Aldo Antignano - 3 April, 2019 - 6 ’ read

3 must-have skills for a successful Customer Service.

Customer care, Customer Experience, ImagicleCare, Support

Make their day a happier place.

As a matter of fact, customer service has become a part of our routine.

From the application we use to listen to music, travel, pay bills or manage calls costs, we all deal with the combination of keys and controls that leads to the resolution of our daily problems.

Given the frequency, the complexity of the path projected to get us to our destination can make the difference between a good and a bad day, and, when it comes to selling, between a healthy company and a short-lived one. Which means that providing excellent customer service is key to building a business, whatever it is.

3 must-have skills for a successful Customer Service.

As this infographic from Groovv shows, 70% of buying experiences are based on the way customers feel they are being treated, while companies who make customer service a priority make 60% higher profits than competitors.

Contrary to what one might think, the big profit difference is not given primarily by the acquisition of new customers: first of all, it comes from the retention of the existing ones. Repeat customers spend 33% more than new customers (which, by the way, can be up to 7 times more expensive to get than it is to keep current ones!).

At the most basic level, it means that if you provide the best experience to the people you deal with, you will have happy customers, and happy customers are more willing to spend money on your products and get in touch with you.

Keep them happy, and they’ll turn into actual brand advocates for your business: they will have no problem telling the world how fabulous you are, just as one bad interaction could easily keep them from returning in the future.

But no cats under the table, here. Good customer service doesn’t happen by accident: it’s built over time with patience, professionalism, extra care (and all the kindness we’ve been endowed with, even when people decide they need help during the last two minutes of your workday!).

Now, I know that any list of qualities for an excellent customer service is bound to be incomplete.

Each customer service answers to different needs, and the combination of operational, technological and interpersonal qualities are so varied that there is not a valid formula for all.

However, these years of Imagicle Support allowed us identifying some essential qualities for providing proper aid and support to all our clients, increase customer retention and generate some trust along with loyalty.

Are you ready to dive in? Let’s go!

#1 Simplicity.

Companies are slowly making progress toward effortless and simpler customer experiences.

Now, when I think of the word “effortless”, my mind goes straight to the experience I have with Amazon, i.e., the most hassle-free customer service and return process.

This is why people prefer to spend maybe a little bit more, but buy on Amazon: they know that if something goes wrong, they’ll find a support service ready to solve any problem in the twinkling of an eye.

This can be summed up in a central concept: simplicity.

With Imagicle’s support team, this is the first fundamental thing we try to provide to our customers. Always.

Our support team can speak 7 different languages: Italian, English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic.

You may think that’s a minor thing – that English, as a universal language, should be enough.

But imagine a supervisor who has a big issue, a dead system on the one hand and a bothered customer breathing down his necks. Do you think that talking the same language to understand each other and solve the problem quickly is something of secondary importance?

Also, we have a delivery team dedicated to setup, configure and train our solution in production.

Zero-effort for the customer, and the right solution “keys in hand”.

Thanks to these pre and post-sales technical structures and contact with different situations worldwide, we can create an extremely tailored service, organized and shaped on the real needs of our customers.

No complicated IVR systems, no bureaucratic procedure between the customer and us. Only people talking to each other for a common purpose: solving a problem and getting an efficient service.

Unfortunately, nowadays companies have lost sight of the importance of human interaction and often make it too difficult for the customer to get the right level assistance.

That’s why at Imagicle we try our best to get in contact with our customer the easiest way. You can call us “Friendly professionals. Not only FAQ.”

#2 Availability.

We live in a high-speed global economy where companies must assist customers through many time zones.

Everyone expects prompt responses, even at night and on weekends.

At Imagicle, we can count on a technical support team distributed in three different locations and time zones: Italy, UAE (Dubai) and the USA (Miami). Working together, we are able to provide a combined 18 hours a day of coverage.

With a follow-the-sun support model, issues can be handled by and transferred among offices in different time zones to increase responsiveness and reduce delays.

We are growing, and soon we’ll be ready to offer a 24×7 customer service so that our customers can reach us at any time.

In the meantime, we are available to help over time, during holidays, and whenever customers request our assistance, and this has always made the difference.

Ask us for a hand: we’ll give you an arm!

#3 Communication and knowledge.

Personally, there are a couple of things that drive me nuts when calling customer services.

The first one is the endless wait. Usually, it takes about half an hour to talk to someone who is not a registered voice.

During those thirty long minutes, while hanging on, I have one recurring thought dwelling in my mind: never again!

The second one is that I need to repeat myself.

It happens when the “first level” support is unable to help on my problem, so I need to explain everything once again.

…Oh, and when the call drops? What a disaster! Need to start from scratch, wait for another half an hour and then (obviously!) there is no way to get in touch with the previous operator or have someone ready to answer my questions.

Experiences like these depend on old CRM technologies, internal dysfunction and lack of a customer-oriented culture.

At Imagicle, we think technology should make the customer experiences better and satisfying, not more confused.

That’s why we own and use the instruments, workflows, and attitudes to support our customers through different communication channels: web, e-mail, phone and live chat, all handled within a “single pane of glass”, to use a nowadays popular term.

See how simple it is for a customer to open a case through our web portal. Ask updates through email, phone or chat: our agents will be ready to assist you without starting from the Paleozoic.

We know we work in a world where every day there is a new way to communicate. The proliferation of channels is upon us: snaps, Whatsapp, texts, Tweets, Facebook…That’s why keep working to make our customers’ lives easier and comfortable, exploring new technologies and adopting the most suitable media to meet our customers’ habits.

Unfortunately, most of our customer inquiries cannot be solved by a one-size-fits-all response, so we need to use an efficient support workflow catered to each customer’s specific need.

But that’s ok, because we think of customer support as a partnership, something about building a relationship and helping customers succeed.

By handling hundreds of support inquiries per month with agents across various teams, we’ve earned our customers’ trust, and last year our technical support service reached 97.2% of CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score), well above the global benchmark of 85 percent.

And we owe much of this result simply to the ability to listen – one of the most underrated things ever. After all, as the old saying goes “you have two ears and only one mouth for a reason”.

I hope that you now have an estimate on why providing good customer care is essential to your organization’s success.

So, what are you waiting for? Roll up your sleeves, respond to complaints in a timely fashion, never hesitate to offer your help and be the nicest guy you know.

We wrote it on the wall and we never get tired of repeating it: it’s always a matter of happy people!

#stayimagicle