Our company’s goal is to make our customer happy. Our Merchant is very important with us. At National Transaction it’s all about our customer service. Yet many customers would rather than not contact a company for support, and this is especially true in the tech world. Customer finds the support experience as frustrating and time-wasting exercise.
We know this is true because we are customers ourselves. We’ve all felt that palpable sense of dread when we have to call a toll-free support number, expecting a massive, circular phone tree followed by a seemingly endless wait, and possibly a clueless rep when (if!) we finally do reach a human being.
It doesn’t have to be that way, at National Transaction we manage customer support delivery because we know we have an obligation to make it work. NTC’s teamwork-focused strategy and effective application of technology and data, can help our customer service do their jobs better.
How it works:
Apply lessons learned to continuously improve service – Some issues customers raise are a one-off, but many times, patterns emerge that can deliver insights on how the company could improve service for everyone.
It can be difficult for a single agent or manager to identify patterns, which is why a customer support platform with robust reporting capabilities is crucial to enable continuous service improvement.
In a crowded marketplace, excellence in customer support can be a key differentiator for a business. When customers reach out for support, they’re usually already stressed out about something that’s not working as expected. Far too often, their stress level increases while they’re attempting to get help, due to poorly designed business processes.
If your customers are stressed out, you can change that by taking a new approach. Make sure you know who they are when they reach out, and allow them to contact you on their own terms. Access your company’s collective expertise to quickly resolve the customer’s problems.
Be honest with the customer – A good customer support agent really does want to make things right for the customer, and that’s admirable. However, it’s important to avoid making commitments you can’t keep, which will serve only to increase the customer’s dissatisfaction in the long run.
Always be honest with your customers. If you can’t solve their problem immediately, give them an accurate time frame for a resolution, and let them know what steps you’re taking to address the issue. Record the commitment on a customer database so colleagues are up-to-date on your activities.
Be honest about what you can and cannot do, and take a look at the big picture, so you can improve service not only for the customer on the line but for everyone else.
Give customers multiple channels to access help – Customers have unique needs and individual preferences, Give them choices.
Know who your customers are – There are few among us who haven’t experienced the frustration of a poorly designed phone tree and the indignity of being shuffled from agent to agent and asked for our name, account number, product type and current service issue over and over again. Stop doing that to your customers.
Deploy a technology platform that incorporates a customer database with product and inventory information. That way, you’ll know who your customers are and what products they use when they call, and if you have to transfer them to another agent for help, the next agent will have that information too.
Use teamwork to solve customer issues – Chances are, someone in your company is capable of solving any problem a customer brings to the support team, but that person might not be on the phone. That’s why collaboration is so important.
There are software solutions that make collaborating across business units simple, and enable agents to view notes about past customer issues for clues to solving current problems. This not only helps your company solve the problem at hand, but also allows you to manage the entire relationship.
By following these steps, you can reduce your customers’ stress level and your own.
