The Basics of Customer Support

Behind every great product is a great support team on the front-lines of the company. These team members help customers learn how to use company products, resolve problems customers may have and answer any queries customers may have.

With our years of experience providing exceptional client service, S4 has realised that the key to good customer service is recognizing what the role of a customer service representative is. The role of the customer service representative is to be the primary point of contact for your customer, the representative is the interface between the company and the customer using the company product. With this in mind, the goal should be to resolve the customer issue in the most effective way possible with the least amount of discomfort caused to the customer's daily operations.

By being the primary point of contact for the customer, the company representative becomes the face of the company and the company’s reputation. All company employees carry the weight of maintaining company reputation but none so much as customer sales representatives. Here’s why software developers still have lines of defence between them and the customer such as project managers and quality assurance teams who all work together to deliver the best service and product to the customer.

The customer representative is not so lucky, as the primary interface for a customer the company representative needs to assist the customer to resolve the issue as efficiently as possible.

I have spent a good amount of years in a customer support role and over the years you start to recognize good practices which not only make your life easier but also the customer you are supporting.

Create Knowledge Base

Create a knowledge base of regularly experienced issues and asked questions along with their resolutions. You are just a sucker for pain if you do not learn from past customer material and choose to resolve a common issue from scratch every time.

Support Software

Invest in support software which best fits your company’s requirements. Using dedicated customer software will streamline your processes. It will assist you in your issue management, overall support team communication and performance with customers.

Issue History

This probably by extension is part of the knowledge base and support system points but I felt like this one deserved its own explanation. Some issues are unfortunately not resolved in one day and require to be carried over, this is where issue history becomes very valuable. There is nothing more frustrating to a customer than having to explain the issue over and over to multiple different support representatives. It is equally frustrating to the support representative to have to track down the previous agent on the issue to request information on what is happening.

The habit of documenting what has been done and what is still required on open issues is a good habit to get your support teams into.

Understanding Priority

The ability to recognize and prioritize support issues is an important skill in customer support. It is important to understand where to focus your efforts when dealing with customer queries and the time you dedicate to the resolution of the issues.

Identifying Opportunity

Feedback

Encouraging your support staff to listen to customers and ensure that customer feedback is documented and fed up the chain in your company is also a great practice to adopt. As mentioned, your support staff are on the front-lines of the company and work closely with customers, their insight is invaluable.

Communication

Probably the most basic practice to instil in your teams is the importance of keeping the customer informed. The simple act of keeping the customer informed just reduces frustration which could have been avoided just by clearly telling the customer what the current status of their query is.

Final Thoughts

There are many more points that a person could focus on when talking about good customer support practices. The points mentioned above are just the simple basics which will get any support team on their way to providing good customer support service. There is always room for growth in the customer support industry. Investing company resources in good support practices and systems is always a good investment if you want to stay customer-centric.

S4 strives to exceed and excel in our customer service offering, continuously trying to improve upon our customer support functions. We offer a handful of customer support services such as software and automation warranties, as well as Service Level Agreements.