame As a Character Actor?

Although it is unlikely that you will become a household name, it is possible to achieve a degree of fame as a character actor. This is particularly true of character actors in film, and of course, those cast in TV series will gain a great deal of regular exposure. 

An article in The Guardian profiles some of the UK’s best-known character actors, and although their names won’t be familiar to everyone, there’s no doubt that their faces will be. As an example, the late Geoffrey Chater was typecast as the ultimate “establishment” character, but the variations on this theme, ranging from chaplains to military officers, certainly gave him some scope for creativity. 

An example of just how compelling character acting can be, one Hollywood actor known for roles as an abusive, womanising gangster found that certain types of women would make overtures toward him. He is recorded as saying: “My fan mail goes up every time I tee off on a girl,” a rather disturbing consequence that not even his psychologist could explain. 

Tips For Becoming a Character Actor

Some people can’t help it. They look “right” for a particular type of role, or their natural personality, voice, and mannerisms make them an obvious choice for certain roles. Think about your natural characteristics. If they seem to match a stereotype, even one you don’t particularly like in real life, this could be your route toward a career in character acting. 

Taking this route does not mean you are a “bad” actor. You still need all the skills any other actor uses, but you are playing to your natural advantages. For example, if you are bespectacled, slender, and soft-spoken, you may be a good choice for roles as an intellectual, tech genius, hacker, or scholar. 

Similarly, if you have a broad accent, you may have trained yourself to speak in unaccented tones when your natural inflexions make you an ideal choice for certain types of roles. It’s one more reason to understand a production before you audition for it. If you don’t, you may conceal quirks that could actually help you land character acting roles. 

Techniques for Character Acting

Character acting, when all is said, is just like other forms of acting. You still need to undertake the same process, adjusting your stage or screen persona based on the story, the character’s motivations, the nature of the production, and the script. 

In a sense, because the roles you play are often very eccentric, you have to work harder on your acting technique to make them believable. For example, even villains have some form of humanity, and although your portrayal should be chilling, it cannot be too two-dimensional – unless the director specifically wants a caricature. 

Supposing you have been typecast and are getting a lot of similar characters to play, you should not be discouraged. Famous actors who get cast in leading roles also experience this at times, and many of them have broken out of the mould successfully. Keep practising your acting skills and seek out opportunities to exercise your range. 

Between Roles? Run the Gamut of Roles With RSVP

Acting is very much a part of daily life, especially in business. However, some people seem to do it better than others. As a real actor, you can probably beat the average Jill or Joe at this game. That’s why RSVP, a London-based business process outsourcing company, employs actors for customer-facing interactions. 

Apart from offering flexible work to people we know are committed to a career in acting, we believe that working for us means plenty of opportunities to practise your acting skills. Your audiences consist of individual people, and your characters are brand personas. 

Landed that role? Off to auditions or acting classes? Going on tour with your stage production? We’ll be cheering for you from the sidelines instead of begrudging you the time you need to further your career as an actor. Visit our careers page to find out more. 

More Resources for Actors

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It is important for businesses to know whether their marketing and sales efforts are profitable. They can discover whether they are by comparing their customer acquisition cost (CAC) to customer lifetime value (CLV). 

A Formula to Calculate the Cost of Customer Acquisition

Your customer acquisition cost formula is relatively straightforward. 

• Choose a representative time period (usually a year).
• Calculate your total marketing cost for the period.
• Divide it by the number of new customers you gained.

Finding the right figures to use may require a bit more thought and analysis. For example, maintaining a website is a marketing cost, but if your existing customers use your website to access your company, then at least part of that is not an acquisition cost. In that case, a portion of your website-related costs should be used in your CLV calculation. 

Similarly, some of your marketing investment targets existing customers, and the rest is used to attract new customers. To get an accurate picture that reflects realities, you cannot use your total marketing cost to calculate your customer acquisition cost. Instead, you must divide your marketing costs between customer acquisition and customer lifetime value figures. 

Costs Associated With Customer Acquisition and Customer Retention

“Marketing costs” sounds like a straightforward figure, but it consists of many business expenses you may not allocate under marketing costs in your business accounts. For example, the true costs of marketing and customer retention include:

• Advertising, social media, and website-related costs.
• Sales and marketing salaries and contractor costs.
• Sponsorships and subscriptions you use for brand exposure.
• Equipment costs (e.g. phones and other devices).
• Sales and marketing tools, for example, your CRM and marketing automation tools.
• The cost of office space and a share of overheads, such as electricity and other utilities. 
• Other costs, for example, sales rep travel costs, trade show attendance, etc. 

The percentage of each of these costs that should be allocated to customer acquisition cost and customer lifetime value will also not reflect in your business’s accounts. You may need to analyse your data to effectively identify where your resources are used. 

The alternative would be to allocate all sales and marketing costs under customer acquisition costs (as some sources recommend), resulting in a skewed ratio and unrealistically high customer acquisition costs.

How to Boost Customer Acquisition Profits

The simplest and least effective way to decrease customer acquisition costs is to slash sales and marketing budgets. This is unlikely to be sustainable or profitable. Every business needs new customers to grow and compensate for customer attrition. Adopt a measured approach. For example, you could:

• Analyse how different forms of marketing promote sales. Attribution can be complex, and factors such as seasonality may need to be factored in. You may need to test your conclusions, but your aim is to determine which types of marketing campaigns attract the most customers at the lowest cost and strategise accordingly.
• Optimise your sales funnel. Find out what strategies are most effective in moving customers from one stage to another. Eliminate elements that do not add value, and target your investment to achieve higher conversion rates.
• Improve the overall customer experience. Are you losing prospective customers because your website is confusing or customer service is hard to reach? Search for pain points like these and eliminate them. More conversions decrease customer acquisition costs even if you do not spend any less on sales and marketing. 
• Target your ideal customers. Trying to sell to everyone? Consider profiling your ideal customers so that you can target their needs more effectively and improve your marketing ROI. 
• Work on customer retention and repeat purchases. If you can improve customer lifetime value, you automatically make your sales and marketing investment more profitable. It’s accepted knowledge that it’s cheaper to keep a customer than to find a new one. 

Once you begin analysing your spend and optimising where it goes, you should start seeing results. Remember, you don’t necessarily need to spend less, but you do want to see increased profits. That means focussing your resources where they’ll achieve the best results for your business. 

Need Help Winning and Retaining Customers? Differentiate Through Human Contact

As a company that employs people to talk to people, we often find that our clients’ customers are amazed to hear from a real human being. It’s easy to see why. Though automation can save costs, overreliance on it as a catch-all solution has become the norm. 

