5-Star Customer Support Guide

Spoiler alert: a dramatic but very illustrative question.

Is a delicious Brie Cheese Ravioli with Apricot Jelly sauce with a handful of sand still a Brie Cheese Ravioli?

Would you accept this dish? Or would I have an aversion?

The analogy may seem a bit harsh and even a bit dramatic, but it's very useful to make you wonder about your company's customer support model today.

In certain situations, a sample of dirt in your customer service process is enough to radically alter the dynamics of the entire process.

So the question that doesn't want to shut up: how is the end-to-end quality of your customer support today?

Is it smooth... or rough?

I apologize for the example in the middle of your afternoon snack...

I needed to demonstrate the importance of this process, which is the heart of your company.

After all, customer support is the one who maintains your company and who provides your Brie Cheese Ravioli with Apricot Jelly on the weekend.

This is the sector that is the wheel of your company. It supports the weight and responsibility of training clients as propagators of your brand or detractors.

And let's be clear: this assessment by customers is not sudden, it's built on the customer's experience with your service. And that's only in your hands.

How?

With the right customer support strategy aimed at customer success...

But let's talk about that in a bit...

First, we need to talk about more important elements, such as service channels.

Where does your company serve today?

Do you serve the channel where most of your customers are?

I say this because I see that some companies still don't respond through WhatsApp. And that, in the post-pandemic world that we live in, is almost inconceivable.

Companies that were not online with WhatsApp service sites suffered. What makes sense, after all, this is the most used application in the country (98% of Brazilians who have smartphones use WhatsApp). So, it's the best way to talk to most of your customers.

So that's our first learning here:

Your company needs to be on the best communication channel for the customer.

And, in the best of all worlds, on all communication channels: e-mail, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and especially WhatsApp.

In fact, even WhatsApp itself realized that it is fundamental to the operation of companies and launched WhatsApp Business a long time ago.

(And you can Read here everything you need to know to master the tool once and for all.)

In addition to the channel, another fundamental part of customer support is the form of service that can be Self-service (such that the customer has the autonomy to resolve a problem) or assisted by a customer support agent.

The autonomous form can be done by means of a Solution Center, in which the customer has access to a database with possible questions and the solutions to these problems. They are usually referred to as FAQs, but the ideal is that you show your face and make everything more interactive, sexier.

But to do that, you need to map the main questions your client may have, produce content, and think of an intuitive layout to facilitate your client's navigation.

And you can, and should, feed this database whenever a new question comes up for your customer support team.

This is a great request to give autonomy to those people who don't want to contact your support and prefer to solve it on their own.

But there is also the other side: the client who wants more in-depth help or needs a faster and more effective resolution.

Therefore, in this case, your company also needs to have a specific team to assist you: the support team.

We have already mentioned examples of premium customer support here on the blog, such as Disney and how you can implement this same methodology in your company and have the most satisfied customers in the world.

However, to have customer support rated 10, or rather, 5 stars, it is necessary to:

#1 Fast service

Imagine a customer desperate to solve a problem? What does he want most in life? Speed! This is the first agile service that your customer must receive, either by a human or by a screening chatbot that performs the first filter.

So you might be wondering:

But won't the chatbot irritate this customer who wants to talk to an operator to solve the problem right away?

The answer is relies.

If you choose a multilevel bot with millions of options that will take you through a maze rather than help you... Then yes, the bot will irritate your customer.

However, if the Bot comes as a facilitating agent of the process, working as a driver, your customer will be served faster.

See for yourself how it happens here at PinkApp customer support:

The bot works only as a guide and is not a substitute for human service. It completes.

Speaking of human care, we need to talk about a strictly human ability, which no machine can replicate yet:

#2 Empathy

To be empathetic is to read between the lines and understand the unsaid.

It means putting yourself in the place of the other without judgment, simply unraveling through the client's speech what problem they want to solve with that question.

As we say around here: “There is no such thing as a stupid question”!

Any question that makes it easier to understand your product or service is important.

An important technique of this process is to name the pains.

What does that mean?

I'll give you an example for this to materialize in your head:

“Hello, good afternoon, all right? I have a small problem with my computer. I can't access a Wi-Fi internet page from my house. But I can access it with 4G”.

Your attendant, based on past experiences, probably knows what happened to that customer and answers:

“I understand, I think it's a problem either with your machine's DNS. But we can solve this very quickly. Just clear your browser's cache. I'll send you the step by step 😊”

That is, naming the problem, he made it tangible and then presented the resolution. A heart-breaking combo to have a line of happy customers.

Speaking of problem solving, let's go to our next point for 5-star customer support:

#3 Efficiency

Efficiency goes hand in hand with empathy and the speed of first care. Efficiency lies in:

#3 .1 Map out potential problems

Knowing what hurts and where it hurts is important when you go to the doctor to complain about a health problem. The same thing needs to happen with the health of your business.

You need to know what challenges your team is facing and, even if you can't deal with them now, take planning steps to attack this evil.

#3 .2 Catalog potential customer support questions

The same thing happens with customer questions.

If there is a frequent question, there has probably been a failure in the sales communication or in the process of Onboarding — initiation — from your client (if you have a service).

The big issue is to correct weaknesses and make your process more and more clear.

This automates your operation and, consequently, makes it cheaper over time with cheaper measures, such as the implementation of an FAQ, a way to anticipate the customer's problem.

Speaking of which...

#3 .3 Anticipate the customer's problem

There is an exclusive team here at Pink designed to anticipate customer problems and reduce the rates of Churns (cancellations).

Thus, based on metrics, it is possible to notice dissatisfaction with Onboarding of the platform, any functionality issue that needs to be resolved urgently, or any other problem or adjustment that needs to be made.

But it must also be made clear that this team does not invent actions out of thin air, it draws intelligence from information collected by the support team. And that's why they are necessary...

#4 Customer Support Metrics

The assessment through customers by NPS (Net Promoter Score), as we have already mentioned here on the blog, is fundamental, because it gives the team a vision of how the client sees the company as a whole.

However, it's not enough!

Ideally, it should be combined with other data, such as:

• service time;
• main questions;
• urgency of problems;
• assessment of service;
• report of what was done during the service.

Thus, it is possible to carry out a detailed analysis, almost like a checkup of the “quality of life” of your clients. And work to improve the experience more and more every day.

We've even talked here about one of the greatest inspirations for quality customer service: the Disney model. And I completely recommend reading it.

So...

5-star customer support is customer support that has the customer at the center of the operation and wants to bring THE BEST to everyone who buys your product.

Based on this, there are some measures that you, as a manager, can take both to train your employee, such as empathy and efficiency, and to obtain data to reduce friction and optimize all operation processes. And, as a consequence, also remove parameters for improvements, both from the product and from the service.