SUPPORT STARTS HERE
SUPPORT STARTS HERE
@lujeffcoat
Today we are talking about the importance of Customer
Service/Customer Experience and how this directly impacts your
business.
How many of you have ever had a good customer service
experience? How many of you have had a bad customer service
experience? How many of you have no idea what customer service
is?
CUSTOMER SERVICEthe assistance provided by a company to those
people who buy or use its products or services.
@lujeffcoat
Customer service is defined as the assistance provided by a
company to people who buy or use its products.
A huge part of customer experience relies on customer
service.
@lujeffcoat
You will hear me mention the terms Customer Support/Service and
Customer Experience, but those are not necessarily the same things.
A huge part of customer experience, if not the BIGGEST part of the
customers experience, relies on customer service.
Lauren Jeffcoat
@lujeffcoat
I am passionate about customer service because I work as a
customer service representative, and I am also a customer service
representative because I am passionate about customer service.
Customer Service is something I deal with on a day to day basis.
I am part of the customer support team for WPML.org, the WordPress
Multilingual Plugin created by OnTheGoSystems. I have been working
with them for just about a year now, and before that I was a
freelance web designer. I have seen both the benefit and the
struggle of being both the business owner and the customer support
person, and I have seen how it works to be part of a larger company
support team. And I have found that there are actually a lot of the
same philosophies no matter the size of your company or support
team.
Why is customer experience important? Because it builds
trust.
@lujeffcoat
Earning a customers trust starts with giving great service.
Great service matters to customers, and it matters a lot. Think
about how you like to be treated as a customer. Not only that, but
customer support touches Every. Single. Person.
EVERY. SINGLE. PERSONAre you a customer support
representative?
Do you own a business?
Do you work for a business?
Do you buy things?
@lujeffcoat
Customer service touches EVERY. SINGLE. PERSON.-Are you a
customer service representative like me? Then customer service
definitely touches your life.-Are you a business owner? Then
customer service definitely touches you.-Do you work for a
business? Then customer services touches you.-Do you buy things?
Then customer services touches you.
Customer Service touches EVERY. SINGLE. PERSON.
85%Consumers will pay more for a good customer experience.
@lujeffcoat
86% of consumers are willing to pay more to ensure good customer
service. By providing excellent customer support you are
automatically increasing the value of your products and
services.
4By 2020, customer experience will overtake price and product as
the key brand differentiator.years
@lujeffcoat
By the year 2020, customer experience will overtake price and
product as the key brand differentiator. This means that in just 4
years, it doesnt matter if you have the same exact product as your
competitor for a lesser price. If your competitor has excellent
customer service and you dont, your consumers dont care about the
discounted price. They want better service.
89%Of customers get frustrated because they need to repeat their
issues to multiple representatives.
@lujeffcoat
72%happy customers will share a positive experience with 6 or
more people.
@lujeffcoat
72% of customers will share a positive experience with 6 or more
people.
13%Unsatisfied customers will tell 15 or MORE people that they
are unhappy.
@lujeffcoat
13% of unsatisfied customers will tell 15 or MORE people that
they are unhappy.
1 OUT unhappy customers complain.The rest? They just leave.OF
26
@lujeffcoat
While 67% of customers mention bad experiences as a reason for
churn, only 1 out of 26 unhappy customers complain.
The rest, they just leave. Clearly, its important for us to
understand that Customer Support is imperative to the success of
our business. How we can do it better, and what we can do to stop
our customers from leaving.
Lets talk about why customers leave.
BYE-BYEDo you know why your customers are leaving?
@lujeffcoat
REASONS YOUR CUSTOMERS LEAVE:1% die.
9% go to competition3% move away.
14% are dissatisfied5% develop other relationships.
68% leave because of rude service
@lujeffcoat
BAD CUSTOMER SERVICE WILL SPREAD LIKE WILDFIRE.
@lujeffcoat
Sure, there will be times when youve tried your best and cant
seem to make any headway with a particular problem. And
unfortunately, bad customer service or a bad customer experience
can and will spread like wildfire.
HOW TO AVOID BAD CUSTOMER SERVICE
@lujeffcoat
What are some steps we can take to avoid those types of
situations?
RESPOND QUICKLY
@lujeffcoat
The worst thing you can do with a frustrated customer is not
respond. Failure to respond can lead to 15% increase in churn for
already existing customers. Also, wasting the customers time by
shifting from department to department (as we mentioned earlier)
leaves the customer frustrated. Even if you have to make the
customer wait, its less frustrating if they dont have to repeat the
problem over and over again. So instead of moving them a long the
line, as the customer supporter, you go and talk to the team
members that you need to get the answers from, but keep the
customer in touch with one person as much as you possibly can.
