If you want to improve support experiences and customer satisfaction you need to stop doing things that drive dissatisfaction.
When your customers need help you have an opportunity to create positive experiences that result in happy satisfied customers, or you will leave them annoyed and dissatisfied.
Here are the keys to improving support experiences and driving customer satisfaction.
Provide Access to Help
Make sure that customers know how to get help.
Provide access to self-help, community, or assisted support. Whether you charge for assisted support or provide it for free will depend on the competitive dynamics of the markets you serve.
Fee-based support should be capable and worth the fees paid. If you provide self-help or community only support options, the resources must be effective.
Acknowledgement Customer Requests
When customers ask for help, acknowledge their request.
An automated response to confirm that you received their request is enough to meet customer expectations.
Timely Response
Provide a timely response to customer issues.
If possible, resolve the issue during the first interaction. If you cannot resolve an issue at first contact, set a realistic expectation for next steps and a timeline for how and when a solution will be provided.
Complete Resolution
A fast answer is great, but it must work!
Customers expect that an answer provided will resolve the issue they need help with. Failure to solve a problem even when done quickly is a top dissatisfier.
It is okay to provide suggestions for customers to try but give them a path to continue the resolution process if suggestions do not work. The goal is to provide a customer with an answer that works.
Realistic Expectations
Do not let customers think that their issues has disappeared into a blackhole.
Customers want quick and effective answers to their questions. Sometime issues take time to resolve – days, weeks, months or more. When quick solutions cannot be provided it is essential to set and maintain realistic expectations with the customer. At some point, if an issue cannot or will not be fixed, then you need to tell them.
Five Keys To Positive Support Experiences and Customer Satisfaction
Customers want quick answers, but more importantly they want the answer provided to work. When effective answers to support issues can not be provided quickly, then you must set realistic expectations about the time and process for delivering the answer.
- Provide a support option
- Acknowledge when customers ask for help
- Set realistic expectations
- Resolve issues as quickly as possible
- Solve the issue completely
