What is Customer Care? (and how it can help your business)

You’ve heard of customer care before.

And how important it can be for your business.

But, what even is customer care? And how is it different from customer service?

Today, we’ll define customer care and break down how it differs from other terms.

What is Customer Care?

Customer Care refers to interactions between a business and its customers that seek to build trust and create an emotional connection between the customer and the brand.

You can see Customer Care as the strategy that seeks to go the extra mile and not only make the customer interactions pleasant but outstanding.

This involves the use of active listening when dealing with clients and being able to implement custom solutions rather than one-size-fits-all solutions for all customers.

Customer Care Examples

So what’s an example of customer care? Let’s tie it back to a real-life experience.

Not too long ago, I used to work near a local Chinese take-out restaurant. On Fridays, I would forgo bringing lunch from home and hit up the restaurant for their lunch combo of 3 items + a drink.

After a couple of weeks, the owner of the restaurant started recognizing me as a regular. As a result, he would often give me an extra serving or additional item at no charge.

This was something that no other restaurant in the area would ever do.

The obvious result of this was that I ended up going to their restaurant exclusively every Friday.

While working on a street full of all kinds of different restaurants, I kept going back to the Chinese take-out place because of how they took care of me.

That’s the result of implementing a customer care strategy in your business.

What about Customer Service?

So how does Customer Care differ from customer service?

Let’s go back to the example we just went over. In that situation, did every other restaurant in the area not deliver customer service? No, they all did.

After all, Customer Service focuses on making the interactions between the business and the customer as pleasant as possible.

But sometimes, you need more to differentiate yourself from competitors.

Look at it this way, Customer Care is the type of Customer Service strategy that pushes your efforts to provide more value to your customers and create an emotional bond and stronger loyalty. It’s going the extra mile.

Closing Thoughts

How you implement a customer care strategy is up to your business.

The way a restaurant does customer care will be different to how an e-commerce business does it.

At the end of the day, your goal should be to make your customers feel like they are being taken care of.

How will you implement this strategy?