The Most Important New Year’s Resolution for the Customer Service Team

At the end of every year, people around the world commit themselves to drastic changes – from quitting smoking to buying a home – universally known as New Year’s Resolutions. These resolutions tend to fall into the BHAG category – Big Hairy Audacious Goals. We’re suggesting you take on only one BHAG for the New Year – commit your team to responding to your customers’ inquiries within 30 minutes. Your customers will be happier and your team will be the rock stars of your company.

However, resolutions tend to fail for one reason – because the person doesn’t take the small steps towards the big goal. So, here, we’ll help you. Here are the steps you can take to respond to your social customer service inquiries in less than 30 minutes.

1. Choose a Tool With High Volume Capabilities

You need a tool that can handle the influx of customer service messages your company faces every day so choose a tool which pushes information to your team instead of forcing your team to scour various sources. Check out how scheduling app, Buffer handled a 10x spike in support volume while being hacked in October.

2. Add Workflows to Organize Your Team

With more customers reaching out to you via social channels, you can use the same automated call distribution type technology used in your call centers and apply them to the social conversations. Look for a tool that allows you to chat with your teammates within the tool to make sure there’s a smooth and easy workflow. Avoid the embarrassment of having multiple agents respond to the same message with different answers prevents spending additional time fixing your mistakes.

3. Establish Customer Profiles Help You and Your Customer

Great social customer service tools will make it easy for you and your team to quickly digest important information about the customer you’re currently chatting with. You’ll save time by compiling past conversations, customer records and social profiles in one screen, reducing the time to respond.

4. Give Yourself Little Nudges

According to behavior economist, Katherine Milkman, “‘nudges’ are small environmental interventions that could shift people’s behavior.” Little nudges such as a feature which allows you to schedule reminders to respond to messages at another time will help train you to get in the habit of replying to all customers in a matter of minutes.

Your team is at the front line of communication to this social world. And in this social world, your customer’s want fast responses — and they are redefining what fast means. No longer is it sufficient to respond to an email two days later. By responding in under 30 minutes, the customer will value you as a reliable source of help, which is fundamental to building a lasting relationship.

Interested in learning more tips about elevating your call center with social media? Download our whitepaper How Social Media is Changing the Call Center World.

via Business 2 Community http://www.business2community.com/customer-experience/important-new-years-resolution-customer-service-team-0729123?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=important-new-years-resolution-customer-service-team