20 Customer Service Best Practices

SELL. SERVICE. MARKET. SUCCEED.

We are firm believers in putting the customer back in customer service.

It can be easy for customer service departments to continue doing what theyve always been doing. CSAT scores and overall cost are the same, so why change? this mindset neglects the fact that todays consumer has options around how they want to contact a company for support. Based on feedback from our customers, product experts, and thought leaders, weve pulled together 20 customer service best practices, with ve aimed at great service across channels, ve around treating your customers well and 10 focused on building a word-class team. Lets take a look.

Table of Contents
Great Service Across All Channels
1 2 3 4 5
Know Your Customer Across Channels Leverage the Information Your Customers are Volunteering Use the Channels Your Customers Prefer Make the Move Toward Mobile Customer Service Train Your Agents on All Channels

Build Your Team

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Start with the Interview Hire for Culture Fit Think Beyond the Cubicle Implement Gamication Leverage Multiple Channels to Reduce Monotony Allow for Flexibility in Scheduling Frame the Job in a Meaningful Way Reward, Reward, Reward Give Regular Feedback and Acknowledgement Provide Opportunities for Career Growth

Treat Customers Like Friends

6 7 8 9 10
Share Helpful Content Keep it Real Turn Setbacks Into Solutions Remember Your Regulations When Adding Supporting Channels Leverage the Experts

20 Customer Service Best Practices

Page 2

Section 1

Great Service Across All Channels

Technology has transformed the modern customer into a multi-screen, always connected, highly opinionated force in the business world. If your customer service isnt prepared to deliver exceptional service across multiple channels and devices, you are going to miss the opportunity to service your customers eectively. Your customer service needs to not only keep pace with your customers, but be out ahead, waiting for them to arrive. This means embracing new channels and using data to create a more complete picture of your customers than ever before.

Page 3

Great Service Across All Channels

#1
Know Your Customer Across Channels
Customers often report lower satisfaction when companies force them to visit multiple channels to resolve their support issues. Make sure your agents know your customers well, including what they want, their history with you, their preferred communication channels, etc. That way, if customers begin a conversation on email, they dont have to start over if they switch to phone or live chat.

#2
Leverage Volunteered Information
Use your contact center as the collection point for complaints, comments, and product suggestions. Your team should centralize all customer data in one place, making it accessible to anyone involved in the customer service experience.

#3
Use Channels Your Customers Prefer
When a new customer arrives, thats the time to nd out which channels they prefer for service assistance. As part of your on-boarding process or welcome call, have your agents ask which channels customers prefer to use for service issues. If part of your on-boarding includes a welcome email, include a handy cheat sheet of all of your service teams contact channels. As well, include calls-to-action in your marketing content asking customers to connect with you on their preferred mediums.

#4
Move Toward Mobile Customer Service
Mobile options, such as text messaging, arent a dominant channel for most contact centers, but companies need to start thinking about it as a service option. Mobile oers a platform thats always with the customer, and oers a real one on one feel. Does your customer service center consider other options for customers to connect, like mobile and beyond?

20 Customer Service Best Practices

Page 4

Train Your Agents on All Channels

Your agents wont become multichannel masters overnight. As you add service channels, your customer support agents need to be trained on how to use them eectively. Stang dierent channels means nding the hidden strengths of your existing service agents. Look at your teams previous experience, and actively solicit writing samples to nd your teams most procient writers. Make certain theyre trained and ready to respond to your customers on channels that require written responses, such as email.

Page 5

Section 2

Treat Customers Like Friends

Good customer service experiences answer a customers question. Great customer service experiences provide something more. Companies that are creating real competitive advantages with customer service are providing real human interactions that surprise, delight, amuse, and educate their customers. The days of stodgy, script-based interactions are fading fast. Customers just want to interact with a real person, and get real help with their issue. Enable customers to educate themselves and feel like they are helping make real improvements to your business.

Page 6

Treat Customers Like Friends

#6
Share Helpful Content
To empower your customers, you must help them become sources of knowledge. Useful content, whether its a blog post, webinar, or white paper, can not only help solve your customers issues, it can enable them to easily share this information with others. To provide solid content, there has to be constant dialogue between the business and its customers to ensure the content is helpful, shareable and relevant to your customers needs and challenges.
10 Essential 20 Elements Customerof Service Great Best Enterprise Practices Mobile Apps

#7
Keep It Real
Ensure your customer service teams are genuine, and encourage an open and candid tone with customers. If your customers feel comfortable, they will speak honestly which helps you solve problems faster.

#8
Turn Setbacks Into Solutions
Unfortunately, many companies will have customers who like to gripe. Customer service provides a place for them to let o steam. Remember, this can be a very positive and productive development, helping current customers, as well as your product teams, understand product capabilities and limitations. Ensure your team treats every complaint as an opportunity to make your organization even better.

#9
Leverage the Experts
Encourage your agents to collaborate directly with the external experts in your industry. Choose experts that are devoted fans of your products, highly engaged, and ready to help others get the most out of your oerings to create even more highly satised customers.

Page 7 6

Remember Your Regulations When Adding Channels

Ensure that with any customer interaction, industry regulations are followed. For instance, say your contact center is looking to add a live chat option which may be used to collect credit card data from customers. Its crucial to ensure that this new option and your procedures are still in compliance with PCIDSS regulations. These types of requirements are mandatory for any companies involved in credit card payment processing. Make sure that the required organizational policies are established and enforced. Implement solutions for quality management that fully comply with industry standards.