UTILIZE GOOGLE ALERTS
@lujeffcoat
Your customers may be discussing you without @ mentioning you.
If you set Google Alerts, you will be able to find these
discussions and respond positively and publicly. This allows you to
turn a potentially bad customer experience into a great one and
everyone watching can see. Responding publicly also builds trust,
because youre not hiding behind an email address. Youre putting
yourself out there.
EXCEED EXPECTATIONS
@lujeffcoat
If you want customers talking about your good customer
experience, its not enough to be average. Be awesome. Think of ways
that you can go above and beyond. In my experience, sometimes its
just a matter of acknowledging
TAKE RESPONSIBILITY
@lujeffcoat
Take responsibility if necessary. Not owning the issue exhibits
arrogance and lack of humility. Dont shift blame. Pointing fingers
demonstrates a lack of unity on the business team. A brand that
shows discord is difficult to trust.
ASK FOR FEEDBACK
@lujeffcoat
Follow up and ask for feedback. This is a great way to learn how
to improve practices. A support queue is a goldmine of unsolicited
feedback.
IS THE CUSTOMER ALWAYS RIGHT?
@lujeffcoat
Weve all heard the saying The Customer is always right. How many
people in here believe that to be true. Raise your hands Should you
follow this mentality?
HELL NO
@lujeffcoat
Its SO not true that the customer is always right. But we cant
just tell the customer that they are wrong. To make it a better
customer experience, we have to teach them. When a customer asks
for support, its an opportunity to improve their knowledge and
understanding and even possibly turn them into a repeat customer if
you can upsell them. If they can clearly understand the solution,
they wont care if they were right or wrong to begin with. They will
just be happy that the problem was solved.
NEVER BE PULLED INTO AN ARGUMENT WITH A CUSTOMER.
@lujeffcoat
It may be tempting to yell and scream at a client, but that is
unprofessional. Its always best to kill em with kindness. Smile and
stay calm. There are always going to be that handful of customers
who are unhappy no matter what you do. They are probably just
generally unhappy people.
Dont waste your time trying to win over the haters. Youre not
the jackass whisperer. (Scott Stratten)
And when you absolutely frustrated, Scream Into the Void.
www.ScreamIntoTheVoid.com
@lujeffcoat
BEST PRACTICES IN CUSTOMER SERVICE
@lujeffcoat
So now that we know what NOT to do, lets talk about how we can
get things rigth with the customer.
The more time you spend planning for great service, the less
time you spend actually delivering it.
@lujeffcoat
Have a plan, but dont over plan. The more time you spend
planning for great customer service, the less time you spend
actually delivering it. By saying that I dont mean you should have
a plan at all, just that customer service should come naturally,
instead of being too strategically planned.
GIVE THE CUSTOMER WHAT THEY WANT.Greet MeValue MeListen to
MeHelp MeInvite Me Back
@lujeffcoat
To the customer, contacting customer support is about more than
just getting help. Its about building a relationship. They want to
be greeted - dont just jump right in to the solution. THe customer
needs to be wooed. Then repeat and acknowledge the problem. This
helps to show that you listening to the customer and also is a
great way to make sure you understand the problem correctly. There
have been many times that I have spend hours troubleshooting what I
thought was the issue when all along it was something entirely
different. Save yourself the hassle and make sure you are on the
smae page.
Now is when you offer assistance. Offer clear, concise
instructions. Use screen shots. Use screen casts. Make notes on
screenshots. Go the extra mile to make sure your documentation is
clear. Then, just incase its not, invite your customer to get back
in touch if things are not immediately resolved.
MOBILE SUPPORT IS KEY.
@lujeffcoat
Mobile search will generate 2.7 billion more queries than
desktop search.
MULTIPLE CHANNELS OF SERVICEBut at the same time, remain
consistent.
@lujeffcoat
Todays customers interact across muliple different channels -
phone, online chat, social media, email, written tutorials, video
tutorials, etc. Make it easy for them to get in touch with you. Its
important to provide the channels that your consumers are
comfortable with. Research your demographic. Ask for customer
feedback. Find out the best way(s) that you can communicate with
your customer and then maintain a consistent experience across
these channels. Use similar tone, use similar procedures.
ENABLE SELF-SERVICE
@lujeffcoat
Self service help is the consumers first choice. Customers want
to be able to find answers to their own questions. 50% of customers
think its important to solve their own problems, while 70% of
customers expect a website to include self help applications. What
do I mean by self help? FAQ section and online Tutorials, both
written and video.
BE TRANSPARENT
@lujeffcoat
Customers are smart. If honesty is the best policy, theyll
appreciate and admire you more when you admit to a mistake, rather
than playing games or even worse, avoiding the topic
altogether.
