How to provide better customer support

When speaking about customer support, customer experience immediately comes into mind. An expert on customer behavior told us how to create the best customer experience. 

Nowadays, customers are much better informed than ever before and there are so many products, services or solutions they can choose from. If you don’t offer them what they need and look for, you can easily lose them to competitors.

Maintaining customer loyalty is just as important as attracting new clients. Keeping as many loyal customers as possible is key to the growth and profitability of your business. 

An important step to maintaining clients is customer support service. Did you know that high-quality customer service is an excellent marketing tool? If customers are satisfied with your services because you provide them with high-quality care and exceptional customer experience, they will spread the word. And as you may know, word-of-mouth recommendation can be more effective than any other type of promotion.

However, customer expectations have become more and more demanding. That’s why you should focus on providing complex customer care and let clients decide whether and how to contact you.

Customer service starts with your website or e-commerce – keep your FAQs updated so that customers can easily find the answer they are looking for. If customers can solve their problems on their own, it will boost their confidence and make them happy. But sometimes, clients decide to call you straight away, either because they don’t have the time to look for answers or – and that’s the better case – they had good experience with your customer support in the past, so they don’t hesitate and pick up the phone.

Phone calls remain the most frequently used form of customer service. Furthermore, providing customer service has never been so easy thanks to the deployment of various technologies. If you want to stand out, benefit from all options available by call center software, for example:

• IVR (automated interactive voice response telephone system)
• optional automatic callback if there are too many clients waiting to be put through
• optional selection of preferred agent for each customer
• unique approach to each customer thanks to various integrations
• possibility of free or reduced-rate numbers
• history of past customer interactions displayed in one place

Master Customer Support Skills

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These are just some of the features that will help you create excellent customer experience so that your clients are happy to use your services again and won’t even think about opting for competitors even if they offered cheaper prices. People like companies that use their data to create better customer experience.

You can achieve that only if you focus on the right form of communication with customers. Cooperation between technologies and people is extremely important. When we talk about customer service today, we actually mean customer experience. That’s why we asked Tomáš Vatrt, specialist on behavioral economics working in Mindworx, to give us some tricks to apply when communicating with clients.

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1) What’s the main reason why personalized approach is priceless for customers?

Greeting the caller by their name, being familiar with their past interactions, knowing about the services and products they use.

In a way, we all feel unique and special. Maybe that’s why the most common word in English is I. Businesses abandoned personalized approach by automating their procedures and now it seems that they are trying to reverse the process. Everyone strives for personalization, segmentation and personal approach. People don’t want to be perceived as numbers, they hate generic approach. Calling the customer by name is a cheap trick that will soon be used by everyone. The aim is to make the entire interaction with your company easier and remove the feeling of uncertainty. If you already have all customer information the moment the client makes the call, the caller doesn’t have to provide you with additional details and gladly lets you guide him through the whole problem-solving process.

2) Is it true that if a company establishes a relationship with the customer, it is harder for him to leave for competitors?

Not all businesses know how to create a relationship with the customer. I believe that relationships are created with a specific person or the company’s vision. Sometimes the company has no vision or if it has, it can’t communicate it or nobody can identify with it. For some businesses, it is useless to create a relationship with customers. The aim of businesses is to make our life easier and not to complicate it.

3) How can you even create a relationship with a customer?

Paradoxically, customer loyalty predominantly arises when we solve the client’s problem beyond his expectations. This can increase loyalty by 10 to 30%. 

4) Do customers expect that their issue is solved during the first phone call?

Definitely. DRIFT (Do It Right the First Time) is a principle to follow. Solving the customer’s issue during the first phone call also significantly saves costs (by as much as 50% compared to call back). Why is that? Simply because only approximately 30% of phone calls are answered, so agents often have to try to reach the client three or four times.

5) Are there any best practices to be used for interactions in customer support? 

Each company must analyze their customer journey and continuously improve their customer service. There is only one best practice that is applicable for all businesses – keep on improving. Consulting companies, such as Mindworx, can help you with the rest.

6) In terms of outbound calls, many people abandon the call when they find out who the caller is. Can this be prevented?

Well, if the customer knows the company which is calling him, it is likely that he will give the caller more time. This is called brand awareness. It also helps if you ask the client whether this is a good time for them to talk. It is also very important that the agent does not sound like a robot (sometimes agents are even trained to have the same voice melody) and be natural. John Belford (Wall Street businessman, Wolf of Wall Street was based on his life) gives lectures all over the world about his proven method of sales – Straight Line Sales. In his lectures, he also gives the following advice: “First, you sell yourself, then your company, and only then you can sell the product.” Most agents can’t even accomplish the first step and you rarely get a second chance over the phone.

7) And finally, what’s the must-have if we want to create the best possible customer experience?

Eliminate the feeling of uncertainty and efforts needed to be made by the client. Let’s look at specific call centers. If the customer waits to be connected with an agent for 20-30 seconds, he’s very satisfied. The waiting time should not be longer than two and a half minutes. The first contact person should be able to respond to 95% of questions during the first phone call.

Customers who reach IVR respect three options to choose from. They don’t mind being redirected to another agent if the other agent solves their problem. But that’s not the same as being redirected to another IVR menu – please don’t do that.

Statistical data are taken from TARP surveys.