We’ve all had bad customer support experiences. We know what they feel like. But, believe it or not, it’s not like the decision-maker experiences go out of their way to make it tortuous. At least, not in most cases. But they may very well be making some of the following mistakes that ensure they definitely won’t be supportive, at the very least.
Train your team
Simply put, if your idea of training is giving your support staff a script to work from, they are invariably going to have to delay and find outside help when something unscripted appears. Instead, it pays to create a full onboarding system that teaches them how to better support customers, such as how to solve common problems, resources they can rely on when improvisation is needed, and more.
Let them help themselves
Believe it or not, there are plenty of customers who would if possible, rather not get in touch with your team. You can empower them while giving your team less on their plate by publishing customer guides. This is especially valuable for any technical product, such as software, tools, and the like. You can update this guide with both new tips found by your team as well as opening up a way for customers to submit their own.
Make it easy to find
There are some businesses that seem to intentionally obfuscate their customer support channels. Even if you would prefer customers use your guides to help themselves, you should make sure that your contact details are placed front and center so that they don’t have to click, scroll, and click some more just to get a little help. If you want to make it as accessible as possible, consider pop-up chat support.
Don’t make it costly
Aside from making yourself accessible, you should ensure that the customer doesn’t have to foot the bill if they want to get in touch with you. If you promote calling as a form of customer support, then it should be understood that you have a toll free phone number with which they can call. Otherwise, you shouldn’t offer a phone number at all. You don’t want your customers getting stung by their phone bill and associating it with your brand.
Allow for improvisation
Some customers aren’t used to going through the website, or even calling on the phone, for the support that they need. There may be other channels that they’re used to doing it on, such as social media. Allowing your social media to be used as a support channel can help streamline the process for a lot of customers. Instead of redirecting them or turning them away, integrate social media into support and you can make it a lot more accessible.
To ensure that your customer support processes aren’t forms of torture, it’s important to put yourself and others in the shoes of the customer. Test it vigorously, both before you launch it and after, to make sure that you’re at least aware of what to do next to improve it.
