Incredible customer support is paramount for every business. Online customer support can most certainly be taxing, mainly because of the lack of in-person interactions, however, the basics remain the same. In both cases, you are required to keep your consumers content and satisfied by delivering an amazingly consistent service experience.
Customers, very critically, analyze the services offered by a business. They see if they are being treated with respect, empathy, and compassion, and notice if the customer support representatives are attentively listening to their issues and queries.
The moment they notice even a dash of mistreatment, they might abandon the services and sever all ties with the company. What do we mean by this? It means that you can’t make your mark in the industry if you are failing to meet the needs of the customers.
Also, in case you are unable to retain your valued customers, just bear in mind that you are doing something incredibly wrong and you won’t be able to create a loyal customer base. So what can one do to improve the online support experience of the customers?
The best approach would be to follow the examples of all those companies that have already realized the difference between online and in-person customer interactions. Several companies especially telecom companies like Cox have started offering around-the-clock assistance through different mediums. This means that you can contact the provider’s live chat support at any time of the day. Also if you are a Spanish speaker, you can easily contact the Cox en Español customer service department and enjoy remote assistance without delay.
The paragraph above implies that communicating with consumers via several touchpoints is a smart approach. This is just one strategy for enhancing online customer support. We have enlisted four best practices in this article that will help you improve your online customer service.
Empower your customer support agents
Your online customer support team comprises the employees who know the most about the consumers. While their basic responsibility is catering to customer queries and making sure they provide quick assistance, in reality, they do much more than that.
So empower your customer support agents to come up with a basic plan of action and alter the approaches and strategies especially if they feel doing so will be beneficial for the customers.
This practice will not only make the employees confident but will also encourage them to think outside of the box. We are aware that you might already have an entire leadership team that may be well-versed in business planning; the customer support representatives however will have the best insights on how to change your day-to-day work to make it more purposeful for your customers.
Add a human touch
When you are solving the issues of the customers online (via social media, live chat, email, etc.), you tend to adopt the rigid, fact-based style which can come off as dull and rude to the customers. Hence, it is always better to adopt a light, friendly tone that encourages the customers to whole-heartedly discuss their problems.
Conveying compassion with the help of your virtual tone will help in attracting new customers and retaining loyal ones. So the next time you gather your representatives to discuss the weekly goals, teach them the art of defining the tone of the messages.
You can also adopt the mirroring strategy if you can’t really think of a definitive tone that your team must be using. What is mirroring? It is the act of matching the tone of your customer. This practice lets them know that you are essentially on their side.
Always say ‘thank you’ and ‘we are sorry’
These magic words make situations simpler and easier. So make it a habit of using them in your daily conversations. You don’t really need a special occasion to express your gratitude. You can even begin your service response off with ‘Thank you for reaching out to us, how can we help you?’
Doing so will lighten the mood and will aid in lessening the impact of a possibly tense situation. Similarly, make it a habit of apologizing whenever you make a blunder. Customers always want you to be honest with them.
Obviously, they’ll want you to deliver top-notch service, however, if at some time you fail to do so, just politely say you are sorry and that you’ll fix the issue as soon as possible. Admitting your mistake and dealing with a problem head-on will have a greater impact on a customer’s experience and they’ll end up considering you trustworthy.
Design an FAQ page for your website
An FAQ page is a very significant element of your website. Your customers will visit this page first in case they have any queries or concerns. If answers to their questions aren’t present on this page, they can then go ahead and contact your company via email, live chat, social media etc.
We however would recommend you to design a comprehensive FAQ page that answers all the possible queries of the customers. Make a list of all the questions that your customers usually ask and add them to this page.
Wrapping up
We hope the four best practices mentioned in this article would help you enhance your customer service operations. Incorporate them in your daily functions and then see how high you fly. Good luck!
