The goal of your support team is to provide the very best customer experience possible. But who’s supporting your agents? In order for your B2B organization to provide effective client support for your products and services, you must equip agents with the tools needed to operate successfully every day. If they don’t have these tools, the experience you offer your clients probably won’t stand up to your competition.
In order to change the way your reps work, you first must determine which imperative assets will help streamline the support process. These tools will help produce a higher quality end-result for the client and also improve employee morale. You also must provide your agents with the knowledge and training to stay up-to-date with current trends in support methodology. Let’s look at how you can achieve this.
Understanding Your Client’s Needs
Much of your support infrastructure is determined by your clients’ needs. By monitoring the way your customers interact with your support team, you can decide what tools will help your agents provide a better experience. In a traditional support environment, a customer would call in and get the next available agent. This agent may or may not have the information needed to provide a timely solution. However, by using configurable customer support software, your agents will have everything they need to resolve issues quickly and with no hassle.
You should also look at metrics to determine what channels your clients are using and how effective they are at providing resolutions. For example, you may find your reps are struggling to keep up with inbound calls. These calls may also be getting directed to the wrong reps. You can then find an automated solution through your support software that will help route calls accordingly. You could also create additional channels such as a self-service portal that will take pressure off your agents.
Empowering Your Reps With the Right Service Skills
In addition to providing better technology to your support team, they need to have the strongest service skills possible. This ensures they understand proper support methodology and can work alongside the software you have in place. This may require some additional training, but the result will be a support team that can provide the very best client experience possible.
Some of the more essential skills you need to help your agents develop include:
- The ability to adapt to the needs of different customers along with different temperaments.
- Strong communication skills with both clients and the support team.
- A comprehensive knowledge of the integrated support software and all imperative assets.
- Patience and empathy when dealing with upset clients.
- A strong work ethic that allows them to see an issue through to its resolution.
How Should Your Support Operation Function?
In addition to providing a high-end customer experience, the goal of your support department should be to effectively align itself with the resources at their disposal. To help them achieve this, you need to have a solid understanding of the type of operation that works best for your organization. Some smaller B2Bs can provide effective support by having dedicated agents working exclusively with specific channels. Other organizations may need each agent to be able to move between channels seamlessly. In this case, you may need to provide additional resources such as a complaint management solution to help ease the workload.
PhaseWare can equip your agents with everything they need to provide a high-quality customer experience. Our configurable customer support software provides a wide range of features all geared toward making your support operation more seamless. Contact us to learn more.