10

Page 8

Section 3

Build Your Team

The success and failure of any customer service department rides on the experience, skill, and determination of its team members. Hiring the right service agents can set you up for incredible success down the road, or handicap your ability to provide adequate service right from the start. Even the best teams will falter without proper coaching and incentivizing. Make sure you are creating a culture of success on your service team and youll nd that success translating straight to your customers.

Page 9

Build Your Team

#11
Start with the Interview
During a session at 2013s Call Center Week event, Kimberly Warrick, Client Services Manager at NJ Shares noted that agent motivation should be considered from the very rst interview. Here, you have your prospective agent directly in front of you, ready to answer any questions. Thats the time to get your rst look at what motivates them. Before theyve even put on a headset, youve got the chance to make note of what will keep this potential service team member motivated. Just ask them!
10 Essential 20 Elements Customerof Service Great Best Enterprise Practices Mobile Apps

#12
Hire for Culture Fit
Many agents will have the skills, fewer will have the attitude. The right culture t should be what gets an agent hired. Sometimes, it may be worth keeping customer service positions open a bit longer to nd the right person rather than rushing to ll available positions. The long-term cost of hiring the wrong person can be much greater than keeping those spots unlled. Cutting down on attrition begins with bringing the right people on board in the rst place.

#13
Think Beyond the Cubicle
The millennial generation has huge career aspirations, and as potential hires, they often make up their mind during training whether theyll work at your center for a long-term period. Telus International has seen a decline in attrition rates through initiatives such as Telus University, which allows employees to gain arts and business credits while still working with the company. They fully invest in their customer support team members development outside of the customer support role.

#14
Implement Gamification
There is a plenty of buzz surrounding gamication in sales, but the very same tactics can benet contact centers as well. While targets may dier between sales and customer service teams, motivational techniques dont have to. By bringing in realtime contests, reps can engage with colleagues, strengthening your company culture and improving center morale. Gamication brings an element of fun to an occasionally monotonous job.
Page Page 10 6

Leverage Multiple Channels to Reduce Monotony

Adding new customer service channels doesnt simply oer new options for customers to interact with your company. Agents benet by acquiring and using additional skill sets that can improve their resumes while breaking up the monotony of their day. Many agents will welcome the change of pace and an opportunity to switch from answering calls to responding to emails and social media posts. Consider adding incentives that oer the opportunity to cover dierent channels if specic target goals are met.

15

Page 11

Build Your Team

#16
Allow for Flexibility in Scheduling
Make a conscious eort to make trading of shifts as quick and easy as possible. Consider leveraging your internal social networks to create a common space where agents can oer to give away and pick up shifts. A company that recognizes that agents require that exibility in their work schedule, and whose management team trusts employees enough to make shift changes happen easily, is a company that will attract and retain a higher percentage of their workforce.

#17
Frame the Job in a Meaningful Way
When your service agents are asked what they do for a living, do they say they are a customer service representative? That they talk on the phone all day? Or do they say, I help people with _________. The latter is the ideal response. Your employees need to know they are making a real dierence for your customers, and they arent just a collection of metrics and numbers.

#18
Reward, Reward, Reward
Reward employees for a job well done and be certain the rewards are those that can be put to use outside of the company walls. Work-life balance is important to your employees, so if possible, keep your reward initiatives focused on helping your agents make better use of their time away from the contact center. Be it tickets to local events or gift cards, make certain your rewards recognize that your team has a life outside the oce and youre happy to help make that life more exciting.

#19
Give Regular Feedback & Acknowledgement
You dont always need to spend money on tangible rewards in order to make your team feel motivated. Quite often, a supervisors quick email or internal social network mention to a team member on a job well done is equally as eective as a gift certicate. Continue to celebrate even incremental successes with even the smallest acknowledgement can brighten the day of an agent dealing with an otherwise stressful shift.

10 Essential 20 Elements Customerof Service Great Best Enterprise Practices Mobile Apps

Page Page 12 6

Provide Opportunities for Career Growth

A lack of career opportunities is often one of the top reasons for leaving a job. Experienced, top performing support agents often feel like theyve hit a glass ceiling in a contact center. Try allowing these agents opportunities to try out new roles, even temporarily. This can be achieved through shadowing, or day in the life type programs. If you oer educational opportunities, your agents could soon be developing knowledge and skills that may make them attractive to other parts of the company, such as training, sales, or marketing. Be sure to stay on top of your best people, nd out how theyre feeling and if theyre still motivated in their current role. Are they interested in a management position?

Page 13

Price and product can both be duplicated, but a strong customer service culture cant be copied.

So how can you take the best practices outlined here and make them work for you? All it takes is a commitment to becoming a true customer company with a mission statement reinforcing a complete focus on your customers and their satisfaction. In addition, ensure you have an empowered customer support team, where agents are armed with

responsibility and feel that they are making a real contribution to the companys overall health. This will absolutely translate into increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.

BUSINESS MORE PRODUCTIVE

The world is changing. Customers are demanding more and better service, delivered through every conceivable channel. Thats why more companies are using salesforce.coms customer service softwareas-a-service solution for call center CRM and help desk management.
See Demo Free Trial Contact Me

CUSTOMER SERVICE SOLUTIONS THAT WILL MAKE YOUR

CONNECT AGENTS TO CUSTOMERS WITH SALESFORCE

48%

increase in agent productivity

HOW TO CREATE A CUSTOMER SERVICE PROCESS THAT ENHANCES YOUR BOTTOM LINE

SELL. SERVICE. MARKET. SUCCEED.

Blog

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin