Customer Support Technique #28
Finding Agreement Points
You are more likely to have an argument with a customer if he or she perceives you as being against them. One technique often used in hostage negotiations to create a sense of “we’re on the same side” is looking for things the customer says that you can agree with.
Keep the tone of your conversation light and engaging by discussing topics unrelated to why you are talking to the customer.
How to Setup Your Help Desk Software
Step 1: Select an email address for support
It is possible to use your personal email address when you start out to answer customer support, but it may not be the best way to provide great service.
Some helpful tips when it comes to your support email address:
- Support email is the address people will use to contact your company for customer service. Ideally, this should be an easy address that everyone can find. Fill in any help desk software with your support email address so that when someone needs assistance they can easily send you a message from a website instead of calling or sending mail to the business’
- Test your setting several times to ensure you are getting emails delivered. It can be frustrating when it seems like everything is going well only to receive an email from a sender saying their mail wasn't received.
- Make it easy and clear on your website for customers to find contact information at all times.
- Sometimes you have to use your support email as the “from” email for your outgoing messages. When you do, customers who reply will have all their responses saved and organized.
Step 2: set up canned responses
What is a canned response?
These are pre-determined responses to common customer questions. These answers can be efficient for customer service agents to use and increase customer satisfaction. Canned responses can be organized in different categories so that they’re always easy to locate, and if used properly, these response templates can save time for an agent while serving customers faster too.
What are some advantages of using canned responses?
An agent can save time by inserting a canned response to common inquiries instead of repeatedly answering the same question. Merge fields make personalizing answers easy and increase customer support agent productivity. When using canned responses, customers will receive better answers since they are helpful yet concise, and it frees up an agent’s time if they are doing all customer service.
What are the disadvantages of canned responses?
If you are typically pressed for time, or if your replies become careless, this may create an inaccurate response that does not resolve the concern of the customer.
When should a canned response be created?
If you find yourself repeating the same responses more than twice, it might be worth creating a canned response.
Step 3: Add your team members
Add the customer support team to your help desk software.
Determine who needs to be added. Will you answer customer questions, or will someone else on the team? If a team member is answering questions in your place, make sure they have an account for visibility. Can you use fake names to solve this, or should you just do it with your real name?
Give the customer support team time to practice before they speak with customers.
Before you launch your new help desk software to everyone on staff, make sure that the agents have had time to learn how it works and practice communicating with customers. Share the passwords for logging in to the help desk account, but do not allow anyone else access unless they are providing day-to-day customer support.
Make sure the support staff is ready to:
Access a list of all open tickets for customer service, respond to certain tickets when necessary, close certain tickets based on the information provided by customers, assign other employees with handling specified requests through your ticketing system, and view reports on which services need attention.
Customer Support Technique #27
Face-Saving Out
It is never a good idea to embarrass or humiliate a customer, no matter the situation. Providing customers with an option for face saves them from embarrassment and prevents them from getting angry or frustrated as well.
The best way to illustrate this is with an example. Imagine that a customer appears not to understand the instructions at all, even though they are given written information for reference and are told everything verbally before hand as well.
The employee could say, “If you want to learn more about the material we gave you, let me know.”
“Maybe the written material is not clear or I haven’t explained myself well, so let me see if I can talk you through this since it can be complicated.”
This removes the blame component by putting responsibility on the customer's side, while not trying to point out any comprehension difficulties they may have.
Customer Support Technique #3
Acknowledging Without Encouraging
When faced with an angry customer, acknowledge their perspective and the necessity of meeting their basic needs.
"The catch is that 'what you focus on, you get more of' and people are naturally less likely to continue being difficult or angry when they feel acknowledged. Therefore, this technique combines two techniques: acknowledging their feelings politely while discouraging the unwanted behavior.
The first type of intervention is an empathy statement followed by a refocus statement. First, you acknowledge the customer's feelings in one sentence and without stopping you redirect the conversation back to his or her problem.
Reflect back your understanding of the customer's situation and then refocus back to solving it.
When talking to someone, focusing mainly on facts and context rather than emotions will allow conversations to end sooner. This will minimize emotional content.
Customer Support Technique #26
Explain Reasoning or Actions
When customers don’t understand something that you say or do, it is easy to assume they won’t contact customer service for clarification. That's a mistake because the customer will have less knowledge on your company policies and procedures than you would as a longtime employee.
Be sure to explain what your job is and why you’re performing it. It can be tricky when a customer doesn't understand the things you're doing that she should just get used to, so make an effort to provide them with additional information whenever possible.
"When you come in next time, all of this will already be entered into the computer.
"Here’s what I need to do: [explain action]."
Customer Support Technique #25
Expert Recommendations
One of the responsibilities of a customer service rep is to provide expert advice or make recommendations about products.
Before offering advice or a recommendation, always check with the customer first.
Here's a key point. When you give advice or make product recommends, always provide pros and cons and an unbiased recommendation.
Customer Support Technique #24
Expediting
Expediting means “making things go faster.” In other words, give the impression that you are doing things to speed up whatever process the customer is trying to get done. You can convey this by talking more quickly and more emphatically, while clearing away barriers that may be slowing down progress toward getting what the customer wants.
Customer Support Technique #23
Empathy Statements
Empathy statements are meant to placate the customer and show that you understand their frustration.
You may not understand why a customer is angry, but listen to them.
“It must have been a bummer to find out the product didn’t work.”
Here’s how to present an effective empathetic statement. State the emotion and identify where it came from (for example, “I am angry because of the delay at customs”). Avoid more general statements like “I understand what you are going through.”
How to Choose Your Help Desk Software
When it comes to choosing help desk software, there's many different options with varying benefits.
Here are three key things to keep in mind when doing research.
1. Technology
What's the difficulty level of your software for both employees and customers? Who are your customer service agents? Higher paid IT help desk agents will have a different skill set than an overseas assistant. It doesn't mean you can't hire an overseas assistant, it only means the help desk software needs to accommodate their skill level.
2. Price
How important is the cost of the software to you? There are help desk options that have a free price, others with a monthly per user license fee. Typically, the more you pay for software, the more features you get. You'll need to determine which features are most important and take into account your budget when making this decision.
3. Integrations
How do you want your solution to fit together? What other software do you use and how dependable is it? For example, do you need chat support which syncs up with your website? Think about the system as a whole--including time-intensive maintenance.
Before choosing your software
Asking yourself a few questions before you start researching your help desk options can save you time and help potentially give you clarity.
How often do you get customer service requests?
Does your company have a help desk? If so, does it offer mobile access as well?
How many customer service agents will be needed in the software? How technologically savvy are your customer service agents?
Are you looking for ticketing management software or do you need a more comprehensive system?
Will your IT team set up the help desk or will you handle this?
How many of your customers do not speak English? What is your budget for the new system?
So we’ve determined you need a tool to manage your customer support.
Which one do you choose?
There are so many options, and plenty of services come with a free trial – but that doesn’t mean it comes without any risk. It takes a substantial amount of time to train employees or migrate data, so the last thing you want to do is switch help desk software in a few months.
Before signing up for any business software, evaluate your own needs to ensure you choose the right features.
You should also use help desk software to work with customers, as well as other services such as chat software, business voicemail and faxing.
Customer Support Technique #22
Distraction
One way to help an angry customer is by drawing their attention away from you. This involves showing the person a physical object and breaking eye contact with them until they are calmer.
A common issue people uncover when they review their policies is that the expiry date doesn’t match with what was communicated on the policy renewal notice.
Any object can be used for visual aids, but the object should be relevant to what is being discussed.