Suggestions For Improving Technical Support Within Contact Centers

Many companies know that a solid customer experience is important within day-to-day contact center interactions, but one specific area within the contact center where customer satisfaction is important is in technical support or help-desk. In his recent article, Larry Alton discusses the impact of tech support on a company’s customer experience. Essentially, Alton’s point is that having knowledgeable and high-quality agents will help improve technical support customer satisfaction and retention, which ultimately improves your ROI and bottom line. The article goes into detail on the following eight suggestions for improving technical support in contact centers:

1) Reduce the hoops your customers must jump through

2) Use a better ticketing system

3) Offer solutions for a problem clearly and quickly

4) Try implementing gamification for more engaged employees

5) Provide a variety of support options including mobile

6) Be a little more social

7) Extend your support hours

8) Value empathy above all else

Technical Support In The Contact Center

Companies who come to us looking to outsource with a call center aren’t just worried about reducing costs. They’re looking for a partner that will act as an extension of their business and retain their company culture and customer service. As Alton’s article points out, the customer experience should be top of mind when it comes to the technical support or help-desk services within an inbound call center.

When customers call a company hoping to troubleshoot or solve technical issues, they are often in a stressed state of mind. One sure way to further anger customers is to have them speak with a technical support agent who is unprepared to help them, lacking in empathy, or lacking in the right tools to effectively solve the problem. While Alton’s 8 tips all offer great solutions to poor customer experience from tech support, the biggest one to note is valuing empathy. Empathy is a trait many people have naturally, and these people should always be considered highly valuable when making hiring decisions in the contact center. However, proper training within a contact center can also help develop empathy in agents even if it’s not a trait they’ve mastered naturally.

If agent training includes using real-life call simulations and creating personas to represent customers, agents will be able to connect to customers more easily on a personal level. This will ultimately lead to customers feeling that their frustrations were heard, which will help to ease the stress of the situation to fix the problem more easily. Training contact center agents to be empathetic will increase customer satisfaction and ultimately lead to stronger customer loyalty. The more loyal your customers are, the more likely they’ll be to promote your brand to their family and friends and create new customers for your brand. Empathy in technical support not only helps create a smoother customer journey, it also can lead to the financial benefit of increased revenue.

This blog post is based on an article from CustomerThink. To read the original article, please click the link below:

8 Tips for Improving Tech Phone Support – Larry Alton