Good Customer Support is Powerful

Support professionals are the front line of a business—a vital and challenging role. They handle a high volume of customer conversations that often follow a similar pattern. Building an extensive knowledge base of previous instances and successful resolutions to quickly and effectively solve future issues is very valuable, but relying too heavily on these assumptions and past experiences rather than listening to information from a customer is a dangerous trap. Experienced customer support professionals know that personalized customer support is a powerful tool in creating a lasting impression of your company.

“When customers share their story, they’re not just sharing pain points. They’re actually teaching you how to make your product, service and business better. Your customer service organization should be designed to efficiently communicate those issues,” said Kristin Smaby, author of Being Human is Good Business and consultant for Talkdesk.

When a customer calls with an issue that has been solved before, pinpointing similar cases can be a useful starting point, but it is important to listen closely to the customer. They called with a problem that they own. They are the expert on the issue, so it is the role of the support professional to listen to every caller with fresh ears and provide good customer support in response. Making assumptions that costing the customer time and emotional energy will end up placing a bad light on the company as a whole.

Verifying your assumptions along the way to a solution is an easy way that top quality professionals will keep callers engaged and even illustrate a line of thinking and problem-solving process in the instance that they have a similar issue later. The ultimate goal of a good support team should be to provide the most personalized customer support possible in every interaction. Let each customer fill you in on the details of their problem before you start providing a solution.

A great support team is built of individuals who have a commitment to ongoing education and the emotional ability to both handle upset callers and collaborate to solve problems with them.

Good Customer Support is Powerful is part of our ebook, 8 Tips Support Professionals Need to Develop, by Dominic Sandoval, Technical Support Team Lead at Talkdesk. Talkdesk’s world-class support team has an average CSAT rating of 98%. For more tips on how to leverage customer support skills to build relationships, download the ebook.