We’ve talked to hundreds of support professionals to understand what they’re doing in 2023 to step up their customer service game.
This is a list of their best customer service insights and how to use them in a time when AI support management and automation are booming. Their tips will help you improve your processes on both the agent and customer side using the latest tech and some lesser-known tactics.
Keep optimizing the processes that are working
Optimizing and improving processes helps you ensure that customer satisfaction levels remain high.
Once you’ve realized something works for you, double down on it. Keep the process and make small incremental updates. Consider trying out new tools or switching things around every now and then.
Susanna Aleksanyan, Customer Service Head at Leanbe, remarks that you should optimize processes in a way that works for the whole team (and individually for agents):
“Not only will the customer satisfaction grow, but your customer support agents will also have more time to focus on meaningful tasks.”
For this, Susanna recommends turning to automation and shares a couple of her preferred use cases for it:
“Use different automation tools to optimize processes like workflow optimization, task assignment, customer data management, and follow-up procedures for providing a seamless customer service experience.”
As for us, we built Samurai for this!
Samurai is Kaizo’s AI extension that equips customer support leaders with a robust set of AI-enabled features that integrate seamlessly into existing workflows.
This allows supervisors to quickly monitor, assess, guide, and encourage customer support teams. It reduces manual labor, eliminating managerial worries, and making customer service much easier.
Do your research and make sure your agents are up-to-speed with it
Don’t skip understanding your customers and how they use your product. What are their needs? Their pain points?
This type of research will provide you with all the tools you need to:
- Know how to speak and what type of language to use with customers
- Understanding what the best solution for a type of user might be
- Create targeted resources (like knowledge base articles) to speed up ticket resolution
- Discover trends and insights that can inform your decision-making
- Uncover areas for improvement in your customer service
- Develop targeted strategies to increase customer retention and reduce churn
Anubhav Singh, Head of Customer Support at KrispCall, observes that while there are plenty of ingredients required to make your support efforts work, good customer service is structured according to the users/clients you serve.
“Therefore, understanding your customers and their use case is a must. A modern customer support team has to deal with plenty of queries ranging from features, finance, offers, varying use cases, and niche requirements. No one might have an answer to all the questions in an instant.”
That’s why Anubhav says it’s imperative to train the customer support team to feel the pain and frustration that users might encounter and most importantly, don’t waste their time:
“Some users might be disappointed or angry if you tell them that the issue they’ve been facing might take a few hours or days to be resolved.
So one of the core customer support insights I need to share is that it’s important to make sure that the expectations are clear and you’re proactive in resolving them. And you can only do this if your team is properly trained for even the most unexpected of situations.”
You can encourage your agents to reach their full potential by providing them with tailored AI- generated Missions. Not only will this save managers’ time that they can spend elsewhere. But agents will also be able to quickly receive their Missions and stay motivated to succeed by having achievable goals.
Learn to mirror customers’ language over email or chat
Matching the tone and energy of a customer’s language.
That’s one of the most memorable customer service insights Virag Pohl, Customer Care Agent at simplesurance GmbH, shared with us when we asked her to talk to us about the best practices she uses in a difficult industry like the insurance space.
When customers contact Virag’s team who are confused and worried about their claim, they use a friendly, everyday tone to make them feel comfortable.
On the other hand, if they reach out for a serious claim, the team mirrors the formality of the language to ensure that the customer understands their business is being taken care of professionally and efficiently.
Successful mirroring involves being able to accurately identify and respond to the underlying intentions. The intentions that cause a customer to use certain words. It’s not enough to simply echo emotions, assertiveness, or aggressiveness.
Instead, you should strive to understand what is driving the customer’s behavior. Are they feeling anxious? Do they require a more intimate or professional approach? Answering these questions can help you effectively mirror the customer’s behavior.
Focus on the agent’s experience
When support agents have a positive experience, you’ll naturally see better customer experiences, increased customer satisfaction, and higher customer loyalty. Your employees will simply be happier, more productive, and just more effective at problem-solving.
Stanislav Khilobochenko, VP of Customer Services at Clario, prompts all customer-facing businesses to first invest in the employee experience:
“Employees who are having an overall negative experience in the workplace simply can’t pour from an empty cup, and your customers will bear the brunt of that negativity. If you’re letting down your employees, you’re letting down your customers. Period.
Employees who feel empowered and supported are better able to empower and support your customers. They need to have the trust, training, and discretion in order to provide your customers a positive experience, which of course has a major impact on your bottom line.”
On this note, Stanislav also highlights the great value empathy holds when managing people:
“Basic human empathy should be compelling enough to prompt you to provide your employees with a great experience in the workplace. If that isn’t enough perhaps knowing your customers and profits are at stake will.”
At Kaizo, we wanted to create a unified training and development system that would support and enable agents to reach their full potential.
For managers, it’s essential to provide frequent and consistent feedback to agents through a combination of quality assurance and coaching. This approach ensures maximum effectiveness with minimal effort.
So we packed up a two-for-one solution that combines data from QA Scorecards and Coaching Cards. By giving agents access to their own performance data, they can now bring their own goals into the feedback sessions.
👉 Read our complete guide to building and maintaining a positive agent experience.
Stay prepared for change through reinforcement mechanisms
This was a striking one for us too.
During one of our talks with Zoe Koven, VP of Business Transformation and former Director of Customer Advocacy at Zendesk, she said this:
“Reinforcement is the most important step… give managers something close to a playbook and change the program based on feedback.”
And it hits us: Reinforcement should be planned and adapted to meet the needs of the employees. The amount of preparation and depth of training should be determined by the size of the team and the complexity of the change.
Zoe and her team choose to provide ample support for their own managers to enable them to guide their teams through any change. This included new metrics, dashboards, and coaching points to consider.
During a time of transition, you might also want to have meetings more regularly. The managers on Zoe’s team, for instance, used daily standups so managers could get updates on how teams were adjusting to the change and what they needed to progress effectively. Gaining insight and being flexible is just as important as well-thought-out planning when managing a shift in customer service.
Have a dedicated budget to create delight for customers
Save your pennies for making a customer’s day (and potentially life) better. That’s what Daniel Prindii, Fractional Head of Community and People, recommends to brands looking to up their customer experience game:
“Your customer team is always facing clients who are in difficult situations: They lost a card, a parcel wasn’t delivered properly, or their flight is delayed.
Having a dedicated budget for small gestures of support can help customers and bring an extra layer of personalization. For example, when a client has a delayed flight, your customer care team can offer meal vouchers or access to business lounges.”
Investing in customer delight can help the company stand out from its competitors. By creating a unique and positive experience for customers, businesses can differentiate themselves from competitors and make a lasting impression on customers.
Other ideas include setting up a customer loyalty program that rewards customers, providing personalized customer service, and offering discounts or special offers.
Next steps
Ready to apply all of these customer service insights? Try Kaizo’s Samurai AI extension and:
🚀 Use Auto QA to its full potential: Automatically rate 100% of tickets and immediately identify the source of any negative reviews.
💬 Analyze sentiment and empathy without any extra effort, and let critical tickets be assessed automatically.
🎯 Tailor ticket filters based on your criteria
📞 Get fast data from calls, call transcriptions, and dialogues with GPT Summaries.
🎯 Inspire your team with AI-generated Missions and their personalized goals.
