Even though customer service is one of the key factors that determines whether customers stay loyal to a brand, even the most established companies fall into common traps, negatively impacting the customer experience.
That’s why we asked Pierre Bauzee, Founder of Beyond Satisfaction, to explore the top 10 most common customer service mistakes and quality issues, why they happen, and the key skills your people need to have to prevent them.
The Top 10 Most Common Customer Service Mistakes
1. Failing to Actively Listen to Customers
How It Affects Customers
In the rush to solve problems quickly, customer service representatives often focus on the solution rather than fully understanding the problem.
A lack of training in active listening skills can make the customer feel ignored or misunderstood – even though the team member is listening.
When customers sense that they are not truly being listened to, they feel undervalued. This often leads to frustrations and, in some cases, escalated complaints or difficult clients to deal with.
How to Prevent It
Here are some practical steps that can help customers feel listened to:
- Train your team to use active listening techniques such as paraphrasing, maintaining eye contact (or verbal equivalents for phone conversations) and asking open questions.
- Encourage representatives to repeat back the customer’s concern to confirm understanding before offering a resolution.
- Make “listening first” a core part of your company culture by regularly emphasizing its importance in training sessions.
For advice on teaching your agents valuable listening skills, read our article: How to Train Active Listening in the Call Centre – With Exercises
2. Providing Inconsistent Information
How It Affects Customers
This occurs when policies, processes or product knowledge are not clearly defined or communicated within the company. Staff members may interpret information differently, leading to contradictory answers and lack of consistency on the overall communication.
Receiving conflicting information can confuse and frustrate customers, reducing their trust in your company and its people. This is especially damaging when customers must interact with multiple departments.
How to Prevent It
Here are some ideas to help your teams provide more consistent information to customers, no matter who they are speaking to:
- Create a centralized knowledge base that all team members can access. This ensures everyone operates from the same set of up-to-date policies and procedures.
- Regularly train and update employees on changes to policies, product details and internal tools.
- Establish internal communication processes to ensure updates are distributed quickly, consistently and accurately.
3. Overpromising and Underdelivering
How It Affects Customers
The desire to please customers (or simply close a sale) often leads team members to make promises that can’t realistically be kept. This is exacerbated by unclear boundaries or a lack of clear guidelines.
Broken promises leave customers disappointed and distrustful, which is damaging to the relationship or, even worse, leads to them to a competitor.
How to Prevent It
Here are some ways to make sure every agent can keep their promises:
- Train your team to set realistic expectations and communicate transparently about what your business can and cannot deliver.
- Use the “no-why-but” approach to reframe negative responses constructively. For instance, “Unfortunately, we can’t do that because [reason], but we can offer [alternative]”.
4. Ignoring Customers’ Feedback
How It Affects Customers
Many businesses fail to prioritize feedback collection or treat feedback as a “nice-to-have” rather than a key tool and focus for continuous improvement.
Often, feedback systems are poorly implemented, and team members not trained on it, making it difficult to analyse or act on the information provided.
When customers feel their input isn’t valued, they are less likely to continue engaging with your
business. This can result in lost loyalty and missed opportunities to address recurring issues.
How to Prevent It
Here are some ways to make sure all of your customer feedback is captured and properly analysed to drive improvements:
- Actively solicit feedback through multiple channels, such as surveys and reviews, but also through direct conversations (your people have a huge power in that!).
- Assign responsibility to a dedicated team or individual to analyse feedback trends and identify areas for improvement.
- Do something from it! Improve internally and communicate changes made based on feedback to demonstrate that you value customer input.
If you are looking for ways to improve your feedback strategy, read our article: Customer Service Feedback: How to Perfect Your Strategy
5. Viewing Complaints as a Burden (Instead of an Opportunity)
How It Affects Customers
Complaints are often viewed as a burden rather than an opportunity to improve. Some team
members lack the basic understanding to manage complaints effectively, leading to defensive or dismissive behaviour.
When complaints are handled poorly, they escalate quickly, leaving customers feeling unheard and frustrated. This can harm your reputation and reduce loyalty.
How to Prevent It
Here are some ways to help your team see complaints as an opportunity – instead of a burden:
- Train your team to approach complaints with a problem-solving mindset. Focus on empathy and active listening before jumping to solutions.
- Get your people to view complaints as an opportunity to strengthen the relationship by addressing the customer’s pain points.
- Develop a structured complaints-handling process that includes clear escalation paths for unresolved issues and constant communication with clients.
