We think it’s safe to say that no organization has made it through the peak of the pandemic easily. But COVID-19 Benchmark data tells us that some have managed to adapt to constant uncertainty and continue supporting their customers, even as the world keeps changing.

Long call queues. Frazzled customer service agents. Frustrated customers. When unexpectedly high call volume hits a company—especially smaller ones with fewer resources on hand—the effects can be far-reaching. From customer satisfaction rates dropping to an overall impact on the customer experience, high call volume can pose a significant challenge to contact centers scrambling to satisfy customer inquiries.

Here are the newest integrations from Zendesk to help your agents provide great customer experiences.

Making a bad hire in any role brings a number of issues. Finding a replacement is expensive, and the quick turnover often lowers team morale. When hiring a customer success manager, making a poor choice is especially damaging. This position is critical for maintaining and nurturing long-term customer relationships. If you choose someone who is a poor fit, you're likely to see lower retention rates. In the long run, that means less revenue.

42 percent of people in the world have a smartphone, and 87 percent of smartphone owners use messaging. Let those numbers sink in for a minute... Customers overwhelmingly want to interact with businesses on the same messaging channels they use in their personal lives. Messaging already had the highest customer satisfaction score of any support channel before COVID-19, with a CSAT of 98 percent.

Customer support reps have to be knowledgeable about the products and/or services their company sells so that they can accurately answer customer questions. They also need to be aware of company policy so that they always interact with customers in brand-approved ways. But teaching new team members these things when they work outside a central office can be difficult. To do so, you need a stellar onboarding plan.

Messaging has the highest customer satisfaction score of any support channel, with a CSAT of 98 percent. It makes sense: messaging is fast, personal, secure, and asynchronous—in other words; customers can pick the conversation up at their own convenience, without losing the conversation history. But providing the seamless conversational interactions customers expect requires more than simply offering messaging channels. It starts with choosing the right messaging partner.

Businesses often narrowly focus on growth and what it takes to acquire a new customer. But the investment into nourishing existing customers and showing them appreciation pays dividends. In fact, acquiring a new customer is 5 to 25 times more expensive than retaining an existing one and increasing customer retention rates by just 5 percent can increase profits by up to 95 percent.

For up-and-coming companies, seeing the business grow can be immensely fulfilling. Yet it can also be a bit unsettling—as customer service requests increase, it often falls on a single employee or very small team to manage them all. And for a business that’s working overtime to get a foothold in the market, going on a hiring spree doesn’t make much financial sense—and even if it did, that team likely wouldn’t have sufficient tools in place.

When you think about your best customer service experience, what comes to mind? Maybe it was the barista who knew your name and just how you like your latte. Or that time you called customer service, and the agent sympathized with you, then went out of their way to fix the issue. An excellent customer experience can change the way you think about a company, and it can create real loyalty.