How much importance should a business accord to customer service vis-a-vis product quality and price? According to a survey published by the consulting firm Walker, customer satisfaction would become the key brand differentiator – ahead of product and price – by 2020. Thanks to social media and the ability for customers to broadcast their happiness and disappointments, businesses are under immense pressure to service their customers. The typical “2-4 business days” turnaround time may not cut with the modern customer any more.
As a business owner, it then becomes critical to identify ways to build a fast and efficient customer support system that not only helps the customer fix their concerns, but does it fast and efficiently. Here are some ways to achieve this.
Creating A 24×7 Customer Support System
Round-the-clock customer support teams are a norm in a lot of organizations. But in reality, they exist for name-sake alone. Customers seeking support during the under-staffed graveyard shifts often have to deal with lengthy waiting times and sometimes an inexperienced support staff. One way to do it is through an integrated global customer support system that will be staffed with knowledgeable workers throughout the day to service customer queries. Klaus Hjorth, the head of Global R&D at Kontron, an embedded computing technology provider, narrates a real-life instance where a critical issue reported by one of their customers was handled by their service teams in Germany and North America during different work-shifts in order to bring speedy resolution to the customer.
Offering Live-Chat Support
Voice based customer service calls can sometimes be pretty resource-intensive. For instance, a customer who wants to know the different payment plans provided by your business just needs to be directed to your web-page containing this information. A voice-based customer support system will however require lengthy waiting times and the support executive elaborating on the various plans – what should typically take a couple of minutes to answer on chat often takes up a lot more on customer calls. Also, chat-based support systems are easy to use and give a more intimate experience compared to the alternatives.
Build A Sophisticated Knowledge Bank
Almost all concerns that a customer has can be templatized into a knowledge bank. However, the trick is in effectively utilizing this knowledge to solve future customer concerns. Create automated systems that can effectively identify the exact customer concerns and direct them to the relevant pages on the knowledgebank instead of waiting for a real human to look up and answer these questions. Automating not only makes customer service more efficient, but also makes it instant and is thus great experience for the customer.
Customer service can be make or break for a business and as several companies are finding out, timely resolution is not only important to keep the particular customer happy, but can also impact their business reputation and future loyalty of customers. By automating and creating fast systems, companies can ensure they can continue to nurture happy customers for their business.