Add the human touch to your service, and you are almost certain to win and keep more customers. Set your business apart with RSVP’s customer lifecycle management services. It’s a scalable service that responds to your customers’ needs and your business’s priorities. Offer great customer experiences. Build relationships. Have agents who listen more than they talk, respond intuitively to customer needs, and keep your customers coming back for more. 

Let’s discuss customer lifecycle management and explore how we can support your business. Our aim is always to boost your ROI, outperforming what you could achieve with in-house teams. Serve your customers better, boost your sales, and improve customer retention with RSVP. Contact us today, we are ready to rise to the challenge!

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The Pareto, or 80/20, principle holds true for most businesses. In short, it says that 80 percent of your sales come from 20 percent of your customers. Naturally, these would be the customers you’d most like to attract and retain. 

Since the other 80 percent of customers will likely have at least some things in common with your top 20 percent, you won’t necessarily lose them when you focus energy and resources on the ideal customer group. Plus, you’ll sell more to high-value customers and satisfy their needs better. Your customer profile contains the information you need to do this effectively. 

The Types of Data Used to Create Customer Profiles

To begin customer profiling, identify one group of ideal customers. Later, you can drill down to finer details, creating several profiles that represent great customers. You need not use your imagination. The information you need is in your data, and you can fill any gaps by looking at external data and by conducting market research. The information you need includes:

• Demographics: Here, you’ll investigate factors like age, gender, income, family composition, and preferred sales channels. 
• Market insights: Using external data, you can uncover details showing what products and services your profiled customer enjoys. Although you may not be competing in these niches, market insights give you a more holistic view of where your product or service fits into customers’ lives. 
• Customer behaviour and buying journeys: Find out how customers interact with your business. How would they typically find out about your products? What do they do next? How do they prefer to communicate? What prompts them to engage? Along with the other information you’ve gathered, this data helps you to understand customer needs more clearly. 

B2B vs B2C Customer Profiles

In a sense, B2B and B2C customer profiles are very similar. Both types of businesses profile the ideal customer. However, the data you use when developing B2B customer profiles will look somewhat different. For example, instead of capturing demographics, you would classify business clients according to factors like business size and industry. However, every business’s buying decisions are made by people, so although their focus is different, human factors are still of interest. 

Benefits of Customer Profiling

Summing up the benefits of customer profiling, having a deep understanding of your ideal customers helps you to attract, serve, and sell to them. This has multiple ramifications. For example, you can:

• Develop new products they’ll love.
• Optimise communications for relevance and engagement.
• Gain more precise insights into market share and business performance.
• Optimise your marketing investment while targeting highly relevant, “ideal” market segments and enhancing returns.
• Upsell and cross-sell more effectively thanks to a better understanding of customer needs and motivations. 
• Foster greater customer loyalty, reduce attrition, and enhance lifetime value by promoting customer satisfaction. 

Examples of Customer Profiles

There are several approaches to customer profiling you can consider. You need not choose only one of them. Different approaches may be useful for different functions. For example, some profiling methods are great for sales teams, while others have more appeal to marketing professionals. Examples include:

Scorecards

Using key commonalities that signal an ideal customer, sales teams can use customer profiles to target outbound sales. Scorecard elements in B2B selling might include Budget, Authority, Need, and Timeline (BANT). For each of these, you can specify an ideal fit, a potential fit, and a poor fit. Identify combinations of elements that would prompt outreach. 

Segmented Profiles

Your ideal customers could match more than one profile. In that case, a segmented profile that provides tips for salespeople and marketers on how best to communicate can prove useful. Beware of identifying too many segments – it can dilute your focus and become too complex to be useful. 

A Basic Customer Profile

Sometimes, simplicity pays off. A very basic customer profile can be hugely effective, provided you identify your ideal customers correctly. An example could begin with basic demographic information and answer key questions like:

• How do your best customers discover you, research your products, and what encourages them to choose you over competitors?
• Which products do they choose, why, and how often do they use them?
• What are their possible pain points when dealing with your company or using your products?
• What are their goals, and how does your product support them?

Buyer Personas

Although buyer personas are slightly different from customer profiles, using profiling data to construct them can make them very effective tools. Use your data to create a “person” or series of people who represent ideal customers and make them relatable. Understanding their goals, motivations, and challenges can bring a greater sense of warmth, humanity, and understanding to marketing messaging and sales strategies. 

Steps to Build Effective Customer Profiles

Develop a template detailing all the things you need to know so that you can better serve your ideal customers. Don’t assume you know who they are just yet. You will find this out as you use your profiling tools. These will include sales histories and information gathered in the customer service and sales process. 

Check metrics and analytics, for example, website analytics and social media analytics, to discover what engages ideal customers. Remember, not all engagement comes from your top customers. Choose quality over quantity. Throughout, refer to or adjust customer journey mapping to identify the routes ideal customers follow. 

The good news is that most businesses do not need to invest in new tools. They already have a wealth of data. All they need to do is make sense of it. However, don’t get so technology-focused that you don’t take opinions from customer-facing employees on board, even if not all of it is palatable or agrees with your preconceptions. 

Their opinions may point toward data you should examine more closely. For example, customer service employees can likely identify customer pain points easily. You can investigate their impact by looking at analytics, customer feedback reports, reviews, and CRM reports.

Your Customers Have The Answers: Are You Listening?

Nowadays, we often become so data-focused that we forget the importance of human contact. While you will find valuable data from self-service interactions, the in-person ones have far greater depth. In short, customer profiling is about customers, so it makes sense to listen to them. 

Using your records of interactions, you can find out what people are saying, how they feel, what they like, and what they struggle with. Who is the best fit for your products? Let real customers provide the answers.  

Whether you’d like to canvas customers for opinions directly or hope to gather information through sales and support calls, getting the intelligence you need can be easier and more cost-effective than you may have believed. 

Make it easy for them to get in touch, and let RSVP respond and gather data. It’s scalable, effective, and you can get a wealth of actionable data from our customer service analytics. Contact us today to find out more about our customer service outsourcing solutions. We do the listening, and you and your customers get the benefits. 

Read more about Customer Service

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What is CSR?

CSR stands for Corporate Social Responsibility. It is your company’s commitment to ethical business practices and sustainability. Beyond legal compliance, your initiatives are voluntary. They may include charitable giving, community engagement, and adopting more environmentally friendly work methods. 

