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Atanu Sarkar
December 16, 2019

Table of content

Introduction

Whenever you want to make a phone call, access live chat or send emails, you will be communicating with the customer support team of a company. These people help you efficiently to solve the problems and challenges to make the best use of the product and the service of a company. To provide customer support CSRs (Corporate Social Responsibility) consistently put the need of the customers to resolve their problems. The result of customer support interaction plays an important role in understanding the customer’s viewpoint about your company. Customer support greatly impacts on the reputation of your company, it renders customer retention, bottom line, and more. The company nowadays invest a lot of labour, time and money to improve customer support system, because this is where the prime factor of your company lies. Before you choose the strategy you better concentrate on the key term first:

What is customer support and why it is needed?

The customer support team will always be ready to assist you through your journey in purchasing a product or availing any service. Every interaction support reps have with customers should be initiated and ended by the customers. In your whole task of the customer support team, your prime consideration would be to delight your customers. It is critical for your business’s long-term success. When your customer become delighted with your service. They are likely to stick to you. As a customer support representative, it is important to know your customer and serve them accordingly. It is expensive to obtain new customer so for a budget-friendly approach, you can retain existing customers. If you can increase customer retention by 5%, you would possibly have the opportunity to increase the revenue by up to 95%. Nowadays the companies that have profited to a great extent has invested quite a sum in customer-facing teams including the support system.

Customer service and Customer Support

There is a thin line between customer service and customer support. When you are saying customer service, you are implying that you want to provide more efficient service than only support. The service is more proactive and supportive. You would not leave your customer in a situation where they have to take the initiative to find your number to solve their problems. Rather, when you are providing customer service, you are taking the initiative to reach to your customer. In a way, when your customer become depended on you when all their requirements are met before any complexity, Customer satisfaction is an essential fact in a business where the customer decides where your business can reach. When you are proactive and reactive service and support for your customers, you will proceed towards the ultimate growth. Once you have set your limitation providing customer support, then you can reactively support and pro-actively guide the customers. Then comes the matter of customer success. It is the process of doing something for customers that are not directly demanded from their end. However, analyzing the nature of your customer you can shape customized offers. It not only provides value for your customers but also give your business a good go.

Responsibilities Regarding Customer Support

Customer support representative provides some level of support on a regular basis to the customers. No matter which industry your business belongs there are some common responsibilities that are taken care of:

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  • Handling phone calls.
  • Manage email requests and questions.
  • Operate live chat with customers.
  • Respond to social media comments, requests, messages.
  • Manage complaints, feedback from customers
  • Guide the customer through any problem.
  • Upgrade, change and handle social media accounts and subscriptions.
  • Help customers to resolve their problems. Provide a solution to all challenges.
  • Suggests remedies based on customer’s need and goals.
  • Write, publish and share FAQs, blogs, articles.
  • Understanding of products and service details so that you can provide quality support.

Customer support Medium

You need to adopt these channels as per the base of your business, industry and customer base. The most common customer support channels are listed below.

Phone, Email, Live chat, Social Media, Community, FAQs.

Your CSR team should be efficient enough to provide 24×7 customer service through phone. Make sure that the customer support team have access to a universal email inbox. So that the team collaboratively answer the inquiries and questions raised from the end of the customers. Engaging in a healthy conversation with your customer in a live chat can establish a good reputation of your company when the customers are satisfied with you. It is the responsibility of a potential CSR team to keep a detailed track on the social media platforms whether it be Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. Ensure that these accounts are thoroughly maintained, and the messages sent by your customers are checked properly. In that case, you can take shelter on any advance social media software to manage all the social media account. Make sure that CSRs are frequently upgrading the support channels. The customer-led community helps the customers to share their knowledge and experience regarding your products and services. This community would encourage new customers to engage with you and help the existing customers to know more about you. Your support team should keep track on the content submitted by the customers. If they all are discussing the same problem one of your representatives can provide specific instructions to resolve the problem.

Key skills of CSRs (Corporative Social Representative):

CSRs need to have some exceptional skills which help them to deal with a different type of customers. These following customer support skills would help you to meet the requirements of the customer efficiently:

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Communication: Excellent communication skill is the fundamental base of a CSR. Whether their responsibility is to chat with customers through any support channel or escalating any issue to a manager, in every case strong communication is the key to win the heart of the customer.

Knowledge of Product and Services: As a CSR you are representing your company. So, in that case, if you are not efficient enough in delivering the details of your company, that would hamper the reputation of your company. Thus, before one starts dealing with customers, they should go through the company details. The entire functionalities of the products should thoroughly be acknowledged. So that they can provide the best possible service to each customer.

