When launching a new start-up, it is vital to get customer care right. The experience your customers have with your customer care team can make all the difference to retaining and generating new business. You will need to be responsive and proactive with your customer care, and getting things right the first time should always be the goal.
Naturally, it won’t always be possible to get a customer’s query or complaint dealt with on the first go, but this should always be your aim. The more contact a customer has with your customer care team, the more likely they are to get frustrated. Reducing the amount of communication necessary is also crucial to boosting your business’s bottom line.
Hire The Right Customer Care Team
One of the most important resources in customer service is your team. You should hire carefully and choose the right people for the jobs available. Look for candidates with experience in customer service and that can provide examples of the excellent care they have given in the past. When interviewing candidates, assess their demeanour and communication skills to ensure they can keep a cool head in high-pressure situations.
Provide Thorough Training
Regular training is key to ensuring your team give the best service to your customers. You should offer comprehensive product training when onboarding new customer service team members. You should also provide top-up training whenever new products launch or new processes are implemented. General customer service advanced training can also be beneficial for even the most experienced customer care team member.
Utilise Automated Customer Service Bots
Automation can be a massive timesaver for new businesses, allowing your human team to focus their talents on higher-value work. It is a good idea to use a customer service bot that can walk customers through common issues such as login problems, delivery timescales and more. Make sure that the bot is programmed well enough to provide a valuable service to your customers. There should also be ways that your customers can request help from a team member through the bot.
Create Templates For Common Contact Issues
Templated responses to common queries can be another excellent timesaver. It may help to make logs of the most common questions your customers have and create templates to help your team respond quickly and efficiently. These templates should be customised to each customer to ensure they get the best level of service.
Find An Effective Contact Centre Solution
A contact centre solution can be a great way to make providing first class customer service easier. Choosing a cloud-based, user-friendly platform can be invaluable. This will allow your team to manage their workload more effectively and provide the best possible service to customers. Gamma’s Horizon cloud contact centre platform offers businesses easier ways for customers to contact you and is a fantastic choice for small to medium businesses.
Implement An Organised Ticketing Process
Ticketing is a crucial way to assess incoming customer contacts and ensure they get to the right team members. You should use ticketing to allocate customer contact by priority, ensuring that more complex queries are passed to those with the expertise to handle them correctly. It can also make it much easier for your team to manage their workloads and have greater clarity over the work they need to complete within a day.
Respond Quickly
Having a speedy response time is critical for giving the best customer care. A good rule of thumb is to respond to customer contact within 24 hours. It is also a good idea to send a confirmation email to customers that get in touch, letting them know the timescale you are aiming to respond within. Customers are often happier to wait when they have a clearer idea of how long they will be waiting for.
Ask For Feedback
After each customer contact, request feedback from the customer. Any input can be invaluable to help you improve your processes. It will also give you an additional opportunity to appropriately resolve any customer issue raised. You should respond to critical feedback and reassure the customer that their feedback is being acted upon.
Give Your Customer Care Team The Resources They Need
Customer care can be a stressful job, and you need your team to be on top of their game to provide the best service. You should ensure you have plenty of resources that help team members be the best they can be. This should include help managing stress in their work lives and appropriate support for team members that are struggling.
Be Clear About Your Team’s Availability
You should make it clear to customers when your customer care team is available to help with their queries. This can reduce unnecessary contact and frustration from your customers. Ensure that your chatbot, if you have one, provides the details of when your human customer care team works. You should also clearly state your team’s office hours on your social media profiles and website.
