9 Best Practices for Scaling Your Customer Service
According to Creately.com, there are 150 million startups in the world, and 50 million new startups are created each year. Growth is the goal of every company, especially startups. But with growth come challenges. Scaling customer service is among the thorniest of those challenges.
A startup’s most pressing problem initially is product-market fit. Customer feedback plays an essential role at this stage. This can help you tailor your product or service to the market’s exact needs.
But, eventually, customers will want something more from you than product fit. They’ll want better support. That’s when you have to shift from a reactive mode of customer service to a proactive one to ensure excellent service.
Shifting to a Proactive Mode of Customer Service
One of the key aspects you need to focus on if you’re looking to shift to a proactive mode is scaling your customer service. Below is a six-step process that can help you significantly scale customer service for your business:
- Empower your CS people
- Document critical processes
- Automate repeating tasks/processes
- Make support emails searchable
- Expand self-service support
- Establish/maintain a personal touch
Executing these six steps will help you provide an excellent customer service experience as your business grows and expands its customer base.
Another step you should take is to boost call center capabilities to make sure your customer support function is up to the task. Customer satisfaction matters more than you can imagine!
Start by reviewing call center activities to make sure your customer support team is handling customer requests properly and not failing at customer service. Then make changes where necessary. The goal is to use your call center to create a customer-centric strategy and boost the quality of customer service.
Download Free Customer Support Worksheet
How does your team rate your company’s customer support? Use this worksheet to find out.
Creating a Customer-Centric Strategy
At our call center company, we understand that delivering exceptional customer experiences is at the heart of your business’s success. That’s why we specialize in helping you craft a customer-centric strategy that not only meets but exceeds the expectations of your clientele. Below are nine customer service practices that can help when scaling your customer support operation:
Create SOPs
Create a system that allows your customer support staff to know what needs to be done, how it needs to be done, and when it needs to be done. This eliminates many internal questions and saves time onboarding new employees. More importantly, it guarantees clear answers to customer inquiries, better management of customer complaints, and customer loyalty.
Use transparent software
Using software that everyone can see helps track things and speeds up response time. It will also help to make your tickets available to everyone on your team. This way, when one shift leaves, the next can pick up where they left off. Transparent software also helps customer support agents share their knowledge.
Determine how customers like to be served
Develop an understanding of your customer types. Make sure you have concrete data to support your conclusions. This move helps you keep your customers happy by deciding where to prioritize actions— chat support, customer self-service, phone support — and saves your time and money.
Create a sustainable team structure
You also want to set up a system to oversee supervisors. A team structure ensures delegated tasks and specific roles. Establish ratios that make sense. This way, each supervisor is responsible for X number of customer service agents and can provide training, coaching, and supervising.
Work with standard answers
Over time, you’ll see most customers asking the same common questions. An easy shortcut to handling customer questions is to provide standard answers. But you need to make sure the answers to common customer requests contain a personal touch. You don’t want your customers to feel undervalued. So, write your answers in a natural way. Or, use templates modified to give that personal touch and ensure a high level of customer experience.
Streamline processes with technology
AI tools. Customer service chatbots. Helpdesk software. These technology-powered customer service tools streamline customer service processes. This approach translates into shorter average resolution times, improved customer interaction, and faster solutions. Streamlining your support effort also reduces the workload of your customer service team— not to mention its stress.
Expand your FAQs
Extending your FAQs is a good way to help customers help themselves. But don’t move all customer support to FAQs. If numerous customers are looking at the same questions, you may be overlooking customer pain points better handled by other facets of your support department.
Hire in advance
Don’t wait until your customer service reps are overwhelmed to hire additional staff. Finding, onboarding, and training new employees takes time. In some cases, it may take as much as two to three months until your new employee is ready for primetime. Hire proactively for stellar customer service.
Keep it personal
Sometimes, customers can get the feeling you don’t care or have abandoned them. Interview customers who dropped off your site to find out why. Eliminate these problems as soon as you can if you want loyal customers. Also, try using your chat messaging functionality to touch base with users as soon as they log onto your site.
These nine best practices can help you shift customer service from reactive to proactive. This approach will not only benefit your customers by providing consistent service and increasing the customer satisfaction score but also help you grow your company. And in business, that’s the name of the game.
Post Update: The article was updated on August 30th, 2023, originally published on August 28th, 2018. It has been completely revamped and updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.
