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Good customer support establishes trust and a lasting relationship with your customers. It transcends the relationship from a purely transactional one to a stronger bond of loyalty. Customer loyalty is a great pedestal for growing your business. Research has proved that acquiring new customers is 8-10 times more expensive than retaining old ones. High-quality customer support is a fantastic way of hooking on to old customers and keeping them anchored to your brand.
Businesses get revenue from both existing and new customers. A satisfied customer is a guaranteed source of future revenue and possibly free brand endorsement by word of mouth. Nothing builds trust in a brand as a great customer review for a product on a website or social media that ropes in new customers by the herd. On the other hand, poor customer loyalty costs you in terms of high marketing costs to acquire new customers. Customer loyalty significantly drives up your market share and potentially opens the doors to competitive advantage.
Customers have become significantly more powerful with increased buying power and information abundance. The internet makes it easy to gain and lose customers rapidly. Companies are having a hard time facing off competition and finding opportunities for business growth. So how can your business deliver excellent customer support that enhances your brand image? Many success stories provide pointers to guide your journey. Let’s explore a few here:
Listening to your customer
Listening to your customers is most crucial in delivering excellent customer support. Being a great listener helps you understand the problem thoroughly to deliver exactly what the customer needs. While it sounds easy, the human brain plays tricks when taking in external information by applying a filter that could drastically modify the intent behind the message. This is commonly known as the communication gap in the business world. In the world of customer support, a communication gap is almost fatal to your business.
Being aware of the perception filters makes a person an active listener who bridges those gaps. Paying attention to the issue reported by the customer helps you avoid mistakes in resolving the problem at hand. Empathizing with the customer and asking questions is an important aspect of the interaction. The customers get a sense of your prowess in resolving their queries from the nature of customer engagement you offer them. Respect and subtle nuances of tonality are vital when communicating with customers to build trust. Listening attentively to a person shows respect and their importance, and everyone likes to feel important.
Speed is of the essence!
Speed plays a huge role in customer happiness. A service delayed is a service denied! Customers expect a fast resolution of their complaints in the first interaction with your customer support. Any uncertain delays in response or call transfers between different desks cause customer dissatisfaction. A speedy resolution of the customer's ticket, on the other hand, puts your brand at the top of the customer loyalty stack. It shows that you are on the top of your game and know what you are doing.
So, what can you do to improve speed? Doing anything fast requires prior knowledge and data at your fingertips. Implementing a comprehensive helpdesk solution with knowledge management capabilities can boost your customer service speed and quality. The system should be simple to use and record historical information in an easily retrievable format to pull quickly. Machine learning algorithms munch data and come out with recommendations to help agents close the customer ticket expeditiously. Data from sources like customer feedback forms are great candidates to drive improvement projects for the organization. Common issues are best addressed by means of having FAQs and tutorials on your website that help customers solve their issues themselves. Leverage technology to speed things up and watch your CSAT scores soar to new highs.
Deliver on your promises
Nothing breaks trust like a broken promise! Your agents may not resolve every customer ticket in the first interaction. However, keeping the resolution timeframe open-ended is the worst thing you could do. You must provide an appropriate timeline to resolve the problem. The timeframe should be practical and as tight as possible to avoid customer displeasure. Data driven timelines based on historical transaction records can guide your decisions here.
Promise what you can deliver and make sure you meet the deadlines. Close the ticket by following up on the query resolution with a quick call to the customer to check whether the ticket resolution was to their satisfaction. Checking up on customers gives customer service a personal touch that resonates with customers and makes them feel safe. A ticket is an opportunity to interact closely with your customers, and closing the interaction on a high note creates a lasting impression on the customers' minds.
Collect customer feedback
No process is complete without a 360-degree feedback mechanism, and the same goes for customer support. Feedback helps you understand the problem areas that need your attention before things get out of control. Collecting customer feedback also implies that you are a proactive business committed to continuous improvement. Customer feedback can be recorded in simple steps by most helpdesk applications with wonderful analytical capabilities to derive insights from the data.
Customer feedback can point to common problems across several feedbacks that may be pointing to real issues that you can address to improve customer loyalty in the long run. Customer feedback can guide product improvements, service improvements, and many other business decisions. It is vital to collect customer feedback and also act on the insights derived from them for progress. Collecting customer feedback is the easiest way to become a customer-centric business.
A few final words
Delivering excellent customer support is important in creating a stellar customer experience. Customers are no longer buying products as a one-time transaction. Customers want a wonderful experience from initial engagement before sale to after-sales support. Customers have significant buying power that makes it imperative for you to deliver. Companies are responding by increasingly becoming customer-centric in their approach.
At Wolken, we are committed to helping our clients deliver fabulous customer experiences and support through our products. We have helped several leading brands enhance their customer journeys through our innovation and expertise. Get in touch with our team and explore opportunities to enhance your customer support.