No business that is not compliant with regulations and standards can be seen as responsible, so ensuring compliance is a first step. However, it is only the beginning, and companies with a strong approach to CSR go above and beyond what is required. 

What is ESG?

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) consists of a set of criteria that investors and stakeholders use to determine a company’s operations-based and sustainability-related risks and opportunities. 

On the environmental front, it considers impacts like carbon emissions and waste management. The social element examines how the company interacts with employees, suppliers, and communities. The governance element unpacks elements like leadership, audits, and the rights of shareholders. Since it is used to inform investors, ESG information is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK. 

Similarities Between CSR and ESG

From these two definitions, you will likely identify some of the key similarities between ESG and CSR. Summing these up, they both:

• Seek to demonstrate a high standard of ethics and responsibility. 
• Examine the environmental and social impacts of a business while striving to minimise negative effects and increase positive impacts.
• Seek to engage stakeholders by demonstrating that the organisation is striving to uphold the well-being of employees, communities, and the environment.

However, the fact that these two similar-sounding things are, in truth, very different from one another cannot be overlooked. 

Differences Between CSR and ESG

The purpose, intended audience, and the very nature of CSR and ESG are vastly different. They are measured differently, regulated differently, and integrate differently with a business’s strategic intent. That’s quite a mouthful, so a more detailed explanation is in order. 

Purpose of CSR and ESG

CSR is voluntary. No authority or law requires a business to make CSR statements, although many do since it demonstrates the organisation’s values and drives goodwill. ESG, on the other hand, focuses on data and risk assessment. It is used to help businesses show regulatory compliance and aid business leaders and investors in their decision-making. 

Intended Audience For CSR and ESG Reports

CSR has a greater relationship-building focus. It strives to engage employees who feel they are working towards something positive and customers who hope to support ethical businesses. 

Community engagement also has potential benefits, as the wider community can influence prospective employees and customers. It is a key component of the environment in which a business operates. 

ESG can be viewed as a form of non-financial accounting, as it is used to inform investors and investment analysts while also drawing attention from regulatory bodies. 

How the Nature of CSR Differs From ESG

CSR is qualitative rather than quantitative. Although measurements can be included, they are not an absolute requirement. For example, a company may say it supports specific community initiatives or donates a percentage of its profits to charity, but absolute numbers are not required. ESG, by contrast, is based on measurables, and reports must be informed by objective data.  

CSR and ESG Measurements

In a related point, CSR documentation is often focused on narratives and is not standardised in any way. ISO 26000 offers a way to standardise CSR, but it remains voluntary and is used as guidance for businesses that hope to take the high road in terms of CSR. 

It is generally agreed that, just like accounting, ESG should use standardised reporting frameworks. In the UK, drafts of  UK SRS S1 and UK SRS S2 were tabled in 2025, and we can expect standardisation of ESG reporting to follow. 

Regulatory Requirements and Intervention

In the EU and the UK, CSR is largely unregulated, while ESG is increasingly subject to regulation. It certainly seems unlikely that regulators will come after your business if you fail to make a promised donation to a food bank, for example. However, when data is used to influence financial decisions, the stakes become higher, and regulatory intervention is likely if misrepresentations are made. 

Integration Into Business Strategies

While some CSR concepts may form part of a business’s strategy, and simply working to increase their business’s positive impacts can be seen as a strategy, many companies treat CSR as a separate matter. ESG information is very different. It will be integrated into risk management strategies and strategic plans. 

Business Size and CSR vs ESG

Most smaller businesses will not undertake a structured approach to ESG, although some sources recommend that they do so anyway. Corporate enterprises are another matter. Up to 88 percent of them have implemented ESG, and a similar percentage of investors say it is important to them. A growing number of countries require ESG from larger companies. By contrast, both small and large businesses can provide CSR information if they choose to. 

Differences Between CSR and ESG in Brief

We can sum all of this up quite neatly. CSR is what your business chooses to do, while ESG indicates what you are expected (and sometimes even required) to measure, how it will be measured, and how the results will be disclosed.

While CSR appears less weighty and “serious,” we believe that it should be taken very seriously indeed. After all, doing good things of your own volition is rather special and will mean more to your clients and beneficiaries than anything you are forced to do.

Our Top CSR Tip is a Golden Opportunity

It is not always possible for businesses to find ways to benefit society as a whole. Charitable giving offers some opportunities, but it is always limited by its cost. At RSVP, a business process outsourcing company based in London, we have discovered an effective way to benefit society and increase our customers’ profits. You can be part of it.

Our Restart initiative trains people who are soon to be released from prison to work as customer service representatives. It is a core business area in which we excel, and our trainees will earn money as they learn. 

Apart from having an opportunity to earn and save before their release, they will achieve a certified qualification and will stand a better chance of reassimilating into society. Research shows that finding employment after release reduces the potential for reoffending substantially. 

We are offering our trainees’ services at a lower cost than our premium offering, but we can assure you that all candidates given an opportunity to work already demonstrate competence and professionalism. Through Restart, your business can benefit society while enhancing your customer service, boosting customer satisfaction, and improving customer retention metrics. CSR really can be a not-to-be-missed opportunity. Contact us to find out more. 

Read more about Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

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Use these inspiring acting quotes to let the light shine in. From auditioning terrors to facing day-to-day challenges, we hope these wise words about acting inspire you as much as they inspire us. 

Quotes on Auditioning

Big audition coming up? You may be terrified about being judged, but according to Michael Mosley, you should see it as something akin to making soup:

“There’s no enemy in the auditioning process. Everybody wants you to be the right person when you walk into the room. We’re all just trying to make a soup here, and they’re trying to find the right ingredients for the soup.”

Erica Schroeder is among the actors who advise you to just relax and enjoy yourself fearlessly: “Think of every audition as a chance to perform and you will have fun doing it,” she says.

You may be surprised by who advises you to take your chances while knowing they may be on the slim side. “Auditions are like a gamble. Most likely, you won’t get the part, but if you don’t go, you’ll never know if you could’ve got it,” says Robert De Niro. 

George Clooney advises giving your mojo a bit of a boost before you step out. After all, nobody is at their best as a quivering wreck. “I had to stop going to auditions thinking ‘Oh, I hope they like me.’ I had to go in thinking I was the answer to their problem.”

And yes, preparation is still important. As Paula Abdul observes: “When you go to meetings or auditions and you fail to prepare, prepare to fail.”

Quotes About Overcoming Challenges

Actors face a unique set of challenges. There’s so much competition out there, their finances are often more down than up, and every rejection feels deeply personal. Draw strength from these quotes for actors by actors. 

