4 tips for those who during the rotation appeared in the support service

    Learning the science of customer support is like learning any other skill: you learn it in the process. Reading books is certainly helpful; looking at a swimmer and trying to imitate is equally helpful. But if not a drop of water hit your nose, reading books will not save you when you begin to sink.

    Many large companies have a practice where each week a team member sits on the support line and answers the most difficult questions.

    The ability to enter the fray, get to know a better product and understand customer problems is inspiring at first sight. But fear of failure can hold back. We are ready to pick fruits only from the lowest branches of the tree; we bypass the difficult issues that support veterans usually handle easily. But this does not help to acquire the skills and knowledge that are needed to fulfill the responsibilities of support.

    Any lesson is learned in the same way that muscles are built: there is no resistance - there is no growth.

    Whether you're new to support or just want to improve on this, here are some tutorials that come in handy along the way.

    Overcome discomfort
    You click on the letter, you read - the client just left another service and he was interested to see how good your service is - and you immediately returned to the previous page and began to look for another question. Think for a minute. Why did I just ignore the letter? What about the fact that it caused me discomfort? Why didn’t I take up the question enthusiastically?

    In short, you lacked the confidence that comes with experience. And what hinders the acquisition of experience? Fear.

    The more resistance you feel when confronted with a difficult question, the more you need to force yourself to answer it. The feeling of discomfort is natural, what happens depends only on your reaction.

    Jumping with your head in support is scary, because the lines are already built on the line and you do not want to be the person who destroys them. Like a kid jumping into a pool where adults swim, there must be someone watching you.

    So you can ease the discomfort on the support line:

    • Look for all the calls, similar to what came across to you. How did our best agents answer such questions?
    • Browse the knowledge base to find information to help you handle this treatment.
    • Save your answer as a draft.
    • Ask your best agent to see a draft.
    • An experienced employee will look at the answer and add a few comments, give instructions on how to build specific phrases and add useful links for the client.
    • Once again, check everything and boldly and send an answer.

    This “supervision” will help to avoid potential errors. Your experienced colleagues will introduce you to a stranger, and gradually you will learn how to deal with the most difficult cases.

    Play with the university team
    I like the story of Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and her 2% chance of getting a job at Google at the beginning of her career, against the 12 other jobs that she was offered. She recounts The Story of Laura Backman, a story about the daughter of her piano teacher. “Laura made her way into the volleyball team in the first year of high school,” says Mayer. “As a result of the test, she had a difficult choice: a bench in a university team, or start with juniors.” It would be more tempting to play with juniors. Laura chose the opposite. She knew that if she practiced with the best players, she herself would play better.

    The moral of this story is to surround yourself with people who challenge you to learn and grow (which is why Mayer went to Google).

    Deliberately immersed in discomfort while in the tail itself, or just wet your feet - this is not an easy choice. But you need to understand that you will only make a sharp leap through training with the best. Do not try to “just try,” in the end, nothing will come of it. You must dive headlong and deliberately seek discomfort.

    Make a habit of focusing attention
    Remember the saying about hares: doing several things at the same time, you will not do anything.

    If answering letters of support is only part of your debt, it is vital to have a schedule or procedure where your responsibilities are allocated.

    My advice to those who have a crazy schedule: allocate time blocks - perhaps in the morning - and then later in the afternoon, to a fresh mind, when you can completely immerse yourself in work with high priority.

    Inboxes can turn into a kind of black hole where you will be sucked in so quickly that you won’t even notice. It is important to set the right rhythm and learn how to distribute energy during work so as not to lose quality and be attentive to the needs of your customers.

    This is a clear balance: on the one hand, we must do our work and we need time to concentrate; On the other hand, we want to respond to our customers quickly. This skill is honed over time, especially if you are not a support person, learn to support customers. Experiment with your schedule. Do not try to answer all inquiries at once - break into smaller pieces.

    You will find your balance only by losing your balance.

    Clients as a source of insight.
    A person who has no support has many advantages.

    Marketers can empathize and get an idea of ​​customers to improve their achievements; engineers can find out what features or tools need to be fixed. Managers can turn business improvement proposals into a real-life, feedback-based plan; product managers can turn their theories into experiments based on what customers say, and experiments turn into reality.

    Before this recent change, most of your guesses and insights came from books and many other sources - but actually lacked knowledge from the life force of a business: customers. Interaction with customers on the first line will teach you an irreplaceable style of communication that goes beyond the usual business context; You will receive useful ideas that will complement your work, and expand your creativity. Ultimately, you will overcome your fear. All this only thanks to experience in support? You will not regret a minute.

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