Halloween is creepin’ up on us! We thought we’d celebrate this haunting holiday by speaking to the needs of support managers because between more than 7 months of remote work under their belts and what’s sure to be an unprecedented holiday season ahead of us, there is no shortage of spooky scenarios CX folks are facing this fall.
Here is our list of the 5 spine-chilling situations that keep support managers up at night — and how to steer clear of them this holiday season!
Customers left waiting for responses from reps is enough to send a shiver down everyone in the support space’s spine! No one likes being ghooooooosted.
Quick and thorough customer support is the new expectation of buyers. Consider these statistics from Front:
“Three years ago, 4% of customers said they expected an immediate response from customer support teams. A year later, that number went up to 14.5%. Today, 37% of consumers expect their emails to be answered within the hour. A fast response time has become a prerequisite for great support.”
Here are a few ways to avoid any of these ghostly encounters:
Schedule support blocks: Multitasking lowers efficiency, and 82% of business leaders say they switch between at least 5+ apps throughout the average workday. Creating a team-wide schedule that blocks off dedicated time for responding to support tickets when you typically see the highest message volumes helps to keep reps focused on providing a quick and delighting customer experience.
Track key metrics: Analyze key performance metrics such as reaction, response, and resolution times. By gauging where your team is against your goals you can gain insights into new ways to provide increasingly seamless customer interactions.
Equip your reps with the info they need: This is a big one. Your teams can’t be expected to lower their time-to-response if they don’t have the knowledge they need readily accessible to follow up with sufficient answers. Back up your support team with a knowledge management system that gives them everything they need to solve problems, up-sell, and create the amazing experiences that keep your customers coming back for more.
2. Misuse of mummified information 🧟♂️
Does the thought of support reps sharing mummified, outdated information with customers keep you up at night? It’s spooky stuff that can have frightening effects on your rates of returning customers.
Every piece of information that your company gives to a customer is a promise to fulfill. If they are relying on outdated information, they could not only be keeping customers waiting on a response, but even worse giving them _the wrong information altogethe_r. That requires going into recovery mode.
Let’s face it, we’re all stuck in a spidery situation here: we cannot seem to unplug from our web applications. Eyes are fixated on screens as the work hours bleed later and later into the evening. Support managers, do you feel confident enough to switch off your Slack notifications after hours? Secure that your reps are fully equipped to handle whatever comes their way?
Or do you find yourself, like so many of us, checking work applications on your phone after hours? Our inability to untangle our personal lives from our professional ones is scary and can have long term effects on burnout rates, which we all know is a costly risk to take.
Screen time rose considerably as we have been held up in our homes over these past 6 months. The dust may be settling, but remote work seems to be here to stay. It’s time to build new practices to cultivate better work-life balance, reduce our screen time, and substantially reduce our inability to unplug.
4. Brewing burnout 🔮
The cost of losing a new employee is enough to give any manager nightmares. Employee churn is costly for a company in more ways than one. Burnout has been a concern for support orgs for some time now, but mix in the complexities of remote work, screen fatigue, and an influx of new customers — that brewing sense of burnout will inevitably bubble over.
"In a non-remote setting, a rep can take a break, chat with some friends, and blow off some steam. That’s not always as easy to do when working from home. As mentioned above, lately, people tend to just… keep working until burnout or exhaustion sets in.”
5. Perfecting the post-purchase potion 🧪
Getting your post-purchase support just right has a major impact on creating lifelong customers. It’s the product you’re offering that makes the first sale, but the experience that follows the purchase that determines whether there will ever be a second, third, or fortieth sale.
That period of time right after purchasing presents a critical opportunity to invest in your customer relationship that may result in a brand advocate for years to come. But it’s tricky to get the potion juuuust right. Here are a few of the key ingredients of great customer service that you’ll want to find:
Speedy time to response
Connivence
Knowledgeable help
Friendly service
Mix all that up with some creative ideas on how to surprise and delight your customers after their first purchase and you are sure to cast a spell that will keep them coming back for more. Find out more on how to invest in post-purchase customer experience to drive CX impact.
We hope that these suggestions have alleviated some of the concerns that may be lurking in the back of your mind as your support teams celebrate the spooky season and brace for whatever the holidays have in store.
As with every Halloween, this year has provided us with countless tricks and the occasional treat. Though the twists and turns of this year may have felt particularly thorny, they were accompanied by pockets of joy that have gotten us through even the spookiest of times.