Competition

Michael Shurtleff, casting director and author of the must-read book “Audition,” is on record as saying competition should be a driving force rather than a discouragement: “The good actor is one who competes willingly, who enjoys competing. An actor must compete or die. Peacefulness and the avoidance of trouble won’t help in his acting. It is just the opposite he must seek.”

Financial Challenges

Along with the emotional highs and lows of being an actor, the financial challenges can be daunting, especially as you begin your career. Famous actors advise hanging in there and working hard to overcome the challenges. As Michael Caine says: “Be like a duck: calm on the surface but always paddling like the dickens underneath.”

Rejection and Criticism

Failing to win that role you wanted so much, bad reviews in the press, nasty remarks – it takes a thick skin to be a successful actor. These quotes on dealing with criticism or rejection will help you keep your chin up. 

Daniel Craig is stoic: “You get used to rejection and don’t take it personally.” Now that’s a hard act to follow!

Emma Roberts says the image of being successful is just that. Failure and rejection go with the territory when you’re an actor. “I’ve had a lot of failures as well as rejection. As an actor, it’s mostly about rejection, but people think it’s mostly success because they only see your successes.”

We love Sylvester Stallone’s fighting advice: “I take rejection as someone blowing a bugle in my ear to wake me up and get going, rather than retreat.”

Acting Quotes From Stanislavski 

Finally, some quotes from Konstantin Stanislavski, a man who made a massive contribution to believable acting and has continued to inspire actors across the decades. Let’s hear about our art from the maestro himself.

Don’t wait for good things to happen. Make it happen! “If you are looking for something, don’t go sit on the seashore and expect it to come and find you; you must search, search, search with all the stubbornness in you!”

Props aren’t important. Imagination is your superpower. “You can kill the King without a sword, and you can light the fire without a match. What needs to burn is your imagination.”

Be creative. Break with tradition, and find your own way of doing things. “Create your own method. Don’t depend slavishly on mine. Make up something that will work for you! But keep breaking traditions, I beg you.”

Every role is important. Take each one on with all your might. “There are no small parts, only small actors.”

And what may be one of the most inspiring quotes about acting yet: “Don’t spend your time chasing after an inspiration that once chanced your way. It is as unrecoverable as yesterday, as the joys of childhood, as first love. Bend your efforts to creating a new and fresh inspiration for today. There is no reason to suppose that it will be less good than yesterday’s. It may not be as brilliant. But you have the advantage of possessing it today.”

“Between Roles?” Put Your Talents to Work With Us

Here’s a quote that will resonate with many of us. It comes from multi-award-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman: “Being unemployed is not good for an actor. No, it isn’t, no matter how unsuccessful you are. Because you always remember getting fired from all the restaurants. You remember that stuff very, very strongly.”

It’s something many actors experience. We understand that we need to earn a living while studying, auditioning, building a career, or between roles, but employers struggle with our need for flexibility. RSVP changes that. 

Our entire crew consists of actors, and we all have ambitions, dreams, and aspirations that do not involve a nine-to-five job. Will we sigh and roll our eyes when you get that casting call or your show goes on tour? We will not! Instead, we will value your talents, putting them to work as you represent brands as their ideal representatives. 

Let’s work together in a supportive and, above all, flexible environment where there’s room for you to chase your dreams. Visit our careers page to find out more.

More Resources for Actors

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Simply put, customer insights help us to get to know our customers better. They help us to understand customer needs, why and what they buy, and what they prefer when interacting with our businesses. 

How the Methods We Use to Gain Customer Insights Have Evolved

Although the term may be relatively new, entrepreneurs have always worked to understand what customers want. Whether they were selling or bartering, people always understood the value of knowing their customers. For centuries, this was done in person. Tradespeople offered goods or services and soon found out why people supported them through simple word of mouth and observed behaviour. 

As commerce developed, decision-makers became less likely to have direct contact with customers and had to rely on figures and those who dealt with customers for information. As communication tools improved and it became possible to canvass opinions from large samples of potential customers, market research emerged as the next big thing. 

Nowadays, we have analytics, big data, and even AI to help us uncover important information about our customers. However, among all these tech tools, human interaction remains as important as it ever has been. In fact, it’s where we will gain many of our most significant insights. 

Customer Experience Insights

There are multiple sources we can turn to for customer experience insights, and each of them is important. Simply knowing there is demand for a product or service isn’t enough. If we do not offer our customers positive experiences, they will look for alternatives. In a competitive world, it is very likely they will find other options. 

Search for customer experience insights in:

• Website and app analytics
• Customer reviews
• Customer service and support records
• Customer surveys
• Social media posts and mentions
• Communities and forums
• Market research results

You need not exercise your imagination to find ways to enhance the customer experience. Your customers will give you the answers themselves, either through what they say or what they do. If you haven’t considered customer insight analysis before, you are very likely to have the data already. It’s just a matter of putting it to work for you. 

Customer Data Insights

If you’re hoping to gain insights about your customers, what they think of your business and its products, and how you can better serve them, it’s time to dive into the data. Apart from looking at how they interact with your website or app, you can find information like:

• Demographics: Find out what type of people support your business and where they are from. You may think you know, but you might find some surprises.
• Purchasing patterns: Analyse what people buy, when they make a purchase, and determine whether they return to buy again. 
• Customer lifetime value: Your business wins customers, but customer lifetime value indicates what each win is likely to be worth and gives you a benchmark for improvement. 
• Channel preferences: Discover how and where customers like to get in touch. Though it is comparatively simple to please them all with omnichannel service, this information can help you to set priorities. 
• Sentiment analysis: How customers feel is just as important as what they do. Find out what earns you accolades and where there may be room for improvement. 
• Usage data: If you’re selling an online service, you can get customer insights by finding out how often they use it and which features they prefer. A customer success initiative may help boost their satisfaction. 

Apart from helping you boost customer satisfaction and, in turn, customer retention, you may also gain valuable customer segmentation insights. This helps you to target your marketing spend where it will be most fruitful. 

Other Types of Customer Insight Analysis

There are numerous things you should know about your customers and should track through customer insight analysis. To demonstrate just how helpful this might be, consider the following examples:

• Uncover customer needs and pain points
• Investigate buying behaviour
• Gain insights into customer journeys
• Measure customer satisfaction
• Get feedback about your products and services
• Determine what engages customers
• Investigate customer expectations and preferences
• Determine the signs of potential churn
• Find out how customers perceive your brand

As noted, much of the information you need to gain these insights is already available. Making sense of it is no longer a costly or time-consuming process. You may need a few digital tools and a little help, but it will be worth the investment. 

