As customer service experts, we’ve seen firsthand how good customer service ratings can propel a business to success. And while a fully functional ticketing system like supportbee is a solid start, it’s not the end of your customer satisfaction efforts: business owners need to leverage software features strategically to get the most bang for their buck.
in this blog post, we’ll outline five easy ways to improve customer support ratings quickly and efficiently, whether you use supportbee or not (but with clever tricks, if you do).
Reading: Reviews how to improve customer care system
First, why is customer support feedback so important?
Perhaps no industry sees more impact from customer service reviews than airlines. Think of it this way: Are you more inclined to buy a discount ticket from Airline A, which will leave you in the dust if things go wrong, or would you rather spend a few extra bucks for Airline B, which is bound to move? your purse in 12 hours and throw away a free hotel room? your answer is likely the same as ours, which explains why 64% of consumers think customer experience takes precedence over price. in fact, the average consumer will pay about 17% more for a product or service if the company demonstrates superior service. things happen, and most customers understand that. Regardless, customer feedback, or your Customer Satisfaction Rating (CSR), is an invaluable source for improving your company’s products and services because most potential customers will read online business reviews before making a purchase. A purchase. math doesn’t like it: poor customer service costs businesses an average of $62 billion a year!
Customer support feedback is of particular importance to e-retailers competing with giants like Amazon. eCommerce businesses know that good reviews translate into customer trust, the cornerstone of their inbound flow. In the age of hacks, can customers trust their payment security? In the age of overnight delivery, can you believe your item will reach you on time?
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the key to improving customer service feedback, especially public reviews on third-party sites, is to make sure you capture and respond to as many negative feedback as possible, before someone is inclined to voice their complaints on yelp. And since much of that feedback is routed through your customer support systems and processes, you want to have a high-functioning email ticket system in place to route dissatisfaction appropriately.
To learn more, read our blog post detailing why customer service is so important.
provide options
Everyone knows there’s nothing more frustrating than not being able to contact a company when you didn’t get what you paid for. or worse: when the only option is a phone number that leads customers down the rabbit hole of a menu. they could use twitter.
First, don’t create a situation where your customers have to spend their time seeking help. multiple avenues of customer support should be available in your digital presence and as part of your rapid response strategy on social media.
- Create an internal system where high-stakes customer service issues are flagged and handled with extra care. It sounds like common sense, but when launching a new customer service process it can be overlooked. a one size fits all should not apply when customer a has a simple question while customer b received a damaged product. Since business owners need to sleep like everyone else, it’s important to offer customers as many options as possible throughout the day.
- share your opinion with supportbee’s knowledge base software, which helps users create a repository of questions and answers. Transparent customer portal software allows customers to see where their issue is in resolution, helping them feel in control and know that your business is aware of and addressing their issue. And because the knowledge base doesn’t require customer login, it’s an easy way for customers to be part of the solution.
- present different ways for customers to understand the situation while reducing the burden on your staff. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel when you may already have written answers to a customer’s question. Easy-to-find links to your company’s FAQs should be available on your website, in your customer support emails, on your social media pages, and your staff should also let customers call where to find it.
- Increase your support library as new issues arise. The knowledge base allows businesses to organize and submit to the FAQ page as they are added to the website, so be sure to update answers to new customer questions; this will save you time as customers can find answers before they ask and may not have to. hire support.
- incorporate complementary software. Easy-to-start and easy-to-use integrations can take your customer service improvement further without much effort. hive, for example, is supportbee’s embeddable option for our knowledge base site. allows you to display help articles on your website or app so customers can more easily find answers.
- do some research online. See what people are saying about your business on review sites, social media, and through a simple Google search. Sophisticated data analysis is great, but don’t underestimate the advantage you’ll have when looking for digital talk.
- Include a call to action (CTA) in the body of your support email. When a customer has received prompt and positive service, be sure to insert links to your business profiles on Yelp, Facebook, and other review sites to encourage positive feedback about your customer service experience specifically. some companies will offer a small incentive for doing this, such as a $5 credit toward their product or service.
- Share knowledge with your team. An immediate way to get deeper insights with supportbee is to take advantage of the insightly integration, which allows the two programs to share and analyze data about a customer. this will make it easy to spot customer issues and create a personalized improvement plan, which should include any staff member using your shared inbox. Business owners can also take advantage of reports on supportbee, which tracks the performance of their support system and has the ability to organize by teams, agents, and tags.
- set a uniform tone. 79% of consumers report increased satisfaction with a highly personalized customer service experience. When you have multiple staff members responding to customer support tickets via email, it’s important to agree on a consistent voice and approach when responding. One staff member might be more inclined to pepper his prose with exclamation points and apologize profusely, while another might be quick to blame another business in the supply chain. a change in voice can be confusing to customers. business owners can avoid this by writing a pre-written library of snippets and tagging them in ways that help personalize support, for example, “new customer” versus “old customer.” Here are some ideas on what to include in your staff’s customer service training, as well as some good ideas on how to handle customer complaints.
- maximize collaboration tools. One of the most common issues we hear from companies that don’t have email ticketing software set up is that emails get lost in the cracks or situation details get lost between multiple agents. supportbee’s feedback feature is a great solution because it allows multiple support agents in shifts to share important case information and engage other agents, with notes that are invisible to the customer. Sharing drafts before sending them with all the agents that are involved in the ticket is another cautious step that will result in impeccable customer service.
seek reviews
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Business owners shouldn’t wait for customers to start a feedback funnel, they should go out and receive it. Even if the response rate to a proactive customer experience audit is low, you’re more likely to get useful information. You’ll want proactive outreach to be part of the first touch point: a 1% improvement in first call resolution scores. (fcr) has been shown to improve customer happiness as well.
Need more information on how to evaluate your customer service? Read about four customer satisfaction metrics to track.
Have a meeting
Now that you’ve seen all those comments, it’s time to share them with your team and set a standard.
We’d love to hear what strategies you’ve used to improve your customer service ratings in the comments below. And if you took these words to heart and applied them within your own business, please share your results below! (And read more about ways to improve your customer service.)
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