Understanding capability: They need to be empathetic to understand the problems of the customers and their feedbacks. Understanding the psychology of the customer helps you to make your brand popular among the customers. As Corporate Social Representative is the one who directly converses with the customer, they should understand the customer’s mind. And they can assist the customers more effectively to meet their need and be supportive whenever they need you.

Determination: In customer handling process, there will be various kind of customers. They should handle negative comments as a part of a business and try to remove the incapabilities of the business. They should hold a positive attitude towards all customers and be patient with them in handling all sorts of issues. Your controlled behaviour is what all customer expects. They need to be professional in every case to deal with the customer. They should have the capability to hold the customer.

Efficiency: The corporate representative should be efficient enough to manage the time. Now because of the online facilities today it is very easy to reach to the customer support team. So, the customer expects to solve their problems immediately.

Enthusiastic: CSRs should be enthusiastic enough to keep the customer engaging and have the capabilities to influence them. Though, it is also in a way depended on the nature of the customer. However, a representative should be very energetic in his/her position. So, they can introduce the brand to win the heart of the customer.

Adaptability: The scale of your business will definitely grow and evolve with time. It includes the details of your products and services, it’s important aspects and capabilities. The CSR Team should be ready to adapt to the changes and eager to learn whatever they need to perform effectively in their role.

Improve Your Customer Support Strategies

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Technical Support Team:

In every business, if you want to excel you have to adapt the frequent changes in order to stay updated and be in the top among your competitors. Your technical support team should be efficient enough to deal with customers with emerging technologies. Technology plays a key role here in improving customer support efficiency. You should utilise the proper technology when it’s needed. Before you engage in a conversation through the medium of live chat and ticketing system. Make sure that your CSRs have all the tools and solutions they need to help your customers. They should have knowledge about the latest updates and features of the brand so that they can assist the customers in the best possible way.

Train your customer support team properly:

To satisfy your customer, the representative should be trained in a way that they can win the customer’s heart easily. You should adopt the best ways to train them. This will lead to assist your customers seamlessly. Get them accustomed to your brands and services, it would help them to perform promptly for catering their services to the customers. The training process depends on the base of your company. For example, in a software company, the representative needs more detailed and skilful knowledge about their services and brand than a clothing brand. To guide through the solution of the customer’s problems the team should the ability to handle all the complexities of the software-based brand.

Keep a track on customer support team’s performance

You should consistently measure how the customer support team is performing. How they are executing the strategies. To analyse the result customer’s satisfaction needs to be well documented. They should go through the feedbacks and reviews and how often they are referring your brand to others. The team should be able to handle the tantrums of customers with persistence and sheer determination. As they are representing your company, they form the impression to the customers. Before choosing the candidate, you should be careful enough to hire the right person.

Analyze Customer’s Feedback

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The performance of your support team’s endeavour would be reflected in the reviews, comments and feedbacks of the customers. Whenever they are interacting with the customer ask your customers to leave a comment, feedback or review. As you are aiming to satisfy your customer through the best possible service your concentration should always be focused on their reviews. According to the need of the people, you can introduce necessary feature from your end. It is the best way to understand your customers and once you recognise the loopholes you can excel by erasing those unwanted things.

Empower the customer support team

Empower and motivate your CSRs to let them know how much value you give to their work and commitment. This will encourage themselves to improve their performances, desire to give their best to support your customers. Incorporate them in taking the decision-making process and ask them for feedback and recommendations. Bring CSRs in a higher-level leadership meeting with products and sales team to utilise their feedbacks. Because they are the person who directly interacts with the customers, therefore they know what are the popular demands.

Use High-Tech Software

Introduce some vital customer support software tool to facilitate the process for the customers:

  • Ticketing Software
  • Survey Tools
  • Knowledgebase software
  • Live Chat support tool
  • Social Media Software

To Conclude

These customer support strategies are immensely affecting to drive customer’s satisfaction. However, the result may not be perceived overnight. I must tell you these strategies would guide you through the path of the overall growth of your company. Give time to implement the tactics and adapt the necessary tools and system to allow CSRs to cater the customers to the best possible way.

Atanu Sarkar

Atanu Sarkar, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Webskitters Technology Solutions Pvt. Ltd & Webskitters LTD has strong data analytics, business development and entrepreneurship skills. He keeps himself updated about latest technological innovations in his past time and encourages his team to incorporate new technologies and move beyond the defined boundaries of design, development and digital marketing. His inquisitive nature constrains him from flattering any limits and that’s made him a successful entrepreneur, a great leader for his team and a wonderful human being.