Provided you are ready to act on customer insights, the road to business growth will become clear. Ready to try something new? Test it out and use customer insights to determine whether you have accurately identified customer preferences. 

Need Customer Insights? Your Customer Service and Support Agents Are Uncovering a Goldmine

You can infer a lot from data-based customer insights, but the best information you can get comes from customers who are ready to talk. For example, you might send out a customer satisfaction survey and get responses. However, you won’t always know why customers rate you in a certain way. They may even be a trifle dishonest, magnifying minor problems or providing “polite” answers.

A customer who is on the line, talking to your agents, will tell you so much more. Specifically, customers are likely calling because of an obstacle to satisfaction. Perhaps they don’t know how to navigate your website, choose the right product for their needs, or use it once they have it. For each person who calls, there are likely hundreds of others who simply give up, walk away, and never come back. 

The message? Every interaction with a customer who is ready and willing to share their experiences is a goldmine of information. Your representatives are listening, and they should be equipped with software that helps them record the types of interactions they handle and their outcomes. 

Get Human Empathy and Intuition On The Line With RSVP

Now that we have stated a strong case for humans listening to humans as the best source of customer insights out there, you may be wondering if there’s a scalable way to implement the round-the-clock, in-person customer service your customers want. 

There is. Choose RSVP’s London-based team for outsourced customer service that also serves you. We have the advanced software that lets you gain customer insights at a glance, and the people who will treat your customers as well, or better, than you could treat them yourself. 

Customer satisfaction matters, and there are limits to what AI can achieve in this area. It still takes people to truly understand people, and our team is there for you. As the World Economic Forum says, “Human capital is your new competitive edge in the gen AI era.” You have the products; we have the people. Contact us today and let’s work together to get deep customer insights that will help shape your business. 

The post Customer Insights: What It Is and Why You Need It appeared first on RSVP Call Centre.

We should distinguish between physical needs and psychological needs. When you buy staple foods, it is because you need them for your survival. Basic foodstuffs fulfil a physical need. However, many of the things we buy, from fashion items to luxury foods or entertainment, fulfil psychological needs.

When we use the term “customer needs” in sales and marketing, we generally do not refer to physical needs. Instead, we are talking about the things customers want from the businesses they support. 

These go beyond mere survival and enter the realm of preference. When their needs are unsupported, customers will not suffer undue physical harm, but they will stop supporting your business as soon as they find an option that better serves their needs. 

Towards a Customer Needs Definition in Sales and Marketing

In sales and marketing, we can define customer needs as factors that motivate a purchasing decision. They can be categorised as pricing requirements, quality requirements, choice, and the need for convenience. 

The specific elements that go into each of these differ according to the product and how customers perceive it. For example, low pricing encourages budget-conscious shoppers but may deter customers who hope to gain status by owning the latest luxury goods. 

The Importance of Identifying Customer Needs

Understanding your customers and their needs enables you to develop more effective business strategies, allocate resources more efficiently, drive sales growth, and maintain a stronger competitive position. It is important to identify customer needs so that you:

• Target your market with appropriate messaging, including overall brand voice, marketing copy, content marketing strategy, and social media campaigns.
• Gain insights for product acquisition or product development. When you know what your customers need, you can enhance your products and product range with greater confidence.
• Allocate resources efficiently by investing in aspects that matter to your customers and limiting the potential for waste on unnecessary or unimportant elements. 
• Position your brand as a solution to customer problems, offering stronger value propositions and differentiating your business from your competitors. 

From a sales perspective, understanding customer needs allows you to take advantage of opportunities you might otherwise miss. Examples of these include:

• Offering the best-fit products to each of your customers based on their goals. For example, a customer purchasing photo editing software as a hobbyist may need fewer features and lower pricing than an advertising executive who wants to use the product professionally. 
• Build stronger customer relationships. Customers want to feel that you identify with them and understand them. When you do, they experience a feeling of connection. “They really know what I needed,” is the comment you want to hear.
• Achieving higher conversion rates is simple when you understand what your customers need and offer them just that.
• Upselling and cross-selling opportunities also flow from knowing what customers need. In upselling, you offer a higher-value product that is a better fit for a customer. In cross-selling, you offer them extras that go with their purchase.  

With so many benefits in store for those who take the time to know their customers and their needs, taking a closer look at what these may be is a worthwhile investment of your time. Never just assume you know what all your customers want. Your analysis may provide surprising insights. 

Customer Needs Example

To illustrate customer needs and how they affect your business strategies, let’s consider a hypothetical example. Both customers want the same type of product, but for different reasons, at different price points, and with varying quality and convenience expectations. 

Product: Jewellery

Customer 1: Anna is an 18-year-old student who enjoys following the latest trends. She doesn’t have a lot of spare cash and wants it to go as far as possible. She wants to look pretty when out with her friends.

Anna’s needs:  

Quality: Anna is interested in trends over quality

Price: Low, depreciating value

Convenience: Quick gratification, instant purchase, impulse buys

Choice: A range of different colours and designs to choose from, no need for customisation

Customer 2: Mary is a 40-year-old professional. She loves unique items, fine gemstones, and bespoke design. She is not particularly price sensitive. She wants to enhance her image as a lover of the finer things in life.

Mary’s needs:

Quality: Mary is searching for premium quality

Price: High, reflecting desire for quality, rarity, and increasing value over time

Convenience: Expects service, willing to wait for customised options

Choice: A range of design options and customisations

Although both these customers are in the market for jewellery, the type of company and product that Anna would support is very different from what will appeal to Mary. They also have very different reasons for considering a purchase. While convenience is very important to Anna, Mary is willing to search for very special items. 

It is likely that a single business would not be able to serve the needs of both Anna and Mary. For instance, seeing premium items at high prices would deter Anna, and seeing mass-produced items at low prices would deter Mary.

Predicting Customer Needs

Using our example above, we can easily predict Anna’s needs. Wherever fashion goes, she will be eager to follow. If she asks for help when making a purchasing decision, her needs will be simple. For example, she would like to know if there is a bracelet to match a pendant.

Mary’s needs will be less subject to change, but are more complex. She may want extras, such as adaptations to existing designs, unique design suggestions, and a selection of gemstones to choose from. She will require access to complete information and technical expertise. 

Customer Needs Analysis

Before you embark on your analysis, consider what your objectives are. For example, you may want to know whether your product fits the markets you would most like to serve, be searching for unmet needs you can capitalise on, or hope to identify the reasons why people choose specific products. 

