The following post is a guest blog written by Errol Greene, Solutions Development Manager for Clear Harbor, LLC. Missed the first or second post in this series? Click these links to catch up: First Post – Innovative Strategies Companies Are using to Turn Customer Support Into a Powerful Profit Center…While Increasing Customer Satisfaction; Second Post – The Power of Empathy in Customer Service
In the last post, we discussed the importance of establishing an empathetic connection with your customers. Building a line of open dialogue and showing genuine interest and care in a customer interaction is key to establishing trust.
Today we will examine another innovative strategy that companies are using, to turn customer support into a powerful profit center, all while increasing customer satisfaction.
Identifying Gaps in Customer Services/Needs
Once empathy and trust have been established and a good rapport has been built, it’s time to look for gaps in products and services that will sincerely benefit the customer.
I can’t overemphasize how much sincerity matters here —people quickly realize when an agent is genuinely trying to help them or simply trying to push product and hit quota. All suggestions should be tied to benefits for that specific customer, based on previous product usage, cost-savings, improvements, new products and services, discounts they may be eligible for, etc.
These are all benefits that the majority of people are willing to listen to, and make common sense to pursue.
In our own experience, having agents that are adept at recognizing these gaps is critical. Providing them with the technology needed to do a quick customer review is essential as well, as they will need to be able to readily recognize gaps and understand how to best speak to them.
A strategy that’s been effectively used by many companies is to tie the call to a, “one-time only” phone-support discount. This ensures that companies close the sale on the call, and makes the most of inbound contact without having to make a hard sell. The soon-to-expire benefit serves as the closing tool itself.
For example, when I recently called in with questions on a refrigerator issue, I spoke with an agent who handled my questions, started a conversation about the area I lived in, and asked helpful questions regarding how the refrigerator had performed so far.
So when it came time to wrap up the call, I didn’t mind when he said, “By the way, I know you’re probably going to need a water filter for it soon; they typically need changing every six months so you’re not drinking sludge. Because you called in with a service issue today, I have an offer on my screen that entitles you to 20% discount for anything you buy on this call. If you’re interested, I could save you some money on something you’re probably going to be buying in a few weeks anyway.” Turns out, I was, he did, and he made a sale as a result—all parties won. Everything that needed to be in place for the call was in place, so it made sense and was successful.
However, I want to point out that if the agent had approached this differently—speaking in a monotone, transferring me to multiple parties, having me wait for 20+ minutes before speaking to an agent, pushing products that didn’t matter to me, trying to bring this up prior to complete issue resolution… it would have failed and resulted in poor follow up CSAT scores.
To read the full report, and learn the other five strategies, visit https://clearharbor.leadpages.net/sixinnovativestrategies/.
