Customer Support Secrets - Issue # 3

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

1) Pay due attention to complaints

Hardly anyone likes to receive complaints from customers. Where it is more pleasant to hear words of gratitude and flattering reviews to your address However, there is little confusion from the latter, except for the fact that they amuse our vanity.
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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 do not rest on your laurels.

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

Complaints are more difficult to handle than regular customer support calls, because they initially carry a negative connotation. However, an unsatisfied customer can save . 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 disgruntled customer follow a simple sequence of actions:

• Understand the situation and take it under control;
• Acknowledge the problem;
• Direct communication in a positive direction ;
• Solve the problem and make sure the customer is satisfied.

2) Shift focus from speed to response quality

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

For example, we have repeatedly encountered situations where experienced supportrs took a lot of simple applications to increase the total number of processed requests. As a result, novice support staff had to deal with more complex issues, allowing a lot of mistakes.

Customers like quick answers, but they value their quality more . If a problem arises, in most cases the client will prefer a slightly delayed full-fledged solution rather than a superficial, but quick employee response.

The time that a client can wait to receive a comprehensive answer varies depending on the priority of the request, but the principle itself is valid for emergency situations as well as for ordinary questions.

Redefine your company's support priorities. Tell employees that the quality of the answers should be at the forefront .

3) Optimize workflow

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

Automate and simplify routine stuff. Both third-party tools and our service can be a good help in this. Here are some tips.

but. 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 implementation of others.

b. Use templates frequently . Not so much in the form of ready-made answers, but to reduce the number of actions in processing appeals.

For example, using one template, you can: respond to a client, change a group, designate another employee as responsible and send him a notification. All this is done in a couple of clicks.

at. Use text replacement programs like TextExpander or Punto Switcher .

In a sense, such software is an analogue of templates, but it cannot replace them, as it works only with text. Change the parameters of treatment 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,”, “AM” - into “please,” and “demo” into a link to the page for planning the demonstration of the service.

In the last abbreviation, it is not by chance that the two letters “o” are indicated. The word "demo" can be used in the text as an independent. Therefore, so that the program does not work after it is written, another letter “o” is added. We came up with this option of reduction ourselves, you will most likely stop on another one.

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