The speed of response time to a customer service request is a significant indicator of how good customer service is. With the technology available to resolve inquiries within a short period, a customer will no longer feel that their concern is forgotten. Make your customer feel that you value their time and feedback, especially if they are making a complaint through email and live chat.

Why Your Live Chat and Email Support Response Time Matters

With the advent of available technology, customer service has come a long way. However, one thing remains constant: clients still seek service from humans. The global pandemic has paved the way for most, if not all, business transactions be made online. To comply with social distancing regulations, buyers shifted to online purchases. As a result, more customers are now engaging with customer service representatives for inquiries and concerns.

The demand for timely responses has been enhanced significantly. To keep up with the demand, more organizations are using more innovative customer service technologies, and they must strive for ways to propel the way they deliver their services.

In a study, 76 percent of customers say that it’s easier for them to switch brands or providers to look for an experience that can meet their expectations. This leads to the question: what is it these days that frustrates clients? From that same research, we can learn a few things.

1. Customers expect personalization. Eighty-four percent of consumers prefer businesses that treat a client as a person and not just a number. 
2. Customers want data protection. Sixty-two percent of clients admit that they are more afraid of their data being hacked. Customers are asking businesses to make trust precedence. 
3. Customers expect immediate, responsive service. Eighty percent of buyers said they want businesses to respond to them in real-time and communicate with them.

When enterprises integrate technological breakthroughs to offer tailored and useful services, clients get more options than ever before. In effect, they grow to expect this experience from any company they associate with. However, not all concerns can be addressed in the same way.

Expected response time differs on the support channel they use to communicate with the business.

1. Email. With the availability of fast and stable internet, clients expect a response in a shorter period. A 24-hour response time may have been acceptable in months past, but businesses are now expected to provide an answer to a request in less than an hour. 
2. Social media. Communicating on social media is fast and almost real-time. Customers expect a response within six hours after their message has been forwarded on via Facebook, and one hour on Twitter. 
3. Live chat. Majority of customers prefer live chat with an expectation of quicker responses as promised—less than a minute response time—from agents. 
4. Phone call. A phone call is still one of the most preferred ways to get a customer service agent. Once a customer gets ahold of an agent, responses are instant, except during the hold time in between the process of their request. These hold times must be quick and productive. A customer will stay on the line for 30 to 60 seconds while on hold.

A customer’s patience and willingness to wait for a response can only last so long. Every one of them has work, school, or familial responsibilities to attend to. Your business needs to be mindful of your clients’ time and respond to their requests as soon as possible.

Ways to Speed Up Your Support Service

A low retention rate and acquisition rate is an indicator that the business should step up in providing customers with the after-sales service they deserve. Here are some proven ways to provide faster email and live chat support, and avoid customer dissatisfaction.

1. Set a goal. 

Understand which aspects of your business need improvement based on the sales performance or monthly key performance indicators (KPIs) of your company. Set goals to minimize abandoned customer requests, get more sales, achieve higher customer acquisition and retention rate, or generate more leads.

Drafting KPIs for your team will help you analyze their strengths and weaknesses. This will also set parameters that differentiate your business from your competitors. Use these goals as a motivation for a better customer experience.

2. Make a list of frequently-asked questions.

Most businesses have a variety of recurrent concerns that are responsible for the vast volume of incoming services. Assess the problems and make the most out of the resources of the support staff. Identify the most commonly asked inquiries and prepare templated responses for each. A canned reply will significantly shorten your response time.

3. Invest time in building a knowledge base. 

Now that you have a list of all the customer FAQs, you can create a knowledge base within your team. The goal of the knowledge base is to enhance your support team’s efficiency in resolving complaints and have available resource materials for easier tracking and referencing. Once you have built and established your knowledge base, your customer service team must utilize these articles to provide the best possible solution to your customers’ concerns.

4. Try to solve the case in one go.

In the course of using this knowledge base platform, associates can learn more and improvise on how to address each request on their own. In the long run, representatives will get to use their applied knowledge in resolving diverse problems and situations. This information database can also equip the agents in providing timely, relevant information. By doing so, customer concerns can be addressed more efficiently, and incidences of repeat callers can be minimized.

5. Use live chat efficiently. 

Live chat is a powerful channel where a customer can seek real-time assistance from their providers. However, this platform must be used efficiently and not abuse or use it. Try to be as conversational as possible with the customer, show empathy, don’t ask for all information at once, and get to know how satisfied they are with your assistance by offering a survey using the same channel.

6. An additional pair of hands can help. 

When more customers are using your products or availing your services, you can expect more general inquiries, technical concerns, billing issues, and new orders. This only means that agents that you have right now might not be enough down the road. Neglecting the need for additional manpower will result in longer customer queues, slower response times, and higher abandonment rates.

7. Good onboarding and teamwork 

Building a productive customer support team is not as easy as 1-2-3. A good onboarding process that promotes teamwork is needed to help your staff work more efficiently. Prepare your associates by giving them a proper skills training and create engaging activities to promote collaboration. A high-functioning group delivers stability, professionalism, and a positive experience for the customers.

8. Identify and address points of delay.

Using your own KPIs and your goals, identify what areas of your customer support function need improvement. Study the data, address the reasons for the delay, hold a team meeting, conduct upskilling training sessions, and prioritize tasks. In this way, you will be able to redirect your focus on things that matter more depending on your goal.

These guidelines are proven to help a business provide speedy and good customer assistance to their clients. As a business owner, you have to know which of these ways are suitable for your model. 

Work with the Right Partner

It is imperative for enterprise organizations to keep the operations at optimum level. All these things are not possible without efficient customer service. Running a business and making sure that everything works as planned requires more than just a dedicated team. It takes years of experience to master the operations of customer service. It takes working with the right partner to skip all the trial and error methods just to get the correct model.

Work with SuperStaff and have access to an offshore team of professionals. We are a team that has a decade of experience and a proven track record of providing great back-end support.  SuperStaff offers 24/7 customer service outsourcing tailor-fitted to the needs of the client. We deliver better service to customers, no matter what industry you are in.

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