At some point in its growth journey, a business will need to revise its customer contact strategy and scale up its customer service provision. Even if it’s not as a result of outright expansion, changes in demand throughout the year may require an increase in customer contact, so it’s important for a business to prepare well. In this article, we’re sharing our top tips for when this need arises.
1. The importance of each individual interaction
Delivering an excellent customer experience is a great way to create a strong company reputation and to secure repeat business. For that reason, it’s essential to invest in appropriate training for the customer service team of a business. If a business has strong core values as a brand, it’s important that this team understands this and displays a commitment to it in each interaction with a customer.
2. The connection between a strong team and happy customers
A team that can make its own decisions within the boundaries of the business’ remit is a strong one, and it’s important that this is encouraged as the business grows in size. This removes the need for a manager to approve all actions so they can focus on other areas of the business. This will also positively impact on customer experience as the team’s confidence will increase in delivering effective communication. Giving more power and autonomy to a team can result in a seamless customer journey.
3. Use digital tools to aid human interaction
An increase in customer interactions can create issues with time management, as tasks are often repeated when a team grows in size. In today’s digital world, many tasks can be automated, saving time and increasing efficiency. If you find the need to scale up customer service, consider alleviating some of the customer advisor’s tasks with tools such as self-serve, support emails, apps and standard responses. However, it’s important to maintain the authenticity of human customer service, so ensure digital automation and person-to-person contact are combined, making it as easy as possible for customers to find solutions to their problems.
4. Measure team performance
As a business grows in size, so does its team, and it’s necessary to understand the performance of the team to enable further strategic growth. The leadership team should dedicate time to truly understand the performance indictors within the business and how these contribute positively to team performance and customer satisfaction. For example, a business should consider whether it’s better to focus on ‘first call resolution’ rather than ‘resolution time’, as the former is based on the success of resolving the customer problem whilst the latter focuses on the time taken to complete the task. It’s important to use these measures to gather feedback on team performance, to recognise success and to invest in team members requiring extra assistance. This will all ultimately impact positively on customer experience.
5. Focus on the wellbeing of employees
An expanding team needs more than a larger workspace. In fact, when customer service is scaled up to meet the growing needs of a business, the role of a customer service advisor can become increasingly demanding, particularly as we live in an age when consumers expect high quality, wide-ranging, 24/7 service.
As customer service scales up, it’s important to focus on the wellbeing of advisors, to create a content and motivated workforce capable of delivering a fantastic consumer experience. At Echo-U, we’ve invested in break-out areas to enable teams to relax, quiet spaces for religious worship, cafes serving healthy options, an internal communication platform for conversation, regular social events, exercise tips and advice, and a strong creative brand which inspires and motivates the team.