6. Avoiding Communicating Bad News
How It Affects Customers
Many businesses and team members in general avoid proactively communicating bad news, hoping to resolve the issue before customers notice.
Customers feel left in the dark when delays or issues arise, leading to frustration and a perception that the company doesn’t care about their concerns.
How to Prevent It
Here are a few ways to do this:
- Be proactive! Communicate delays or issues as soon as possible, even if you don’t yet have all the answers.
- Make sure you do exactly the same when it comes to giving updates to your clients even though there is no delay!
- Offer apologies and alternative solutions, such as discounts or refunds where appropriate.
For best practice tips to help agents deliver bad news in customer service, read our article: How to Deliver Bad News in Customer Service
7. Failing to Empower Frontline Staff
How It Affects Customers
It all starts with your people, but some leaders overlook this.
Only with happy, trained and well-managed employees can you deliver exceptional customer service.
When employees lack the authority to resolve issues independently, they must escalate even simple problems, which creates delays and frustration for customers.
Long wait times for resolutions make customers feel unimportant and can lead to a decrease of trust in your business.
How to Prevent It
Here are some ways to make your agents more empowered:
- Give your team decision-making authority for common customer concerns.
- Train and equip your employees with the tools and resources they need to deliver an exceptional experience.
- Recognize and reward your people accordingly.
For advice on employee empowerment in the contact centre, read our article: What Does Employee Empowerment REALLY Mean?
8. Lack of Personalization
How It Affects Customers
From using generic scripts to “robotic” approaches, missing that personalized touch can make
customer interactions feel uncaring.
This often leads to unhappy and challenging customers, as they do not trust you enough in caring for them to not behave in that way!
Customers feel like just another number rather than valued individuals, which can reduce satisfaction and loyalty.
How to Prevent It
Here are some ways to create more personalized customer experiences:
- Train staff to adapt their approach based on the customer’s unique needs and personality.
- Highlight the importance of the extra mile in making the difference on so many occasions.
To learn the key steps to a more personalized customer experience, read our article: 21 Steps to a More Personalized Customer Experience
9. Not Setting Clear Boundaries With Customers
How It Affects Customers
Probably the most important topic! It is all about expectations management, which is key to getting the client on the right track.
For instance, the fear of upsetting customers often leads businesses to agree to unreasonable demands, creating stress for employees and setting unsustainable expectations moving forward.
When businesses fail to deliver on unrealistic promises or let clients take things for granted when they shouldn’t, customers feel let down and become difficult, even if (especially if) their initial expectations were unreasonable.
How to Prevent It
Here are some top tips on better managing customer expectations:
- Focus on the 5 key expectations you want to get right for every customer.
- Train your team on the importance of clear boundaries and how to communicate them effectively.
- Use the “no-why-but” approach to say no constructively while offering alternatives.
10. Neglecting the Customer Journey
How It Affects Customers
Businesses often focus on individual interactions rather than considering the customer’s entire
journey. This narrow-minded approach can leave huge gaps in service, leading to dissatisfaction.
Inconsistent experiences across touchpoints can confuse customers and lead to dissatisfaction, even if individual interactions are positive.
How to Prevent It
Here are some ways to bring the customer journey front and centre of your day-to-day operation:
- Map out the entire customer journey, from initial contact to post-sales support so you can identify and address potential pain points.
- Ensure consistency across all touchpoints by aligning your processes and internal/external communication.
- Use customer feedback and journey mapping to regularly update and improve your workflows.
If you are looking to improve your customer journey mapping, read our article: How to Improve Your Customer Journey Mapping
Preparation, Consistency and a Commitment to Continuous Improvement
Delivering exceptional customer service requires more than just good intention: it also requires preparation, consistency and a commitment to continuous improvement.
By addressing these 10 common mistakes and implementing the actions to prevent each one, you can really create a customer service experience that sets your business apart from competitors.
Written by: Pierre Bauzee, Founder of Beyond Satisfaction
If you are looking for more great insights to help you improve your customer service, read these articles next:
- Get Started With Proactive Customer Service
- A Quick Guide to CX Audits
- Stop Doing These Stupid Things to Your Customers
Author: Pierre Bauzee
Reviewed by: Xander Freeman
Published On: 6th Jan 2025
Read more about - Customer Service Strategy, Customer Service, CX, Empowering Agents, Feedback, Listening, Personalization, Pierre Bauzee, Top Story
