5 Steps To Providing Good Customer Service! | #customersupport #supporticket

This week is Customer Service Week – an international celebration of the importance of customer service and of the people who serve and support customers on a daily basis.

At TeamSupport, we honor our employees who work hard every day to ensure that our customers have a smooth, easy customer service experience. However, getting our organization to run like a well-oiled customer service machine didn’t happen overnight. 

Here are our 5 steps to creating a truly customer-first team.

Step #1

Know Your Customer

Maybe you know your customer’s name, their location, their company size, and so on, but to truly know your customer you’ll need to dig deeper. 

When a customer feels that you use every touchpoint to help them advance in their business goals, you become more than a vendor – you become a partner.

Tickets in the B2B industry are touch points in customer relationships. Assign the ticket to an agent who’s familiar with their account and let them suggest the right course of action. Build upon the relationship every time you speak and watch as customers become raving fans.

Step #2

Maintain A Positive Attitude

Attitude is everything. A positive attitude can go a long way in providing good support. Since most interactions are not face-to-face, your positive attitude should be apparent in your language and tone.

The TeamSupport VP of Marketing says, “not only can a smile be ‘heard’ over the phone, but science tells us it unconsciously triggers the other person to smile back. This is especially good advice when dealing with an unhappy customer or a challenging issue. Getting the interaction off on the right foot reframes the context and fosters collaboration.” 

The right attitude can change a negative customer experience into a positive customer experience.

Be especially careful with written communication such as live chat or email. Since tone and body language are missing from this form of communication, the wrong dialogue choices can unintentionally come across as cold. 

Step #3

Resolve Issues Quickly

Showing customers that you value their time is the most important thing in any online customer experience. Resolving customer queries as quickly as possible is a cornerstone of good customer service. Speed should be of the essence – especially for smaller issues that don’t take much time to solve.

However, great customer service beats speed every time.

Customers understand that more complex queries take time to resolve. There’s a difference between the time it takes you to respond and the speed at which you resolve their problems. Customers don’t want to languish in a ticket queue, but they’ll spend as much time as it takes to resolve their issue. You should, too.

Step #4

Provide Proactive Support

Going the extra mile is one of the most important things you can do to deliver great customer service. This is when you have ticked all the boxes, yet you still do more.

Sometimes being helpful means anticipating your customers’ needs before they even have to articulate them. In fact, sometimes customers may ask for one thing without realizing that they really need another. It’s your job to anticipate their needs and provide for them.

When customers feel you value them – like they’re truly special to you – they’ll keep coming back. This is critical in SaaS, because as we know, “we have to earn our customers’ business every single day.” – TeamSupport CEO Pete Khanna

Tip #5

Focus On The Customer, Not The Ticket

Your customers are the most integral part of your business, and they come before products or profits. Treat them like they are the center of your world – they are. Talk to customers like people, resolve their issues urgently and get to understand their business goals and then align them with yours. When you know and support your customers, you can provide great customer service.