Halloween is creepin’ up on us! We thought we’d celebrate this haunting holiday by speaking to the needs of support managers because between more than 7 months of remote work under their belts and what’s sure to be an unprecedented holiday season ahead of us, there is no shortage of spooky scenarios CX folks are facing this fall.
Here is our list of the 5 spine-chilling situations that keep support managers up at night — and how to steer clear of them this holiday season!
Customers left waiting for responses from reps is enough to send a shiver down everyone in the support space’s spine! No one likes being ghooooooosted.
Quick and thorough customer support is the new expectation of buyers. Consider these statistics from Front:
“Three years ago, 4% of customers said they expected an immediate response from customer support teams. A year later, that number went up to 14.5%. Today, 37% of consumers expect their emails to be answered within the hour. A fast response time has become a prerequisite for great support.”
Here are a few ways to avoid any of these ghostly encounters:
Schedule support blocks: Multitasking lowers efficiency, and 82% of business leaders say they switch between at least 5+ apps throughout the average workday. Creating a team-wide schedule that blocks off dedicated time for responding to support tickets when you typically see the highest message volumes helps to keep reps focused on providing a quick and delighting customer experience.
Track key metrics: Analyze key performance metrics such as reaction, response, and resolution times. By gauging where your team is against your goals you can gain insights into new ways to provide increasingly seamless customer interactions.
Equip your reps with the info they need: This is a big one. Your teams can’t be expected to lower their time-to-response if they don’t have the knowledge they need readily accessible to follow up with sufficient answers. Back up your support team with a knowledge management system that gives them everything they need to solve problems, up-sell, and create the amazing experiences that keep your customers coming back for more.
2. Misuse of mummified information 🧟♂️
Does the thought of support reps sharing mummified, outdated information with customers keep you up at night? It’s spooky stuff that can have frightening effects on your rates of returning customers.
Every piece of information that your company gives to a customer is a promise to fulfill. If they are relying on outdated information, they could not only be keeping customers waiting on a response, but even worse giving them _the wrong information altogethe_r. That requires going into recovery mode.
Let’s face it, we’re all stuck in a spidery situation here: we cannot seem to unplug from our web applications. Eyes are fixated on screens as the work hours bleed later and later into the evening. Support managers, do you feel confident enough to switch off your Slack notifications after hours? Secure that your reps are fully equipped to handle whatever comes their way?
Or do you find yourself, like so many of us, checking work applications on your phone after hours? Our inability to untangle our personal lives from our professional ones is scary and can have long term effects on burnout rates, which we all know is a costly risk to take.
Screen time rose considerably as we have been held up in our homes over these past 6 months. The dust may be settling, but remote work seems to be here to stay. It’s time to build new practices to cultivate better work-life balance, reduce our screen time, and substantially reduce our inability to unplug.
4. Brewing burnout 🔮
The cost of losing a new employee is enough to give any manager nightmares. Employee churn is costly for a company in more ways than one. Burnout has been a concern for support orgs for some time now, but mix in the complexities of remote work, screen fatigue, and an influx of new customers — that brewing sense of burnout will inevitably bubble over.
"In a non-remote setting, a rep can take a break, chat with some friends, and blow off some steam. That’s not always as easy to do when working from home. As mentioned above, lately, people tend to just… keep working until burnout or exhaustion sets in.”
5. Perfecting the post-purchase potion 🧪
Getting your post-purchase support just right has a major impact on creating lifelong customers. It’s the product you’re offering that makes the first sale, but the experience that follows the purchase that determines whether there will ever be a second, third, or fortieth sale.
That period of time right after purchasing presents a critical opportunity to invest in your customer relationship that may result in a brand advocate for years to come. But it’s tricky to get the potion juuuust right. Here are a few of the key ingredients of great customer service that you’ll want to find:
Speedy time to response
Connivence
Knowledgeable help
Friendly service
Mix all that up with some creative ideas on how to surprise and delight your customers after their first purchase and you are sure to cast a spell that will keep them coming back for more. Find out more on how to invest in post-purchase customer experience to drive CX impact.
We hope that these suggestions have alleviated some of the concerns that may be lurking in the back of your mind as your support teams celebrate the spooky season and brace for whatever the holidays have in store.
As with every Halloween, this year has provided us with countless tricks and the occasional treat. Though the twists and turns of this year may have felt particularly thorny, they were accompanied by pockets of joy that have gotten us through even the spookiest of times.
