Your business is really taking off. You’ve spent a lot of time and hard work into setting up and growing your business. Customers are happy and are spreading the word. However, as with any product or service, issues occur and support volume is increasing steadily. Scaling your customer service is a crucial element of your growth strategy. It will not only prevent customers to churn; it will facilitate growth.
When you start a business, customer service is relatively easy. You often start answering questions from customers yourself, on the side. But as you grow, support volume can get overwhelming and it takes more and more time. You need help, but where to start?
In this blog, I’ll provide 5 practical tips to set up a robust, scalable CS structure. Not only do you need to solve today’s issues – you want to look ahead and make sure that you are prepared for the future.
1. CS Strategy: If you don’t have one already, create a customer service strategy. CS is not rocket science, but it requires careful planning. A simple document outlining your vision and goals is important to ensure that your CS is executed in line with your company’s vision and goals. When hiring for others to manage your CS, whether they are employees, contractors or a BPO, it’s important that they have a clear guideline.
2. Self Service: a knowledge base is not going to be enough as your volume grows. It makes sense to look at more advanced ways to let customers self-solve their issues. Look at your top 10 contact drivers and determine what could be solved with self service without negatively impacting the customer experience. Some ideas:
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- Video tutorials
- Automating simple processes
- Bots
Make sure that the customer always has the option to easily contact you if they prefer to get help from a human.
3. Reporting: basic reports showing volumes and service levels are a good starting point, but as you grow you want to make sure to get a more holistic, 360-degree view. Metrics like First Contact Resolution (FCR) and Contacts Per Case (CPC) are important KPIs you want to report on. Also the ability to spot new issues early in the process is beneficial to ensure that you can take action and prevent (or at least reduce) volume spikes. Use reporting tools like Tableau or Power BI to create CS dashboards. Combining data from your ticketing system with data from other systems will give you more insights and will allow you to translate the effect of customer service issues to other departments.
4. Support channels: as you are growing, you might want to consider opening additional support channels. What is important is that you adapt the channels to the demographics of your customers. For example, Millennials (Gen Y) and Gen Z prefer to use messaging and social media, while baby boomers and Gen X prefer more traditional channels like phone and email. When you start with CS, you probably chose one or two channels to begin with. Now is the time to look at a proper omnichannel strategy. Important: make sure that you can manage interactions in one single tool. Customers tend to switch channels, and nothing is more frustrating that having to repeat your issue over and over again.
5. Staffing: even though self service will absorb some of the support volume, you will have to expand your coverage. This can be triggered by volume but also by geographical expansion (additional time zones and/or languages). Now is the time to evaluate whether to continue building inhouse, or to outsource (part of) your team. While outsourcing may sound attractive, it requires good planning. Finding a partner that really acts as an extension to your team is hard to come by. Also, your CS organization needs to be ready to work with an external team. Think about training, procedures, and partner management. Alternatively you can also opt to work with a GigCX partner for the low hanging fruit, or a sourcing partner that can help with recruitment and contracting of customer service staff.
These tips should get you on the right track to scale your customer service. Should you need further help, we offer the CS Quick Scan – a thorough analysis covering all relevant aspects of your CS set up. Executed fully remotely and delivered in two weeks.