Dont try to hide or cover up your errors. Address the issue
directly, explain how you will handle it and share what steps are
being taken to prevent the errors from occurring in the future. To
implement transparency effectively, lead by example. Your employees
will also admire you more for your honesty.
At WPML, when we release a new version that has a bug, we
quickly address it. First, we find a suitable workaround, then we
release an announcement on our site and then we work to release an
updated version that contains a fix. This way,the customer knows
about the problem, has a temporary solution, and knows when to
expect a permanent fix.
IMPLEMENTING REVIEWS
@lujeffcoat
You may not think that customer reviews are directly related
with Customer Service. After all, reviews come directly from the
client, right? Well, yes, but online reviews also give us the
chance to control online reputation management. Allowing reviews is
excellent customer experience for NEW customers. It also gives a
platform for existing customers to voice their opinion. If the
opinion is good, then great! Its free marketing. If the opinion is
negative, then it gives you a social platform to show potential
customers how you gracefully handle tough situations. It allows you
to earn trust of customers you dont even have yet. And thats
powerful.
12xOnline reviews are 12 times more trusted than marketing
efforts.
@lujeffcoat
67%of online shoppers are influenced by reviews.
@lujeffcoat
67% of online shoppers are influenced by reviews. If you
remember in the beginning of this presentaiton, I mentioned that
85% of shoppers are willing to shop somewhere else and even pay
more for the same products and services simply due to excellent
customer service. Reviews are a great way to show how great you are
and to let your customers do the marketing for you.
Awesome Customer Service = Happy Customers = Free Marketing
@lujeffcoat
Marketing is no longer traditional marketing. Marketing is
engaging. Customer service and marketing now go hand in hand. When
you focus on being awesome, your customers do the marketing for
you.
THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE UGLYReal life examples of customer
experiences.
@lujeffcoat
@lujeffcoat
Heres an example of poor customer service.
I was on the way to the airport to leave the country when
multiple clients called or emailed that their sites were down. So I
immediately called hostgator and go the whole We are currently
experiencing higher than usual wait times
Which - by the way - if everytime I call your customer support
you have that same message about unusually long wait times - then
guess what? Thats NOT unusual!!! Its irritating!
After waiting 45 minutes on hold, I was told that one of their
internal servers was down causing all of my sites on this
particular hosting plan to go down and it took 3 days to resolve. I
lost three of my hosting accounts during that time.
What would have been better: An alert to let me know before my
clients did. An estimated time frame of when it would be back up,
and a backup plan for how they would handle this moving foward.
@lujeffcoat
Bad example:
There was a story floating around on Facebook of a Dominos Pizza
in North Carolina. Shortly after Hurricane Matthew blew through, a
worker from the electric company ordered pizza from Dominos. He
waited close to an hour while others came in and out with their
food and finally asked at the counter - Any idea what is taking so
long
The worker said If you think its okay for me to wait three days
for my electricity to come back on, I think itsokay for you to wait
an hour for your pizza.
Needless to say, the worker was fired and the owner of the store
publicly apologized on Facebook.
@lujeffcoat
Recently on a trip to WordCamp San Antonio, my first flight was
delayed, causing me to miss my connecting flight. I was made aware
of this before I even left my house, which was helpful because I
then arrived to the airport early to see what kind of changes could
be made.
The attendant at the desk was so helpful, he immediately
rerouted my flight so I would arrive as close to on time as I
could. He remembered me from flying a few weeks prior and set me up
with all window seats, since he remembered my preference. And
because of the inconvenience I was upgraded to first class on my
return flight.
Now, Im a loyal American Air flyer and will only book with them
as long as it is possible. They took a negative situation but
earned my trust and loyalty.
@lujeffcoat
@lujeffcoat
Shortly after having my son, we had purchased a MamaRoo Swing -
the coolest swing ever invented for infants. Immediately he fell in
love with it and it soothed him to sleep pretty much every day. So
it was devastating when one day it just stopped.
I called the company and they very quickly shipped a new one to
me and provided the box and postage to return the broken one. On
top of that, they followed up with a hand written card a week later
to make sure the new one was working great. In the card was a $10
Starbucks gift card, becasue they figured as a new mom I could use
a little pick me up. I was pleasantly stunned and shared this
experience with everyone!!! Now I am a loyal customer and brand
ambassador for them.
GO THE EXTRA MILE
@lujeffcoat
So why is it so important to go the extra mile?
14xmore likely to sell an existing happy customer than sell to a
new customer.
@lujeffcoat
You are more 14 times more likely to sell an existing happy
customer than sell to a new customer.
Satisfied customers are the best way to market your business,
because they are the ones that become your word-of-mouth army. They
are your customer evangelists. - Scott Stratten
@lujeffcoat
Your goal should be to make each and every customer a customer
evangelist.
Thanks!!Any questions?
@lujeffcoat
