Really, really good customer service is … a matter of perspective. If you ask your customers, you’ll get different answers as to what constitutes top-notch service than you would from management – and your support team will prioritise different things again. So is it all a matter of opinion? (Spoiler alert: No.)
To complicate matters further: individual measures to improve customer service achieve little on their own if they do not work together and complement one another as part of a customer service strategy, even tomorrow.
In this post, we aim to shed some light on the matter – starting with the question of what good customer service actually means and for whom, and ending with how 6 very specific steps can give you a real boost on your way to delivering top-notch service.
Really good customer service: the customer view
What customer service can do wrong, of which countless anecdotes report up and down the country. But what do customers really value on the other hand – speed, goodwill, humanity, competence? We have informed ourselves:
- 80% of customers view customer support purely as a means of completing a transaction. The best approach in their mind is to resolve the issue quickly, easily and on the first contact – 90% cite problem-solving as their top priority. However, a third of customers are in no hurry: for them, it doesn’t matter how long the conversation ultimately takes, as long as the issue is resolved straight away.
- Expertise is also highly valued: Genesys found that just under 70% value knowledgeable staff, whereas only half of customers consider a quick response to be the most important factor.
- When companies lose customers, it is often over minor issues: Rudeness (23%) and error (21%) rank just behind a lower price (34%) as the most common reasons for switching – and thus ahead of a lack of speed or self-service options.
- The figures also show that empathy is more than just a nice-to-have: only 34% of customers say they consistently feel treated with empathy when contacting customer service. Yet empathetic conversations have been proven to reduce escalations, shorten call times and strengthen customer loyalty.
So customers simply want their problem sorted out – by someone who knows what they’re doing and who listens to them. Improving customer service couldn’t be easier: all you have to do is staff your support team with hordes of wonderful, highly trained staff who have plenty of leeway to be accommodating. Done and dusted, next question!
Strange, does the post go on…?
Improving customer service: the business perspective
For businesses, happy customers are usually not the only priority; the overall package – including the financials – has to be right, and customer service must be strategically integrated into the company’s objectives. As many as 37% of business leaders cite cost reduction as their top priority in customer service – and that is entirely legitimate: a low-cost airline, for example, which focuses on maximum efficiency, must first and foremost keep prices low; ultimately, that is what customers want too.
At the other end of the spectrum are companies that view service as a key differentiator and want (or need) to use it to stand out from the competition. And this pays off just as much: according to Forrester, organisations that consistently prioritise customer experience grow 49% faster and retain customers 51% more effectively than their competitors.
And what about AI?* It can be found at both ends of the spectrum: for companies prioritising efficiency, AI significantly reduces the cost per enquiry – response times drop by up to 74% in the first year. For companies prioritising differentiation, AI frees up resources by handling background or routine tasks, allowing staff to focus on cases where human support really matters.
Whether customer service should be particularly customer-friendly, maximally efficient, or somewhere in the middle – the key is for companies to set strategic goals that make sense for them individually and then ensure that all measures contribute to achieving them.
* AI, a perennial topic of discussion, is as vast as it is complex, ranging from hastily purchased solutions that nobody needs (and which contribute to the fact that around 60% of AI projects currently fail) to genuine drivers of efficiency. When we talk about AI here, we are basing our approach on how we use it: the meaningful, tailored application of established tools, in conjunction with data preparation, automation and integration.
And what about the support team?
The third perspective is often overlooked: that of the people who provide customer service on a daily basis. There are several reasons why this is not advisable:
- Burnout among customer service teams reached a peak of 66% in 2025.
- Staff turnover in contact centres ranges from 26% to 85% – the industry average for other sectors is 15%.
- Replacing a single agent costs around $10,000 on average, not to mention the loss of accumulated knowledge.
And here we are back at the business perspective again – unhappy employees simply cost the company money! An overworked, burnt-out team also makes more mistakes, is less productive and, due to sheer stress, simply cannot sustain the empathy that customers expect – this is where the team’s perspective and that of the customers converge.
