Theory: (Digital) Social Skills

4.2. Customer support & Conflict Management

Customer loyalty is nothing more than the result of a correct customer service strategy, which is becoming more and more complicated in a globalised VUCA environment.

3 key aspects to provide an excellent quality and responsive service are:

1.  Personalised advice.
2.  Follow-up of each incident.
3.  Defence of the interests and rights of each client.

These key moments or stages in the resolution of a (potential) conflict must always be supported by communication strategies appropriate to the specific case. To learn more on that:

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Remember that in today’s state of the sector, most of these conflicts might happen online. For instance, via comments on social media corporate profiles and/or forums for tourist recommendations. Therefore, keep vigilance on your business online persona would be really advisable in order to be able to:

a)    Provide answers to customers/collaborator queries online and/or comments on social media. Do bear in mind to respect netiquette!

b)    Build up your business personal brand based on high-quality performance and conflict prevention (i.e., by providing as much information on your product online beforehand, using your social media presence to gather relevant information about clients, etc).

In any case, customer service and the efficient and satisfactory management of possible conflicts is essential to ensure the satisfaction of your company's customers. On that note, a useful tool for measuring the level of customer satisfaction is: CSAT

Ensuring customer satisfaction can, in turn, have repercussions in terms of:

●     Solidifying company/customer relationships, which promotes customer loyalty.

●     One of the major conversion funnels in the tourism sector is word-of-mouth recommendation. This can be through personal recommendations among family and friends, or through positive online reviews and comments. Therefore, a satisfied customer can generate new sales.

●     Customer satisfaction helps you to establish yourself as a benchmark in your local industry. Whether you are a professional or an entrepreneur, this will open new doors for you in the future, e.g. for collaborative processes with others.