The undeniable fact of the business world is that you cannot have a great product without an excellent customer support team. Yeah, you might have developed a top product, but you would need an efficient bunch of professionals to manage your customers’ queries. In these times when customers are known for switching brand loyalties often, your customer support team has to be on its toes to satisfy your esteemed clientele. Customers’ demands and expectations are changing rapidly.

As the customer service industry evolves, customers are increasingly expecting flawless customer service from companies. 56% of customers have stopped buying from a brand or switched to a competitor because of a single bad experience.1 For American consumers, that number jumps to a whopping 69%. If you want to meet this increasing demand for perfection, “hiring the right people” isn’t enough.

Successful support, technical or otherwise, thrives on consistency. Businesses that consistently have fast, accurate, and friendly support resources available will have higher customer satisfaction rates than those who are continuously slow to respond, provide inaccurate information, or appear apathetic. But how do you provide fast, knowledgeable, and consistent support while keeping costs down?

We’ve now reached a pivotal point in customer service where it’s essential to take a proactive approach or get left behind, fast. In 2021, speedy customer service must be at the centre of your growth strategy. Knowing that speed is the most important factor contributing to higher CSAT scores, we created the “Cut the Wait” playbook. It’s a guide on how to improve customer satisfaction by cutting wait time.

The recent global crisis has altered customer behavior, pushing them towards digital-first channels of engagement. This has redefined customer service expectations, and has caused customers to place greater importance on speed over other parameters. So what does this mean for you? We commissioned Forrester to survey over 200 IT leaders for their take.

How much do you know about your customers? Who are they? What makes them leave and what makes them loyal? What are their biggest pain points? That means you can’t afford to guess at what makes your customers happy. You have to create experiences that take their preferences into account from the start. The way to understand who your customers are and what they want is customer intelligence.

As your business evolves and expands, so do your customer service needs. As your customer base grows, you may be required to support different languages or time zones. The prospect of doing this can be daunting. Moving to a new country requires understanding new labor laws, and establishing a new office presence takes time and is expensive. A common solution is to outsource customer service through a partner.

As an eCommerce business, acquiring new customers is the first hurdle. But once you get their attention, a bigger challenge is to keep them coming back to the store for more. Needless to state, increasing customer retention by a mere 5% can increase the profits from 25%-95%. The secret ingredient to successfully building a solid customer base is to offer exceptional customer service. eCommerce customer service begins from the moment your customer places an order.

It’s just a regular Tuesday morning, your customers are their usual selves and your helpdesk agents are going about their normal day. The sun is shining bright and the birds are chirping happily. Just as you were sipping your coffee, you thought that your day was going to be like any normal one. Fast forward five minutes: everything changed, and somehow it was not all that cheerful anymore. The phone lines are choking up, your Twitter is buzzing, and the birds’ chirps are drifting away.