Customer Support Secrets - Issue 3

    Customer Support Secrets - Issue 3

    We present to your attention another portion of secrets to improve the quality of support services. In this issue, we’ll talk about customer complaints, quality of answers, and workflow optimization.

    1) Pay due attention to complaints


    Hardly anyone likes to receive complaints from customers. It is much more pleasant to hear words of gratitude and flattering reviews addressed to you. However, the latter are of little use, except for the fact that they amuse our pride.

    Complaints are another matter. Often they are really useful, as they indicate the weaknesses of your product / service. With their help, you move forward and become better, and not rest on your laurels.

    According to statistics, only a small part (from 4% to 10%) of dissatisfied customers turn to support. Therefore, recurring complaints are especially valuable . They indicate a serious problem and the need to take action promptly.

    Complaints are more difficult to handle than regular support calls, because they initially have a negative connotation. Nonetheless,unsatisfied customer can be saved . Practice shows that most customers are willing to continue to use the services of the company if it successfully copes with the first complaint .

    To keep a dissatisfied customer, follow a simple sequence of actions:


    2) Shift focus from speed to quality of answers


    Many companies, urging employees to respond more quickly to customers, forget about the quality of support. If monthly bonuses depend on the speed of responses, then it gets even worse. In such conditions, employees work for the sake of statistics and think less about how thorough their answers are.

    For example, we often faced situations when experienced supportors took many simple applications to increase the total number of processed calls. As a result, novice support staff had to deal with more complex issues, making many mistakes.

    Customers like quick answers, but they value their quality more . If there is a problem, in most cases the client will prefer a slightly deferred full-fledged solution than a superficial, but quick reaction of the employee.

    The time that a client can wait to receive an exhaustive answer varies depending on the priority of the appeal, but the principle itself is true both for emergency situations and for ordinary questions.

    Review your company's support priorities. Report to employees that it is the quality of the answers that should be put at the forefront .

    3) Streamline your workflow


    Chasing speed at the expense of quality makes no sense. At the same time, measures should be taken to optimize the workflow regularly. If you can reduce the time to perform repetitive actions, be sure to use it.

    Automate and simplify routine things. A good help in this can be both third-party tools and our service . Here are some suggestions.

    a. When communicating with clients in the adjacent tab, always keep the project management service open . So you can quickly set a new task and monitor the progress of others.

    b. Use templates more often . Not so much as ready-made answers, but to reduce the number of actions when processing calls.

    For example, with the help of one template you can: answer the client, change the group, appoint another employee as responsible and send him a notification. All this is done in a couple of clicks.

    in. Use text auto-replace programs like TextExpander or Punto Switcher .

    In a sense, such software is an analogue of templates, but it cannot replace them, since it only works with text. Change the parameters of the appeal or send notifications with it will not work.

    We use these programs to quickly write frequently used words and phrases. For example: the abbreviation "Zd" turns into "Hello,", "pozh" - into "please," and "demoo"- a link to a page for planning a demonstration of the service.

    In the last abbreviation, it is no coincidence that two letters “o” are indicated. The word "demo" can be used in the text as an independent. Therefore, to prevent the program from working after writing it, another letter “o” is added. We came up with this option for reduction ourselves; you will most likely dwell on another.

    PS Check out the previous issues - issue number 1 and issue number 2 .

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