Somewhere way back when, I had called a company for phone support and at the end of a very friendly support call, the agent asked “Is there anything else I can help you with?” At the time I remember thinking, “Wow, thanks for asking me that.” I immediately went back to our call center and began requiring that they ask this at the end of support calls.
Fast forward about 8 years and I have heard many, many different arguments for and against this simple phrase from members of our customer service team. Some agents will say it’s awkward, others will say there just isn’t an opportunity to ask and others will use the phrase but it’s more a way of pushing customers off the phone. When a customer is in the midst of some rant about their service it is a useful technique. Oh wait, you’re not supposed to use it with that intent.
As you can see, “Is there anything else I can help you with” is a loaded phrase and the way you use it is so much more powerful than the fact that you used it. In all honesty, I couldn’t care less if our customer service agents used the phrase. I really couldn’t. What I care about it that our agents are giving the customer all of the time that they need to ask questions and work through any problems during that single support encounter. What I care about is that our agents are empowering our customers, making a personal emotional connection and helping them better understand our system so they will be better equipped to solve their own problems. What I care about is that our agents are anticipating problems the customer may have with our system before the customer even has a problem with it.
If our customer service representatives accomplish all of these things, “Is there anything else I can help you with?” is really just the representative saying, “I have given this call my very best effort and after looking at your account, I feel that you should be very satisfied with our service moving forward. I have hit a home run on this call and unless some unforeseen issue arises, you should be a happy customer and you should not have to call support again for a long time but if you do, I’m here and happy to have another opportunity to make your day.”