So, if you want to improve your customer service, you also need to consider the conditions under which your team works. We believe that: Only a strong and satisfied team can deliver truly excellent work in the long run.
These measures will improve your customer service
Although every customer service team is different, having handled around 1,000 support projects, we are familiar with the standard issues and can recommend these six steps to most teams that are struggling:
1. Turn the first contact into the final contact
First Contact Resolution – that is, resolving a problem on the first point of contact – is arguably THE single strongest driver of customer loyalty.
What this requires:
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clear routing, so that enquiries are directed to the right contact person from the outset;
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Knowledge management, so that agents can access all relevant information during a conversation; and
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sufficient discretion so that they do not have to escalate every exception.
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AI also plays a direct role here: AI agents, for example, handle standard enquiries entirely and around the clock.
All of this structurally increases the FCR without expanding the team.
At ISGUS, following the introduction of Zendesk with its Help Centre and structured workflows, we achieved a one-touch resolution rate of 72.6% – 36% of tickets were resolved in under five hours, and the overall ticket volume fell significantly.
2. Build up professional expertise
Knowledgeable staff are the most important factor in customer service for 69% of German customers – more important than speed. The Customer Service Barometer 2024 confirms this: 78% of respondents cite knowledgeable staff as a key factor.
Professional expertise requires structured onboarding, a well-maintained knowledge base that agents actually use in their day-to-day work, and regular professional development – particularly when products, processes or systems change.
An AI co-pilot can support, simplify and speed up this process: it suggests appropriate responses to agents in real time, draws context from the customer’s history and helps with phrasing – even if an agent hasn’t yet fully grasped a topic. New team members become productive more quickly, whilst experienced ones make fewer mistakes.
3. Give the team space to listen
Only 34% of customers say they consistently feel treated with empathy when dealing with customer service. This highlights a significant gap between what customers expect and what they actually experience.
Communicating with empathy means making the customer feel that they are being listened to. Conversations conducted with empathy reduce escalations, shorten the duration of the conversation and, incidentally, leave a positive impression even if the problem could not be fully resolved!
4. Stay consistent
83% of customers are more loyal to companies that maintain consistency across all touchpoints. Inconsistent responses – depending on which agent replies or which channel the contact is made through – erode trust more quickly than almost any other mistake.
Consistency is achieved through streamlined processes, seamless system integration and, above all, clear documentation. AI can also play a role here: AI features can draft or refine responses themselves, always maintaining consistent quality and adhering to the brand’s tone, regardless of stress levels or how someone is feeling on a particular day. And automation ensures that data remains consistent across systems.
5. Make it easy for customers
Customers don’t want to have to go to any trouble. 29% explicitly cite it as a positive experience when an agent can make a decision without consulting a manager. Every additional transfer, every repetition of the problem, every extra step makes things harder for customers, which reduces loyalty.
This applies to the design of processes (how many steps does a standard solution require?), the choice of channel (is self-service available where customers would look for it?), and the distribution of responsibilities within the team (who is authorised to make which decisions?). Self-service in particular, for example in the form of a customer portal, is a key lever here, often resolving enquiries without customers having to contact support.
6. Measure what matters
Anyone looking to improve their customer service needs meaningful metrics that actually show whether things are improving. First-contact resolution, escalation rates and cost per enquiry provide a better indication of how well the service is performing than response time alone. 92% of customers say that service quality determines whether they will buy again – this can be measured and managed if the right KPIs are in place.
So where are you off to?
Each of these six measures makes sense in its own right – but only you can set your priorities. And to do that, you need a clear direction and strategy, as well as answers to questions such as what role customer service should play within the company, what its objectives are, and what progress looks like. (Incidentally, our Maturity Check will show you where your service currently stands in about five minutes.)
If you’d like to find out more, we highly recommend our Clarity Workshop! And for anything else, just get in touch with us directly.
