10 Ways to Instantly Improve Customer Support

By: David Aston     Topics: Blog,Entrepreneurship

Customer support can make or break any business; so it’s always best to go above and beyond the call of duty. This is one of the surest ways to help create a loyal tribe of fans.

Whether your business is brand new or even if you’ve been around for a while, customer support is something that can always be improved.

Remember your customers are people who expect and deserve your respect, assistance and gratitude.

Here are 10 ways to instantly improve customer support:

Be Positive

You want your company to make people feel special. You’ll accomplish this by appearing eager to solve your customers’ problems.

Any type of snarky attitude, rude remark, or condescending tone may cost you a customer and future sells. It’s said that on average a customer is likely to share a stellar support experience with up to 3 people and up to 20 people if the support experience was poor… Make sure every experience is a pleasant one – even if it’s a refund request. 

Here are some ways to maintain a positive persona:

• Always greet your customers with a warm welcome and a smile.
• Help customers ask for help (ie: Do you have any questions? Is there anything else I can help with?)
• Love the unhappy customer. (ie: I am sorry for the trouble you’re having)
• Always say thank you.
• Be patient.

Set Expectations

Don’t leave your customer support to chance. It’s a good idea and beneficial for both your team and customers if there’s a level of expectancy.

There are several parameters of superb support to address with your team:

• Be polite.
• Have discounts ready for those who deserve it.
• Make sure every email is answered within 12 hours.
• If you use live chat, response time should always be under 1 minute. 
• Offer gifts (discounts, free products) to customers who become upset.
• Be present when interacting with customers. Verify and clarify the information you’re receiving before acting on it.

Offer Live Chat

This is something that builds a ton of trust and reputation and well as helps to increase sales. The very first week we added live chat to our sales pages, we had record sales. Our customers also started leaving positive reviews on forums that praised us for the convenience of the new live chat.

We use SnapEngage for our live chat. They allow you to set the chat box to appear after any amount of time and you can also set several different greetings to appear to your visitors which allows you to see which get’s the most interactions.

I also like SnapEngage because it shows you the location, time of day and weather of each person that interacts with you. This means you can personalize the experience with something as simple as saying “goodmorning,” or “goodnight” or “staying dry out there today?” when appropriate. This can put people at ease and disarm potentially confrontational customers. 

Clearly Display Working Hours

People need to know exactly how and when they can get ahold of you. Prominently display your working hours and customer support hours on your contact page, home page or any place that your customers are likely to see on their very first visit. 

Make It Easy To Find Support / Contact Page

If you’re a digital marketer your contact page should be clearly visible from the homepage of your website. You want people to know that you stand behind everything you offer and that you’re available to help. At the end of the day a business needs to make money, true, but it’s a service first and foremost, so serve!

Offer A Phone Number / Voice Message Service

There are still some people who don’t trust email or even live chat and strongly prefer to get in touch with somebody via phone. In the event that there is an urgent concern, an email response just isn’t quick enough for some people.

Offering a phone number or voice message service is a great practice for trust building and a strong sign of good faith for your existing and potential customers.

Have FAQ’s

Always include a FAQ (frequently asked questions) section for your business and products. People are desperate for answers and one way to satisfy this is by anticipating their questions. Gather as many Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for your website as possible.

Start by asking your team what common questions they receive about your products and services daily.

Here are some questions you may consider answering in a FAQ section:

• How to install?
• How quickly will I see results?
• What are your working hours?
• List of steps to fix common errors.
• How to get started for the first time?
• How is ______ different from other systems?
• What requirements do I need for your product or service?
• Can ______ use the system? (Lawyers, men, women, students etc)
• Who is ______ (name of founder, owner or business) and where did ______ (name of system, name of service etc) come from?
• Can the ______ (Name of system, product or service) be used to ______? (Solve common problem of your users)

Include a specific location for FAQs such as a knowledge base or literally a “FAQ” page.

With PopUp Domination all of our frequently asked questions are found in the knowledge base. Everything from solutions for common errors to install instructions can be found in our knowledge base. Not only is this a convenient resource for our customers, but it’s also a selling point.

A well-thought FAQ section shows we care and puts people at ease. 

Have Resources Ready

You never want to feel or look like you’ve been caught off guard with customers. They want to know you have everything under control. The best way to exhibit this control is by having several resources related to your product or service ready to go.

For instance, great customer support preparedness means having:

• List of FAQs.
• Affiliate links.
• Links to related articles.
• Links to related complimentary products.
• Common phrases and responses ready to go (for live chat).

Make Sure It’s A Priority

If you want your business to be successful, you must produce happy and satisfied customers.

Customer support should never be put off – ever. From the CEO all the way to the new tech, customer service should be the priority of every person in the company. Remember that if not for your customers, you would not have a business. Your (happy) customers are the lifeline and best advertising for your company so be sure to give them the respect, attention and priority they deserve.

Use A Ticket System

With high traffic businesses the support requests can flood in, even when things are going “good.” We use Desk for our tech support system and love it. My favorite features about Desk are the easy ability to track down previous users tickets (via their built in filtering options) and the use of predefined response templates, which save a ton of time.

Having a ticket system in place not only makes things easier for your team and your customers, but it also provides security for your tech team when sensitive information is being exchanged. 

Practicing great customer support greatly improves your odds of closing a deal and gaining repeat business which means increased sales and profits. It’s much more expensive to acquire customers rather than retain them.

The customer experience is the next competitive battleground. ~ Jerry Gregoire