Divide Your Customers Into Market Segments

Analyse your customer base and identify market segments based on questions like demographics (including income), lifestyle, behaviour, and, for B2B companies, industry type and business size. 

Gather Customer Feedback

Some of the feedback you are searching for may already be in your databases. For example, your customer relationship management (CRM) records can show what customers commonly struggle with and the questions or requests that caused them to reach out for help. Past customer satisfaction metrics and online reviews can also prove enlightening. 

Never forget to analyse how customers behave when visiting your website. This is a form of feedback that can give you strong insights into what customers want, when they find it, and when they abandon hope and move on. 

If you need more information and have the budget for it, you can conduct further market research. However, do remember that you are likely to have large volumes of useful data that you may not yet have analysed in this context. 

Analyse Your Data

Look for problems, pain points, and indications of emotional drivers that influenced decision-making. Refer back to your market segments, and when possible, link data to the relevant demographic. When you aren’t sure of root causes, try out the five “why” questions that help with root cause analysis. Cross-reference information with your customer journey map to identify where you succeeded or failed to address customer needs. 

Strategise and Action 

Begin by categorising the needs you identified into stated needs, inferred needs, and those rare but beautiful moments when customers were enthusiastic enough to comment on how pleased they were. Next, identify product, marketing, and sales priorities, determining a customer needs-based strategy for each. 

Test and Improve

As always, your work is not done until you determine whether you have successfully pinpointed customer needs and found ways to address them more effectively. Benchmarking can be effective, or you can try A/B testing or a pilot program. Throughout, keep analysing customer feedback. 

Let Us Help You To Gauge, Meet, and Exceed Customer Needs and Expectations

RSVP offers you a range of services that may help you to identify customer needs and expectations more accurately. For example, our customer service and support personnel will use advanced software to keep you in the picture regarding the needs your customers express.  We can even undertake market research on your behalf or help you with back office services that address your customers’ needs for efficiency. 

However, if you are searching for market intelligence, our customer service outsourcing offering provides a scalable and professional option that serves two purposes: working to keep your customers feeling that their needs are addressed, and gathering information on what their primary needs are. 

Find out why we are a market-leading customer service and BPO company today. Contact us and discover how we can help you get to know your customers’ needs better while you focus on strategising for customer satisfaction, market fit, and sales success.

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This article examines the practical implications of different types of corporate social responsibility, illustrating how responsible businesses benefit their employees, owners, investors, society, and the environment in which we live. 

Environmental Corporate Social Responsibility

From wasteful resource use to pollution and urban sprawl, human activity has harmed the environment to the point where many people are at risk. A responsible business considers its negative environmental impacts and works to reduce or offset them. Examples of this include:

Limiting Waste 

Inefficient use of scarce resources is bad for everyone. By working more efficiently and minimising waste, companies can mitigate the negative impacts of their activities. This also improves profitability. After all, wasted resources equate to wasted costs.

Recycling

From packaging to office paper, a business can produce large volumes of waste that may end up in overburdened landfills. Many responsible businesses recycle waste, sending it to companies that recover useful materials. 

Limiting Energy Use

Although the UK is generating more clean energy these days, not all energy comes from clean sources. Some companies generate their own electricity and work from energy-efficient buildings that require less energy for heating, lighting, and cooling. 

Reducing Emissions

Factories are working hard to reduce emissions, and fleets are increasingly consisting of electric cars and trucks. Local sourcing is another strategy that helps to reduce transportation emissions. With reduced air pollution, we enjoy cleaner air, improved health, and a brighter future for our planet. 

Conserving Water

Surprisingly large amounts of water are needed to produce everyday products. Nowadays, responsible businesses are looking for ways to reduce water usage, and some even recycle their wastewater. Since drinking water is an increasingly rare resource, every bit helps. 

Ethical and Human Rights Corporate Social Responsibility

There are several significant topics to explore, with both local and global implications. Naturally, a responsible business works to maintain legal compliance and a high standard of ethics in its dealings with employees and the public. However, they can look beyond their own businesses, too. 

Monitoring supply chains for human rights abuses, such as child labour and modern slavery, are among the things businesses can do for the betterment of global society. A business is only as ethical as its supply chain, and with ever-improving traceability, it is becoming possible to vet suppliers more carefully than ever before.  

Economic Corporate Social Responsibility

Businesses are responsible to their customers, employees, investors, and governments for compliance with economic best practices. Apart from complying with laws and regulations, they must work to remain profitable, since only a profitable business can reliably serve its community. 

Another approach is to provide economic benefits to communities. For example, a company can choose to provide work opportunities in disadvantaged communities or help to revitalise neighbourhoods. 

Philanthropic Corporate Social Responsibility

When businesses are strong, are generating profits, and are confident that they are doing all they can to be responsible in their operations, they can look further afield to see how they can help people and the environment. 

They may donate some of their goods or profits to charitable organisations or community initiatives, hoping to better society and contribute to a better world. Other businesses may not have plentiful funds, but they can help by volunteering or collecting money for charities. 

Focus Areas That Some Businesses Highlight as Important Types of Corporate Social Responsibility

Some businesses highlight specific areas that fit into the 4 types of corporate social responsibility because they believe they can make the most difference there. For example, British Petroleum places special emphasis on the environment and its quest for net-zero operations. 

For many service-oriented companies, on the other hand, the people-oriented aspects are the top focus areas. They may strive to be equitable employers through diversity and inclusion programs, or they may focus on employee well-being and engagement. 

Financial service providers may place a particular emphasis on governance, demonstrating their economic and financial responsibility. Each company’s strategists should therefore think about the areas where they can make the most positive difference to the greatest number of people.

Save Money, Offer Better Customer Service, and Benefit Society With RSVP

As we have pointed out, responsible businesses can enhance their profits while benefitting others at the same time. You can partner with RSVP and His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Services to do just that. Here’s how you can save money, offer your customers better service, and help others all at the same time. 

RSVP, in partnership with His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Services, has launched the Restart initiative. We provide accredited customer service training for people who have shown their commitment to rehabilitation and are nearing the end of their sentences. 

They get an opportunity to test their newfound skills and earn a little money by working through our call centre at Five Wells Prison. By the time they are released, they have valuable work experience and a qualification. We will even search for employment opportunities so that they step out of prison and into paid employment.

According to the Ministry of Justice’s statistics, this may reduce the chance of re-offending by as much as 50 percent. Rehabilitated prisoners benefit from a fresh start, and society benefits too. Meanwhile, you can help our best trainees gain valuable work experience. We will ensure that they understand how to represent your business effectively, and you can gain their services at a lower cost than our premium offering. It’s the ultimate win-win situation. 

