Customer support helps the customers to have a proper understanding of a product and assists them if they have trouble upgrading, troubleshooting, or maintaining a product or if they have any complaints or issues regarding the same. It ensures convenience and provides a hassle-free experience. There is no doubt that it is an essential part of any given company or brand. Offering great customer support is necessary to retain your customers and have a burgeoning brand name attached to your business.
However, a good customer support team is not created within a day. According to TechyHost and our extensive curation of how-to guides and tips for the tech-savvy in the service industry, every team member needs to have a good understanding of how they could affect the business, as even one mistake could risk the entire brand’s reputation or the company. Our website aims to provide you with all the information you’ll ever need. Therefore, it is important to ensure proper team training to retain the customers and maintain a good customer–seller relationship. In this article, we will walk you through five ways to effectively train your customer support team and set it up for success.
- Setting up a mentor shadowing program –
One of the best ways to teach a new agent the ropes is by getting him involved in the daily tasks and activities of a more experienced employee, like a mentor or a supervisor. This will help them perform their tasks in a better manner besides giving them a taste of the company’s culture. It also helps the new agent to make friends with other members of the team.
For example, you could implement a ‘buddy system’ in which every new agent could be assigned to someone more experienced on their team. This promotes teamwork, facilitates team building, and ensures that every newbie has a designated member to whom they can go if they have any queries.
- Encouraging new agents to test the product themselves –
A definite way for your customer support agents to learn more about your products is to use them. This gives them a deeper knowledge of the product and prepares them to attend to the customer’s queries. An added benefit of this training technique is that your team can discover any bugs or issues with the product and suggest improvements.
Getting your customer support agents to test your products helps tie the technical and human sides together.
- Share brand guidelines and scripts –
A very important aspect of great customer service is maintaining a positive approach and a forward-thinking attitude. Customer interactions might get heated up at some point, but the agent needs to handle the situation calmly and politely. Every customer support agent is bound to face a similar situation, so it is advised to ensure that they are prepared for customer interactions that might take an undesirable turn.
Customers don’t like to take “no” for an answer, no matter how impossible their request might be. In these situations, it is important to acknowledge the customer’s concerns. To ensure that the agents are following this, you could share your brand guidelines and customer service scripts with them that the agent can refer to take the conversation in the right direction. Clear scripts and brand guidelines allow the agents to empathize while setting clear expectations with the customers.
- Strengthen soft skills with communication exercises –
Another key to an amazing customer support experience is to ensure proper communication between the agent and the customer, as well as within the members of the team. This can be achieved by improving soft skills through communication exercises focusing on key elements, such as your agent’s tone of voice, the kind of greetings used, and the first impression they have on customers.
Since most customer support interactions don’t happen face to face, your agent must write replies, or voice is not mechanical. They need to provide relevant information in a personal, humanized way. Agents can improve their communication skills by writing mock emails and getting them checked by a more experienced employee for their feedback.
- Setting up role plays with real-life cases –
The best way for any customer support team to gain experience is by handling a real customer support interaction. During the training sessions, you can have your agents review past cases and role-play them. This facilitates thinking and replying in real-time, giving agents the practice they require to handle cases independently.
Later, their performances can be reviewed by supervisors who can offer personalized feedback. This training technique can make a significant difference in the quality of the responses by the team and improve their reaction time.
Your customer support team directly impacts your recurring revenue. A single interaction with a customer support representative can influence a customer’s perception and define their experience. Thus, it is always in your best interest to ensure that your customer support team has the training required to perform efficiently.
