11 Tips on E-mail Customer Support
Published January 18th, 2007 in Management, Attitude- Be reactive
Respond promptly. Even if you simply confirm to the customer that you have reproduced his problem he feels that his issue is being taken care of and not waiting in a dusty pile of other issues. Moreover fast response means you as a support person can get more useful information in less time while the customer is still available via email. - Be proactive
If you seem to have answered all customer’s questions but he doesn’t confirm that everything is OK and the issue is resolved don’t be afraid to ask him explicitly if things go fine now. He may not have received your last email. He may have forgotten about the problem. Contact person for the organization may have switched the job. There’s a whole lot of explanations why there’s no response from customer’s side. You don’t know if everything is OK there until the customer explicitly confirms it. - Don’t use autoresponders
Human beings like to interact with other human beings and not the machines. Remember The Matrix movie? When I receive an answer from a person I know that there’s somebody in charge of my problem. When I receive an automatic response I know that I have been put into a queue, most probably at its tail. - Be specific
Each of your customers is not the same as others. There’re many peculiarities in his character, demands, attitude, ethics, business requirements, habits and conversation. Use this specifics to make interaction with the customer more intimate and helpful. - Be thankful
The most anal and problem customers are the best ones. They reveal your weaknesses and show you the direction in which you should develop your product. Don’t forget to thank those nice guys and girls (even if they are real trolls and harpies) for their feedback and never take customer feedback as a personal offense. - Stick to your rules
You should have a support service policy, e.g. 24 hour guaranteed response. Stick to it as it’s a point of honour. Take it seriously. Remember that if you fail to obey the code of honour you’ll have to commit seppuku. - Don’t leave a request unanswered. Never
Actually this one is self explaining. No matter how inconvenient or rude the question is you must answer it (with the exception for spam). This is your job. Period. - Be polite
The customer can be rude and impolite. You can’t. Don’t treat customers like friends or partners. Your relationship is by no way equal. It can be but it doesn’t have to. Sometimes customers are more like children. But still this can’t prevent you from loving them with all your heart. - Be honest
Don’t lie to the customer. If you need more time for problem investigation ask for more time. If you don’t know what exactly causes a problem tell this to people and ask for cooperation on their side. Your goal is to resolve customer’s problem as soon as possible and I can’t see how lie can help. And after all why worsen your karma? - Be flexible
There’s always a way out of any trouble. Find it. Suggest some temporary workaround to a client. Come up with a new idea on how to overcome the problem. Never give up. - Be unstoppable
When you work on a customer issue make all the world revolve around it. If resolving an issue is your job do it in a workmanlike manner. If you’re personally not responsible for problem resolution make people in charge of it do their work quickly and with the highest quality. If something stands in your way to customer satisfaction just break through it or pass around it or make it disappear. The exact method choice is up to you provided that you’re approaching your goal of pleasing customer.
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hi,
Its great to see someone soo passionate about customer support This is very rare (in my humble opinion). Having been fed up about customer support for a while we started a website for technical support (www.zolved.com). CHeck it out when you get a sec and we would definately appreciate any feedback.
rav