Boost Your Business’s CSR Profile With RSVP

RSVP, a premium customer service company based in London, is proud of its trainees at HMP Five Wells. They will do you proud, too. To participate in this CSR initiative, simply talk to us about our Restart program. 

Our regular customer service and business process outsourcing activities continue as before. However, we believe that with Restart, we are offering a competitively priced service that will benefit you, your customers, and our successful trainees alike. Enquire today for a better tomorrow. 

Read more about Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

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In this article, we will share our experience with methods that reduce customer attrition rates and offer actionable approaches to recovering lost customers. When you tackle challenges like this, your first step is to benchmark where you are now. Let’s begin by explaining how you can calculate your customer attrition rate. 

A Simple Customer Attrition Rate Formula and Alternatives

The formula requires you to begin by measuring your customer base over a given period and then comparing it to a similar period by expressing customers lost as a percentage of your total number of customers. This is easy for businesses with monthly subscription services. 

Others may have to begin by calculating the average period between repeat purchases. For example, if your customers buy from you every three months on average, you should compare three-monthly figures. If your products tend to be most popular at a specific time of year, you may want to compare annual figures. 

Instead of looking at the number of customers, you can look at revenue or you can calculate your current customer lifetime value. However, whatever means of measurement you use, you should be aware that there may be several reasons for your findings. We will explore these shortly.

Customer Attrition Modelling

There are ways to build a mathematical model that allows you to predict churn. Trying to do so manually, while possible, is a gargantuan task, but specialised software may be able to help. Although this approach to monitoring and predicting churn may not suit everyone, it bears mentioning since you can test various scenarios using your model. To build it, you will still need a lot of historical data. As such, it is best suited to subscription services.  

Why Customers Stop Buying: Reasons for Customer Attrition

Your customer attrition analysis will not be complete without discovering why customers stop supporting your business. These may not be obvious, and it may be worth canvassing customers to discover why they are no longer interested in your products or are spending less with your business. 

Reasons for customer attrition include:

• Your product is no longer relevant to former customers: They no longer match your target market. 
• Customers are no longer satisfied with your product or service: Dissatisfied or unhappy customers choose to avoid doing business with you.
• Poor customer experiences: Your customers may feel that your business does not offer enough support, or have had problems with billing or delivery. 
• Poor value perceptions: Customers may have found a cheaper alternative or one they perceive to be better.
• Price increases: Significant price increases may cause customers to seek alternatives or stop using your product. 
• Involuntary churn: Customers may wish to support you, but they are unable to do so. For instance, they may be struggling with their preferred method of payment. 
• Economic factors: Customers can no longer afford your product. This could be because of personal circumstances or economic downturns.

As you can see, uncovering the reasons why your customers stop buying may influence your business strategy. You may decide to redesign products, create new products, adjust your pricing strategy, or change work systems. 

Of course, you may be able to win some of the departing clients back into the fold, but it is also perfectly normal to have a few customers who are simply no longer right for your products. If you are losing customers faster than you gain them, this may signal a need for a closer focus on marketing. 

Finally, there may be cause for concern, indicating a need to take steps to safeguard revenue and profitability, recover customers to maintain business growth, or increase customer satisfaction so that customer retention improves. 

What is the Top Reason for Customer Attrition?

The most important reasons for customer attrition vary from business to business. As a result, research is generally carried out on specific types of industry. For example, the reasons you may choose to abandon your mobile phone provider may differ from the reasons you cancel a software service. 

However, no matter whose information you read, you are sure to notice poor customer service at or near the top of the attrition list. For years, studies have reported that customer service and satisfaction are at an “all-time low.” The last year has shown that we “ain’t seen nothing yet,” as scores plummet ever-lower. 

The Forrester Report measuring US customer experience deterioration notes that “underwhelming digital experiences using chatbots” are partly to blame. Pulling no punches, the report’s authors say that few businesses are “customer-obsessed.” They define this as basing all business activities around customer wants and needs. 

Since customers are what make a business work, it makes sense that customer obsession may be key to reducing customer attrition. This brings us back to the final section of this article: our tips for reducing attrition and bringing old customers back. 

How to Win Your Customers Back: A Practical Guide

All businesses must accept that as time passes, customers can cease to be a good fit for their products. All the same, this should be a relatively small percentage of people. Why are the rest abandoning ship? With online services, asking customers to complete a short exit survey may well uncover reasons for leaving.

Other businesses may have to look further to examine possible reasons for customer attrition, like competitor or substitute offers, changing trends, the economic climate, and so on. Knowing why people leave should help you devise strategies to get them back. However, we can offer some general advice.

Be Proactive About Customer Retention 

Prevent negative experiences by making sure your customers are always able to get good service. Contact customers after purchase to find out whether they are satisfied. Monitor your competitors and offer customers superior solutions or better prices. Monitor and measure workflows so that efficiency is always on point.

Recover lost customers through win-back campaigns

This could take the form of a standard marketing campaign, or you might shoot through some emails, but one of our most successful win-back campaigns involved in-person calling. Virgin Wines tasked us with calling customers who had last purchased between two and six years ago. 

Using this strategy, most people should achieve a conversion rate of around 10 percent, but our team achieved a 25 to 35 percent conversion rate. With the right team to work on the project, you may be able to emulate this. 

Personalised Experiences

We aren’t just talking about automated messages and offers, although these might help. Gaining a perspective on people’s tastes and needs is best done in person, and you can adjust as you go. 

This is one of the strategies we employed in the case study mentioned above. If Mrs Jones prefers Sauvignon Blanc, there is no point in talking to her about Burgundy unless she expresses interest in it. If you can throw in an incentive or two, you may well have a winning recipe. 

Continuous Improvement

In business, one can never rest on one’s laurels. There is always something that can be done better, and your customers can provide valuable intelligence that you can use to keep on improving their experiences. Find ways to offer clients what they want, where and when they want it, and keep getting better at it. 

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and Customer Retention

Many businesses struggle to undertake all the tasks required for effective customer retention. Too often, the focus is on new client acquisition. While this is important, managing customer life cycles so that you can achieve a higher customer lifetime value will benefit business growth and may require less investment. 

At RSVP, we help businesses improve sales and support experiences and offer customer lifecycle management services. From client acquisition to lapse prevention, cancellation saves, and reactivation of old customers, we help you understand your customers better while strengthening their bonds with your business. 

