Customers need help! They can’t help it, they just do! And customer service representatives have to help them! Why? Because they are paying for a service and product the company provides.
So how does one avoid the pain of customers asking ‘How to’ questions, and having them get the help they need to get full customer support? You allow technology to take a roll in filtering out the small questions. The ‘FAQ’s’ perhaps or just the questions that won’t help with their eventual product service needs. You enable them to become self-served customers.
- Create a great FAQ – The idea of prevention rather than cure. Ask the most often asked questions and then answer them clearly in a way a customer support rep would answer it. It must make the customer avoid calling up, or popping up on chat support to ask how he can change his password. You want them to talk to you because they have real valued questions that will actually make your service better and them a better valued customer.
- Make information available – Make sure the website has all the information they need in order to understand how the product should work in the first place. You want your customers to know why and when they should contact support.
- Integrate cool technology into your site – Make your customer support real with tools such as live chat support. Companies such as LivePerson enable you to install live chat to your support teams system so that customers can speak to someone in real time, without having to wait on the line for hours listening to music! Another great tool is the WalkMe tool, the step-by-step GPS guide for your site. This guides the user through the website for simple tasks that don’t need to be done by the customer service reps.
- Go social – Create supportive social media outlets for your customers, and let them know you are there for them whenever they need the help. Make sure to set a time frame that you can respond…and make sure to train the reps correctly as you can easily mess up with social media. Twitter has been successfully used by many brands. Some include Comcast, Home Depot, Dell and Ford Customer Service to name a few.
The key to creating the space and allowing your customers to become self-sufficient is to present all the information they may or may not need in a space that is accessible. Then, you avoid customers asking the ‘how to’ questions and focusing on the product itself.
