It doesn’t matter how great your product is: If your customer service is poor, people will complain about it, and you’ll lose customers.

The good news: It’s not impossible to turn things around. Transforming your customer service from mediocre to great won’t happen overnight, though. It requires a serious commitment to meaningful change, a team of rockstar support professionals, and work across the entire organization.

What is customer service?

Customer service is the act of providing support to both prospective and existing customers. Customer service professionals commonly answer customer questions through in-person, phone, email, chat, and social media interactions and may also be responsible for creating documentation for self-service support.

Organizations can also create their own definitions of customer service depending on their customer service philosophies and the type of support they want to provide. For example, at Help Scout, we define customer service as the act of providing timely, empathetic help that keeps customers’ needs at the forefront of every interaction.

Why is customer service important?

When 86% of customers quit doing business with a company due to a bad experience, it means that businesses must approach every support interaction as an opportunity to acquire, retain, or up-sell.

Good customer service is a revenue generator. It gives customers a complete, cohesive experience that aligns with an organization’s purpose.

According to a variety of studies, U.S. companies lose more than $62 billion annually due to poor customer service, and seven out of 10 consumers say they’ve spent more money to do business with a company that delivers great service.

Understanding that customer service is the cornerstone of your customer experience helps you leverage it as an opportunity to delight customers and engage them in new, exciting ways.