Our team members are masters in the art of communication, and our service is fully scalable. With RSVP, you can build better customer experiences and boost your bottom line at the same time. Talk to us about your customer attrition woes. We may just have the ideal solutions you are looking for.

Read more about the Customer Lifecycle.

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We have good news for you. Your business doesn’t have to be that way, and instead of losing money on an “expense,” customer service could be your pathway to success. We’ve collected inspiring customer service-related quotes that explain just why superb human service is the one thing that could put you miles ahead of your competitors. 

Customer Service is Your Competitive Edge

Customer satisfaction is at an all-time low, and poor service is among customers’ top gripes. Good service, it seems, has become rare enough to make news headlines. Just treating your customers well and going the extra mile when called for could be your top competitive advantage. These quotes about customer service from knowledge leaders reflect this. 

“Goodwill is the only asset that competition cannot undersell or destroy.” (Marshall Field)

“He profits most who serves best.” (Arthur F. Sheldon)

“You’ll never have a product or price advantage again. They can be easily duplicated, but a strong customer service culture can’t be copied.” (Jerry Fritz)

“Customer service will allow you to compete within your respective industry, but truly great customer service will allow you to transcend the industry altogether.” (Than Merrill)

“Customer service is what sets the good companies apart from the bad companies. Think of it as an added value. In today’s competitive industry, everyone can provide the best product, but not great customer service.” (Charles Vallena)

Customer Service is a Strategic Investment, Not a Cost

We’ve always believed this, and it seems plenty of authorities agree. The money you put into customer service may be the best investment in your business you’ve ever made. Let’s hear it through these “I wish I’d said that myself” quotes regarding customer service.

“There are many who subscribe to the convention that service is a business cost, but our data demonstrates that superior service is an investment that can help drive business growth.” (Jim Bush)

“A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all.” (Michael LeBoeuf)

“If you make a sale, you make a living. If you make an investment of time and good service in a customer, you can make a fortune.” (Jim Rohn)

“Customer service is not a cost centre; it’s a revenue generator.” (Micah Solomon)

“What helps people, helps business.” (Leo Burnett)

Customer Retention Through Service Boosts Your Bottom Line

It costs a lot to win a new customer, so it pays to keep them once you have them. The best way to do that is to serve them well and build relationships. According to a Bain & Company study, increasing customer retention by 5 percent can increase profits by as much as 25 percent. These business thinkers say it all.

“When the customer comes first, the customer will last.” (Robert Half)

 “Sales without Customer Service is like stuffing money into a pocket full of holes.” (David Tooman)

“There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.” (Sam Walton)  

“Listen to your customers or you will have none”―Zach Hendrix 

Great Customer Service Turns Customers Into Your Best Salespeople

We all know how important referrals are, and many businesses report that their best business comes in this way. Treat those referred customers well, and you can get a snowball effect at no additional cost. We’re not talking about “referral marketing” here, but about honest-to-goodness and completely sincere recommendations. These quotes about customer service hit the nail on the head. 

“Courteous treatment will make a customer a walking advertisement.” (James Cash Penney) 

“The key is when a customer walks away, thinking, ‘Wow, I love doing business with them, and I want to tell others about the experience.” (Shep Hyken)

“Happy customers are your biggest advocates and can become your most successful sales team.” (Lisa Masiello)

“Referrals are the fingerprints of the great experiences you provide.” (Max Traylor)

“You can focus on adoption, retention, expansion, or advocacy, or you can focus on your customers and get all of those things.” (Lincoln Murphy)

Customer Service Means Listening, And Listening Gives You Strategic Guidance

At RSVP, we provide important business intelligence to our call centre clients simply by listening to their customers. Those who choose to use this intelligence to guide their strategies find new ways to satisfy and even delight their clients. These great customer service quotes underscore just how important listening is.

“The customer tells us how to stay in business, [so it’s] best that we listen.” (Pamela Nelson) 

“Customers often know more about your products than you do. Use them as a source of inspiration and ideas for product development.” (David J. Greer)

The more you engage with customers, the clearer things become and the easier it is to determine what you should be doing.” (John Russell)

“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” (Bill Gates)

“Customers are important; they are the experts on what your product is, when we often get caught up in what our product could or would be” (Cairo Amani)

Customer Service Matters Because Customers Are The Reason Your Business Exists

Customer service is so much more than just making people feel good. It’s key to business survival and business success. We’ll add to our selection of the very best customer service quotes by closing with reminders about who really is the boss: every one of your customers.

“Customer service shouldn’t just be a department, it should be the entire company.” (Tony Hsieh)

“Bottom-line obsession comes from turning the pursuit of money into a God and forgetting the real master your business serves: The Customer.”  (Michael Shevack)

“Every company’s greatest assets are its customers, because without customers, there is no company.” (Michael LeBoeuf)

Customer Service is Human

You can help customers with easy enquiries using automation. If it’s easy for them to find what they want and get what they want, they’ll be mildly pleased. However, only humans can delight, soothe, empathise, or solve that knotty problem your automated systems weren’t quite prepared for. And only humans can make real connections. We’ll close with a pair of recent quotes we believe capture this to perfection.

Stellar service should be non-negotiable, and merchants shouldn’t hide behind self-service tools and technology when it comes to knowing their products and taking care of their customers.” (Lauren Freedman) 

The greatest technology in the world has not replaced the ultimate relationship-building tool between a customer and a business―the human touch.” (Shep Hyken)

How RSVP Helps You Solve The Challenge of Providing Exceptional Customer Service

As you can see from our collection of great customer service quotes, we’re almost religious about customer service, and so we should be. We make it our business to serve customers as if we were the businesses they support. 

We understand that having a scalable number of people available to pick up the phone at a moment’s notice around the clock isn’t possible for most businesses, even big ones. Quality and training matter too. Those callers need to meet with more than enthusiastically helpful voices on the phone. They need people who are willing to empathise, advise, or fill whatever role the caller wants them to play. 

Finally, the people who represent your business must have the technology they need to capture information and relay it in a digestible format so that you can analyse the messages customers are sending out. Where do they struggle? Why do they need help? What are they happy or unhappy about? 

At RSVP, we do all of these things and more. We’re proud of our team, and it may interest you to know that all of them are actors. Who else can sound chipper at 2 AM or project your brand persona as if it were a real, live character?

We don’t just talk the talk. From sales to outsourced customer service and support, we work to produce measurable results. Call our London offices to discuss your customer service needs today.  We’re eager to serve you and your customers.

Read more about Customer Service

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