You’ve already explained the whole story to
two different people and now you’re being transferred for the third time. The
pinky-plinky hold music cuts off and…
“Hello, can I start with your full name
please?”
Rage. At Help Scout we’re true believers in
human-powered support, but right at that moment we’d happily replace human
customer service teams with a couple of Daleks. Fortunately, we don’t need to
go that far. Modern customer service and help desk software allows each
customer interaction to be presented in a broader context of information,
meaning customer service staff can be faster, more effective, and less
repetitive.
Contextual data creates
better, more human customer service
When you better understand who you’re trying
to help, what their past experiences have been, and what options they have
available, you can shape your answer in a way that AI tools just can’t match
for the foreseeable future.
Here are just a few practical benefits of
being a better-informed customer service provider:
·
Faster answers
— When you don’t need
to look in 12 different places for the customer’s account details or their
service history, you can find the right answer and get back to the customer
much more quickly.
·
More completely
understood questions — The same
question can mean very different things, depending on who is asking. A
non-technical newcomer probably has a different idea of what “an easy way to
export data” is than a veteran integration developer does.
·
Customized answers for
specific scenarios — If you
understand your customer’s own business and goals, you can craft your answer to
fit their particular needs, rather than use a one-size-fits-all approach.
·
Reduced customer
effort — Don’t force
your customers to repeat themselves, handing over information you already have
elsewhere in your systems. Inform yourself and save them the time and stress.
·
Faster resolution
times — By removing
the need to wait for your customers to collect and send information to you, you
can reduce the amount of back-and-forth required, no matter which channel you
are on.
·
Better queue
prioritization —
Use contextual data to
quickly identify the most urgent or most important conversations, and use
workflows and tags to raise those to the attention of available team members.
·
Improved customer
retention — Help your team
spot customers who might be considering leaving by including information like
renewal dates, logins, and recent account activity alongside their question.
Early intervention might help reduce your churn rates.
·
More successful
customers — Make it easier
for your team to spot customers who aren’t using useful features or getting the
full value from your service, and train them to offer helpful product education
in addition to the initial answer.
Fast, low-effort access to a broader picture
of your customers gives your support team the chance to deliver truly helpful
service more quickly. What does that look like in practice? Read on below for
examples of information that you may want to make available to your team.
Determine which
information is most helpful to your team
In Help Scout, contextual information relating
to a particular conversation or customer can be extracted from external sources
and presented in the sidebar. Without too much effort, you can populate the right-hand
column with whatever details are most useful to you.
Here are some examples of data that we’ve seen
our customers add to their sidebars:
·
Quick links to access
internal accounts or records —
Speed up support by including deep links to your internal systems, rather than
having staff run a separate search manually.
·
Length of time as a
customer — This is
helpful as a signal for their lifetime value, level of experience with your
service, and their knowledge of particular features.
·
Payment plan or
account type
— This not only represents their financial importance to your
business, but it often determines which features or services they have access
to.
·
Next renewal date
— Are they about
to decide whether to stay on? Is now a great time to review their usage and
make some suggestions?
·
Features or products
being used — This is
important for understanding what vague questions are referring to, and it’s
often an opportunity to educate and deliver more value.
·
Assigned account owner
or internal owner
— Is there someone in
your company who should be looped in?
·
Last login date and
location — This is useful
for security reviews, and it can also be a flag for handling as a possible
churn risk in the context of SaaS.
·
Version number of your
product being used
— This detail is helpful in troubleshooting, and it’ll make
certain your answer is relevant and accurate.
·
Recent order history —
Personalize your responses, and if there have
been recent issues relating to those products, consider varying your answers.
·
Recent support
conversations
— Have they been
experiencing a rough run of issues? Have they contacted you about this
particular issue before? Once you know, you can craft an appropriate response.
In addition to adding content to a sidebar, Help
Scout and other help desk tools also include custom fields, which is another
way to make valuable data about your customer, their account, and their company
visible and actionable.
6 steps for adding
contextual information to your help desk
Changing what your team sees in the help desk
application they use every day should be handled cautiously. Here is a simple,
6-step process for a successful rollout:
1. Investigate your help desk tools and figure
out what contextual data features you have available.
2. Determine if you’ll need a specialist’s help
or if you have the right skills to implement changes on your own.
3. Identify the set of contextual data you can
potentially include.
4. Prioritize that list by 1.) usefulness to your
team and 2.) ease of access.
5. Roll out the first few contextual items.
6. Work with your customer-facing staff to help
them integrate that data into their processes for helping customers.
Once you’ve had some success with the initial
trial, consider adding further data for your team to use. Too much information
could actually slow service down, so keep an eye on your key metrics (like CSAT
and time to resolution) to decide when to stop and review.
By arming your team with helpful contextual
information, you’re allowing them to spend more of their time connecting with
your customers and helping them as individuals. That’s a win for everyone!
Mathew Patterson - After running a support
team for years, Mat joined the marketing team at Help Scout, where we make
excellent customer service achievable for companies of all sizes. Connect with
him on Twitter and LinkedIn.
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