Customer Support Course: Day 4 - Ease your pain
Welcome to chapter 4 of our customer support course and THANKS for making this far :) Just a couple of hints left
1. Fire toxic customers
“I have attached a list of 80 questions about your product, please send me the answers”. Sounds familiar?
Let me be honest with you. “Leads” like this NEVER EVER result in a sale. What this probably is - is just some guy who's boss needs a comparison sheet, wants you to do his job for him. Run, not walk. But be extra polite, tell them you're trying to avoid extra paper work.
“I'm a developer, have been programming for 25 years, I don't make mistakes, it's something on your side”. Well. It definitely can be something on your side. But that's also a sign of a toxic customer.
“I'm sending you an email, a DM on twitter, and a fax just in case” - typically, because in customer support the bar is so low, people think they have to file a ticket, an email, a tweet and a complaint to your boss - just in case, so you have their attention. Don't blame them for this. Just explain that you look through all your emails and support cases and he WILL get his reply.
2. Followup reminders for important cases and feature-requests
Sometimes a problem can't be solved right away. You need some time. So find a way to set up a reminder for yourself. Example: if you're working on a bug or a feature listed in your internal bug-tracker - add a note about the original ticket from your customer. So when the bug is closed - you won't forget to notify the customer. People love that!
Just when they gave up their hopes - a nice “Hey, remember the feature you were talking about - guess what, it's right there” will do magic.
More similar tips here: Amazing customer support defined
3. Add a help section to your website
This one's simple. You don't want to get the same questions over and over. Set up a nice help section, a FAQ or a Knowledge base on your website.
Label customers' emails according to the problems they report or the requests they make, and use the analytics tools in your help desk software to see which complaints you get most frequently. Check our post: Building a support site for your startup