Tips on Providing Good Customer Service and Support For Your Software
Providing good customer support and service is the goal of many businesses. Yet, despite this, for some reason, a large number of businesses, especially big businesses, fall short. So short that many customers bounce back and forth just trying to find a pleasant service and support voice. The focus of this article is to address tips and techniques for giving good customer service and support.
Before we detail on individual strategies, an overview of the general types of service and support is necessary so that we can focus on how to improve on these areas and make our customers feel good. The major spheres of customer service and support revolve around product documentation, question answering service, sales support staff, and dispute resolution services.
Furthermore, customer service and support can be subdivided into categories such as online support, phone service, technical support, etc. From this point, it is prudent to begin with the generic tips essential to making customer service and support more efficient without undercutting quality. The following three customer service and support tips will help.
Avoid over reliance on telephone automation for customer service and support requests. Even though it can be extremely cost effective to set up automated menus for every single possible scenario from the business standpoint, users frustrated from failed attempts to make a program work call customer service and support to get answers now.
They’ve likely spent a considerable amount of time whacking different keys and functions and consulting online documentation. To add extremely lengthy automated menus that are obscure and misdirecting to a customer’s service and support request only adds insult to injury. As a result, keep menus clear, short, and generic. Additionally, keep menu options to a minimum.
No one wants to have to listen to 8 very slowly played audio messages to find there is no clear selection that applies to their unique circumstances. Three or four brief options with little or no sub menus using the terminal option as “For other inquiries press” will greatly alleviate your customers service and support dilemmas. Additionally, if you have automation for other languages, keep the message short using the general format “for language press #option .”
Train live customer service and support operators in how to transfer calls efficiently and effectively. Nothing can upset a customer making a service or support call more than “you have the wrong department, let me transfer you back to the automated menu.” If a customer wanted to hear the menu again, your customers would have pressed the # or * key on their phone pad during the initial service and support menu.
Ensure all your service members direct calls to correct extensions, or if within their job scope, address the matters personally. Additionally, you can greatly alleviate customers concerns by using call centers located in the region from which callers are making their service and support calls. No frustrated customer wants to have to wait, be placed on hold, and then have to speak with someone who speaks in a very heavy and difficult to understand accent using a patently false name.
Paying the extra cost for native speakers will net you more customers and over the course of time more than reimburse any extra costs for premium labor. For Internet support, the majority of customer service and support requests are conducted through either live chat or email. Email in particular can be a shortcoming of large businesses as during high volume, instead of being on “hold” for thirty or so minutes, a customer service request can run into the realm of days or weeks, and often only consist of a generic reply requesting more information from the customer.
If you are contracting service and support offshore, this (as opposed to phone service and support agents) can be a great place to employ an adequate staff to quickly process emails. Difficult questions can be forwarded to native speakers, while generic requests for additional customer information can be easily handled for a low cost.
Live chat is by far superior to email requests in general, as response time is inherently much more rapid. If your company can afford it, invest in a customer service and support system that features live agents.
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