When it comes to customer service, consumers tend to speak up when our needs are not being met; we take to sounding off in reviews, on social media, and to our friends and family. Sound familiar? Well, you’re not alone. The human brain is hardwired to remember negative information and experiences more than positive ones.
It’s no wonder, then, that a Harvard Business Review research study on improving customer service found that 93% of survey respondents rate sufficiently addressing customer questions as “extremely important” to their business success.
This data confirms an undeniable truth: Customer service is the main competitive differentiator in an era of long hold times, disembodied robo-recordings, and outdated, self-serve help centers that can leave you feeling more confused than before you decided to troubleshoot solo.
Customer support teams are absolutely integral to the success of a business — so much so that CallRail’s CFO Jim Morgan considers their contributions an “invaluable extension” of the marketing analytics and business communications software we provide. We couldn’t agree more.
In celebration of Customer Service Week, we’re sharing our best customer service and support-related content as well as some of our favorite customer service content from around the web. Here’s to you.
This video is written and directed by Porsha Huff, Tier 1 Technical Support, CallRail.
Our picks for the best customer service resources
When someone calls, texts, chats, or submits a form to customer service, they want to feel taken care of. Part of making sure their customer experience is a positive one involves an engaged, personalized response. “There’s no more important team at our company than the team that talks to our customers every single day — helping them to achieve their goals and grow their business,” notes Marc Ginsberg, CEO, CallRail.
From actionable tips to more methodological musings, this curated list is packed with customer service content to up-level your customer service strategy and best practices for creating a memorable (for the right reasons!) customer service experience, from support to success.
Harnessing the power of customer feedback: Create a program that delivers results
The bottom line: “Your customers know what was great about interacting with your business — and what wasn’t. But unless you have a customer feedback process in place, you likely won’t hear about it.”
Why customer empathy is critical to our processes and products
The bottom line: “Customer empathy as a tool cannot stop at qualitative data. It must be layered with quantitative data in order to validate your new assumptions and confirm there is scale to justify development.”
The bottom line: “Customer success is a more proactive approach than customer support. You're anticipating your client’s needs and helping them achieve maximum value from your product or service after they’ve made a purchase.”
4 ways CallRail helps you better train your sales and customer service reps
The bottom line: “Customers don’t want to go through their entire life story every time they speak to a call agent. In an ideal world, your sales and customer service agents would know exactly who they were, why they were calling, what their pain points and customer needs are, and what they would like from your company.”
Why it's important to have great employees answering your business phones
The bottom line: “Hiring great employees to answer your business phones is important, but you also need to give these employees the tools they need to be successful.”
The bottom line: “A customer advocacy program only works if it has genuine customer empathy at its center. A company needs to center all of its operations, from product development to marketing, on an understanding of customer problems and the desire to solve them.”
Don’t take our words for it, though; we’re thrilled our NPS scores landed us on the shortlist for APPEALIE’s 2021 SaaS customer success award!
Embedded content: https://twitter.com/APPEALIE/status/1440725611954073605
A guide to customer perception (+ 4 actionable ways to improve it) — Zendesk
The bottom line: “Customer perception refers to the opinions, feelings, and beliefs customers have about your brand based on direct and indirect interactions with your business.”
How to build a thriving support team and department from scratch — Help Scout
The bottom line: “Customer service is not like a project that has a beginning, middle, and end. It is ongoing work that must adapt over time as the market, your customers, and your team change, and as you learn.”
How the pandemic has changed customer support — Intercom
The bottom line: “The channels we use to communicate have shifted dramatically, and customer expectations for fast, personalized support are higher than ever. As a result, companies need to understand their customers and deliver to their high standards if they want to stay competitive.”
Related reading: Get the infographic on how to transform your customer experience in 5 steps
Some kind words of appreciation from our customers
“One of the things I think about as a manager of customer support teams,” shares Denise Bouie, Director of Customer Support, “is how do customers see us?”
It’s an important question — and here are some insights directly from our incredible customers:
“Will Bowyer’s fast response helped me recover a deleted account that was deleted by accident. You don't see great response times in this day and age and that was really impressive to me. Keep up the good work!”
— Pharon Sylvester, Sr. Paid Ads Specialist, ProSites®
"Morgan Anderson is a delight to work with. She is so helpful, patient, and kind! She explained everything clearly so that a sometimes technically challenged person like myself could understand! Morgan is AWESOME. :-) and I fully appreciate all of her help.”
— Amanda Goldman, Real Estate Investor, Victorious Home Buyers
7 tips from our Customer Support team
Whether you’re just getting started with your customer support career or a seasoned pro, here are some words of wisdom and tried-and-true advice from CallRail employees from across the Support team.
- Don’t think you’re in it by yourself. If you need help, ask!
- Ask questions — as your teachers used to say (hopefully!) there are no stupid questions.
- Your teammates are there to help you succeed.
- Remember to search for answers in any tools and resources like Slack or Ringopedia — chances are, someone has asked the same question before.
- Take your time — you’re not going to learn everything and be an expert overnight.
- Treat yourself the way you treat customers: with grace and kindness. Be forgiving with and celebrate yourself — your wins, mistakes, and lessons learned.
- Keep an “always learning and growing” mindset.
Our challenge to you, dear readers: For this year’s Customer Service Week — and beyond — let the customer support folks who have made your day better know how much of a difference they made with a review, a shout out, or a few words of encouragement.
Interested in joining the growing CallRail team to help businesses grow? Check out current job opportunities on our Careers page.
