Creating a product that solves a problem is only the first step in starting a business. The next part is finding customers and ensuring they have the support required to use your products and handle problems.
Unfortunately, creating a customer support system is easier said than done. And when 81% of consumers say customer service influences purchasing decisions, it’s something you can’t take lightly.
Getting the customer service experience right is critical if you want your company to grow. Read the guide below to learn how to spot problems with the customer journey and how to deal with those issues.
Get Customer Feedback
Of all the ways to determine what’s wrong with your customer experience, getting direct feedback is one of the best ways. You can look at all the data you want, but if you don’t hear directly from your customers, all you’re doing is making best guesses.
It’s not hard to do this if you have your customers’ email addresses. Send an email to your customer base with a link to a survey. This survey will contain questions about their experience with your business and what they liked and didn’t like.
You can also create freeform answer boxes that allow people to describe their experiences. This is good for learning more about more complex situations.
Encourage Customer Reviews
Even if you get a lot of feedback by getting survey results, some customers may be uncomfortable filling them out. Many people don’t trust data collection, so they ignore surveys when companies send them.
However, that doesn’t mean you can’t get feedback from those people. Customers are more than willing to share their experiences online by leaving reviews.
The problem is reminding people to do this. The number of people who leave reviews is minimal. But you can encourage people to leave feedback on review sites after purchases and in email messages.
Once you start seeing reviews come in, you can examine your reviews for common issues and do what you can to address those problems.
Communicate With Employees
It’s hard to track down issues when you don’t communicate with the people dealing with them. Your customer service team is the perfect place to find those problems.
Set up regular meetings with your customer service leaders to review their work. You want to get reports of all the problems occurring and determine which ones happen most.
You can use that information to refine your product and customer service operations. Doing this will help you get to customers faster, deal with problems more effectively, and create business improvements to optimize your business operations.
Identify Knowledge Systems
One of the biggest problems customers and employees have is the inability to find information. On the customer side, they don’t want to spend much time talking to customer service. They want a quick answer to move along with their days.
You can provide those answers by creating a knowledge base on your website. Gather your most common problems and post them on the internet. Most customers can take those answers and solve their problems without contacting customer service.
Of course, you don’t need to stick to the customer side when doing this. The same also applies to your customer service team.
Much of the time your employees spend is looking up information. The customer tells a support representative a problem, and they look up the answer.
That time gets extended when you don’t have systems that store those answers. Have a documentation system for your customer service team to help them find answers and resolve customer problems quickly.
Find Communication Points
It’s not always easy for customers to find the customer service department. Many people expect to find a phone number on a website. But in today’s world, many companies don’t have phone lines and try to handle all their support on the internet.
They do this through live chat, email support, and social media messages. While these are fine for people who want them, some customers may not understand how to use them.
You need to understand your customers before deciding how to handle support. If you have an older customer base, they may be less inclined to use internet channels to contact your business for support. But a younger audience may have that as a preference.
Use the communication system your audience wants, and you’ll have a better customer experience and more return customers.
Look for Skill Gaps
Customer service isn’t always a problem with your operation or knowledge base. Sometimes, it comes down to the people in charge of handling customer issues.
You may have members of your customer service team who don’t have the right skills for the job. They won’t do a good job of finding information or reasonably handling customers.
However, this is a problem you can overcome. Create training resources for your team that allows them to learn and practice customer service skills. These resources will help them become better employees and better serve your customers.
If an employee goes through this training and still can’t handle a support role, you’ll need to find another employee who can.
Keep Optimizing the Customer Service Experience
A great product won’t do much if you don’t have customers willing to buy it. You may get a few people who give your business a chance, but if you don’t give customers a great experience, they won’t return to buy again and tell people about their bad experiences.
That’s why having a fantastic customer service experience is critical for a company’s success. Use the guide above to identify your customer experience pitfalls and create a plan to improve things.
