Don’t focus solely on product development when your business is starting out. After all, building rapport with your customers is equally important as defining core functions and implementing marketing strategies.
Neglecting their first experience with your brand spells the difference between them buying or not.
Why is this? Every market you want to enter is already saturated with competitors. With so many clamouring for their attention, consumers can afford to be picky with who they work with. They think that those unable to provide quality support are not worthy of their time.
So, if you want to set yourself apart from other companies in these crowded marketplaces, invest your resources on customer service.
Here Are Suggestions to Deliver Better Customer Experience
Organise request handling
It sounds complicated, but is actually as simple as creating a dedicated email address. You’ll also have to decide the schedules for each member of the support team. Keep the process as simple and short as possible though to avoid adjustment problems as your business grows.
Gather relevant information
This means building a database of who has contacted you before and what their concerns are. With this, follow-ups will be dealt with more effectively. It’s easier for you to determine which issues keep sprouting up or are yet to be resolved as well.
Seek input from the team
Meet regularly to discuss what people are expecting from your company and how to best address persistent problems. Gather suggestions for improvement from your members. Doing so will also give you inspiration as to what product to offer next.
Go for solutions that last
As much as you might want to rapidly resolve a problem, ensure that the answers you’re creating are sustainable or can be built on. You don’t want to realise down the road that a full-on rewrite is necessary, meaning all previous work is going to waste.
Ask for feedback right after
There’s a lot you’ll learn to make your service better if you listen carefully. So, consider sending a survey to customers once their request case is closed. This allows them to immediately provide feedback on how their concern was handled.
Take advantage of free tools
Being a support agent is stressful enough without technical issues to add to it. Help your employees by providing them with software for monitoring their tasks and organising their schedules. There are several automation tools available for free or at minimal cost, like Zendesk, Sprout Social or LiveChat.
Reply politely to every message
Be a business that will politely respond to every person who contacts you, even if they’re giving a negative review. You’ll leave consumers with the impression that you really do care about everything related to your brand. This encourages people to communicate openly with you too.
Pay attention to social media
More than likely, your target audience is on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social networks. A number of them will not hesitate to air their grievances through those channels which make for the perfect opportunity to know their real feelings and respond to them.
Communicate in real time
Having a custom chat box is useful for this purpose, but only when you are able to afford it. An alternative is assigning someone in your production or development team to go on forums, social media, or message boards so they can reply to questions directly.
Maximise the power of teamwork
Your team may encounter issues that they can’t properly deal with on their own. In this case, it’s completely fine to have multiple people work on it together. There’s no need to hide it either as the customer may appreciate being treated like a VIP with so many attending to their needs.
Emphasise customer retention
A HubSpot Customer Acquisition Study reveals that it costs up to 25 times more to get a new customer than to retain an existing one. In other words, your profits will grow if you keep clients happy. This will encourage them to work with you again.
Allow agents some leeway
Especially those who have years of experience in the industry, they tend to know more than you on how to talk to people, craft email responses, or deescalate a situation. Making them following a guide step-by-step may limit their capabilities and prevent you from learning from them.
Motivate employees to perform
Ask your workers their opinion on what makes for good service and how they may be able to deliver it. This will engage their creativity and encourage them to produce their best. At the same time, you’ll identify those who have the potential to lead the pack in being brand evangelists.
Establish metrics and benchmarks
Rather than have a vague objective such as “delivering perfect service”, set concrete goals for your agents to measure and validate their progress. For instance, track their average response time or resolution rate. Have benchmarks then compare data regularly to push for better performance.
Hire the best remote assistants
Maybe the most you’re able to hire at present is 5 people. These employees will be forced to wear multiple hats so pick those who are capable of juggling tasks. Don’t waste your time on those who have to be trained from scratch but get stellar individuals from the get-go.
Customer Service Hiring with Remote Workmate
In line with the last tip, choose workers you can assign to handle all kinds of support and service tasks with minimal supervision.
You may not have the funds to hire dedicated HR personnel, so you have no choice but to handle the recruitment process yourself. This is going to be a lot of work, from crafting the job description and posting the advert, to checking cover letters and resumes.
Spare yourself the trouble by booking our staffing services here at Remote Workmate. Unlike freelancing marketplaces where you do everything yourself, we handle the heavy lifting (e.g. recruitment, payroll). We’ll even take care of the initial screening so you won’t have to.
Let’s have a talk about what your business needs for customer support.
