The Do’s and Don’ts of Support

The importance of customer support cannot be overstated. Many organizations underestimate the impact and still have a traditional brake-fix perspective when it comes to the role support plays in the organization. 

What they overlook is that providing good customer support is key to the success of any company and an essential part of a stellar customer experience. It literally can be the deciding factor in whether or not a customer decides to remain a customer.

How exactly? When customers are happy with the support they receive, they are more likely to stay loyal to your company and buy from you again in the future. This means that customer support can help you build a long-term relationship with them and increase revenue in the long run.

The support team also helps you gain new customers by word-of-mouth marketing. If a customer has a good experience with your company, they will tell their friends about it and recommend you to them as well. This means that if you provide excellent service, people will want to share their experience with others which will lead to more sales for your company in the future.

With that said, we wanted to provide some practical tips that you can use when establishing a world-class customer support organization.

What are the Do’s and Don’ts of Support?

The customer support team is the first line of defense for any company. They are the ones who answer questions, solve problems and provide a human touch to customers. But in order to provide world-class support, they need to follow a few best practices established by some of the thought leaders in the space.

Below are a few things we recommend to increase the effectiveness if your support teams:

- Do be polite and professional. It is the customer service representative’s job to make sure that the customer has a pleasant experience. The customer support team should be polite and professional at all times.

- Do provide accurate information. It is also important to have a clear understanding of what your customer wants and needs. This includes content on your website, in enablement documents, on-demand videos, etc. – essentially any knowledge delivery channels that are used during the support process.

- Do be patient and understanding. Customers may not know how to use your product or service properly. And even if they do, they're still going to have questions or need help every now and then.

- Do offer solutions to the problem. It is important to have a strong understanding of what your customers want and need. This will help you identify their pain points and find ways to solve them. It is also important to be proactive in providing customer service by proactively reaching out with solutions before they have a problem.

- Do provide a friendly tone and use positive language. Your customer support team should not only provide good customer support, but also maintain a positive attitude while doing so. This will make your customers feel better about their experience. It‘s also important to have a well-trained staff that knows how to react when something goes wrong and how to handle difficult customers in a calm and professional manner.

- Do respond quickly to queries and questions. The most important thing is to be responsive and helpful. This means that when customers have questions or need help, they should be able to get in touch with someone quickly and easily.

- Do help customers feel like they are being heard by their support team. Empathy is when you understand what the other person is feeling, so you know how to react in a way that makes them feel understood and cared for. This can be done through active listening, being responsive, and apologizing when necessary.

Providing customer support is a difficult job. It's an emotional rollercoaster, with many highs and lows. There are many things that you shouldn't do when providing customer support.

Bad customer support can lead to a lot of frustration and anger on behalf of the customer, as well as lost customers. It can be difficult to provide good customer service when you are busy or have limited resources.

Here are some things that you should not do when providing customer support:

Don't be rude or offensive to the customer. It will not get you anywhere and will just make the situation worse. You should always be polite and kind to the customer, no matter what they say back to you.

Don't take it personally. Customers are frustrated because of their problem and not because of anything you did or didn't do. Don't take it personally if they shout at you or swear at you - it's just part of the job!

Don't give up too early. Sometimes customers need a little more time to think about their problem before they can solve it themselves. You should always give them some time before giving up on them - sometimes all they need is a little push!

Don't be rude or condescending to customers. It is important to maintain a professional tone at all times and not get frustrated with customers who might be having a bad day.

Don't give out personal information. This includes information about other employees or your company's policies and procedures.

Don't take on too many tasks at once. This will only lead to mistakes being made.

How Guidde can help you provide stellar customer support

It is important to provide excellent customer support because it can help you retain customers, increase customer satisfaction, and improve the overall experience for your customers. But customer support isn’t just what happens at the call center. Your customers also want to be empowered to solve problems themselves.

Guidde makes it easy for support teams to create product tutorials within minutes. Whether you need to create a document or video, Guidde’s intuitive platform will not only help you produce the content, we also help you distribute it to any channel with one click.

If this sounds like just the tool you’ve been missing, we’d love for you to sign up for a FREE 14-day trial. 

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