Every week, there’s some great articles out there on customer support and the overall customer experience. Most of us working on support teams tend to be busy helping customers so we don’t have a chance to go scouring the web for them.
To fix that, I’ve got a brand new section of the Support Ops site with the customer support roundup. Each weekend, our team here will make sure you’ve got the best articles from the past week. Weekends are perfect for reading so it’s a good chance to see what might have been missed in the past week.
If you’ve got any articles or links that we’ve missed, make sure to let us know in the comments.
Grab that cup of coffee and dig in!
1. Acknowledge!
Tim Schraeder reminds us that it’s about the human element. Technology is great but don’t ever lose site of the human element.
Regardless of what type of brand or organization you represent on social media, you have to remember that social media is, at its roots, social. It’s dialogue. A conversation. An opportunity to connect. Sometimes we forget that. Sometimes we can automate our tweets and updates and share great content but completely miss the human element that makes social media, social.
2. Internet Users Demand Less Interactivity
Sure, it’s satire from The Onion. But like all good satire, it also hits close to home with some truth.
Web users expressed a near unanimous desire to visit a website and simply look at it, for once, without having every aspect of the user interface tailored to a set of demographic information culled from their previous browsing history. In addition, citizens overwhelmingly voiced their wish for a straightforward one-way conduit of information, and specifically one that did not require any kind of participation on their part.
3. Go ahead, make my day
Short, sweet, and solid.
How often do you get a moment of extraordinary customer service? How often does a company do something to help you before you even ask? Right now: Figure out one thing your team can do to make customers happy.
4. Slinging Around First Draft Emails
The focus here is on emails in general but it’s a good idea for emails that you send out to your customers too. Don’t get into the mentality of “gotta resolve another ticket to up my ticket count”.
I think a lot of us are slinging around first-draft emails. They’re thoughtless, cold, impersonal. We’ve turned email into a task-list and nevermind who’s on the receiving end of our productivity.
5. Scaling Support for 2 Million Users
An older article but definitely worth reading again. I know I just did.
We don’t look at customer requests as “tickets that need answers.” Instead, Dan Kurzius, our company’s co-founder and Chief Customer Officer, says, “a customer’s question is our chance to have a conversation, an opportunity to empower.” If you have an issue, we don’t just help point you in the right direction, we provide a map with details of all your surroundings, potential pitfalls, and secret paths that take you to awesome views.
Did I miss one from this week? Leave a link to it in the comments or get in touch with me here. I’ll include it in next week’s support roundup!
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