What this post is about
- Customer service requires encouragement and support
- Transparency ensures understanding among users
- Use evaluations and reporting as a tool
- Understand customer support across departments
- Don't make the quality of your service dependent on headcount
Good customer service should never be underestimated! The impact of good support is demonstrated by the fact that 86% of customers are willing to spend more money for perfect service. Those who are helped are happy to give back (and stay longer)!
However, start-ups and medium-sized companies have a certain disadvantage compared to large corporations and established brands: customer service often rests on the shoulders of a manageable team. With this guide, you can unerringly avoid the fact that a lack of manpower results in poor service.
1. Comparisons are not appropriate when it comes to customer support in small teams
The equation sounds simple: small teams are as good as large teams. What elicits clear agreement as a theory shows rough edges in reality. The reasons often lie in a lack of self-confidence and the amount of work that increases with success. Nevertheless, a low number of employees is no excuse for a lack of quality.
Demotivation can be a devastating consequence that quickly spills over into the customer relationship. Therefore, first and foremost, maintain your level of helpfulness! After all, this is about customer satisfaction, not about blind growth in numbers or the question of how many tickets could be processed at what time.
Therefore, you should orientate yourself on realistic goals that can be achieved with your staff. What other companies manage with huge call centers is great - but irrelevant for your work.
2. transparency about internal processes creates understanding
Being honest with customers reaps an invaluable benefit of trust. Looking behind the scenes is important to generate understanding on the customer side. But beware: If you play the pity card, you dismantle your professional image.
Rather, a team introduction on your own social media channels or a glimpse into the daily work should subtly convey that it is not a huge team on hand for the customers, but a small, dedicated team. In this way, (possibly too high) expectations adjust themselves.
3. Invest in customer service
Opening new sales channels, developing cool products, and inspiring customers with marketing ideas - the levers for establishing the company as a capable competitor in the market are quickly adjusted. Investing in customer service early on often takes a back seat, even though it pays off after a short time.
Don't wait until support reaches its limits; equip it for anticipated growth from the start. Ticketing systems like Zammad established workflows, or helpful tools like internal and external knowledge repositories will help during challenging times - assuming they exist at the time. If work is already overwhelming you, it's often too late to implement measures and seek quick help.
It also helps small teams to adhere to structures and process customer requests in a comprehensible way. In our customer story, the three-person digital agency phasedrei shows how a clearly structured help desk and clever communication systems simplify daily support work.
4. Focus on communication between all departments
When it comes to customer support, the overriding principle is that all departments in your organization should be pulling in the same direction. Therefore, ensure short communication channels and a regular and structured exchange of knowledge between support, sales, purchasing, and marketing.
You can only respond to customer questions in a targeted manner when everyone knows about each other, is informed about changes, and campaigns are coordinated. In most cases, even without the need for long e-mails or phone calls.
The software developer Flownative knows about the relevance of a good internal communication tool and reports about it in a customer story. Real-time updates or user-friendly channels facilitate interdepartmental dialogs. Quick updates and straightforward information sharing strengthen togetherness.
5. Sharpen the relevance of your customer support with reporting.
If you're honest with yourself, you know that reporting and analysis are a necessary evil. Creating them can be tedious and they are rarely actually read by your own team. However, their power comes into play when colleagues from other departments take a look at what the service team is doing.
Those who share information show the standing of customer service. In addition, analyses can be used for optimization and restructuring purposes to provide evidence of the work performed. Sales and marketing, who are not permanently involved in the daily work process in support, are thus given the opportunity to realistically define values and goals for actions. You avoid disappointments with the power of provable figures.
By the way, our smart helpdesk Zammad offers you comprehensive data analysis out of the box. Unlock reporting in the admin dashboard - or let us show you how to set it up in our reporting webinar.
Summary
Powerful help for your customer support! Creating a positive customer experience is based on properly equipping the service team. Structured work at the helpdesk as well as achievable objectives strengthen motivation and activate unexpected power. The bigger the team, the better the customer support? With our tips, they prove that outstanding service is a question of the right attitude.