Every business owner, when starting out, has aspirations of growing and scaling their business. They’d want to acquire more customers, expand the company, and maybe even branch out to other verticals.
But as a company scales, it faces bigger and more unique challenges. And one of the most prominent ones is in customer service.
It’s one thing to provide support to a few customers when you’re relatively new in the market but a completely different ball game when you’re growing and have to deal with hundreds or even thousands of customers.
What you used to do before – having John from Marketing or Wendy from Product wear the customer support staff hat – won’t work. You need to build a dedicated team for providing exceptional support experience to your customers. Not only that, but you’ll have to create processes and frameworks, and also invest in tools — to ensure that you can handle the load of queries coming in and deliver quality on-time support.
Before we get into some actionable tips to scale your customer support function, let’s take a more detailed look at why you need to prioritize this activity.
Table of Contents
- Why is scaling customer service important?
- 12 tips to scale customer service in your organization
- 1. Create the right environment
- 2. Invest in onboarding
- 3. Build a knowledge base
- 4. Leverage your community
- 5. Create a customer service funnel
- 6. Invest in automation
- 7. Use chatbots
- 8. Create a standard operating procedure manual
- 9. Monitor, measure, analyze
- 10. Monitor social media
- 11. Focus on culture
- 12. Motivate your team
- 13. Leverage AI to scale customer support
- Wrapping up!
Why is scaling customer service important?
The answer to this question lies in the numbers.
- A customer is four times more likely to defect to a competitor if the problem is service-related than price-or product-related – Bain & Company.
- For every customer complaint, there are 26 other unhappy customers who have remained silent – Lee Resource.
- 96% of unhappy customers don’t complain, however, 91% of those will simply leave and never come back – 1Financial Training services.
- A dissatisfied customer will tell between 9-15 people about their experience. Around 13% of dissatisfied customers tell more than 20 people. – White House Office of Consumer Affairs.
- Happy customers who get their issue resolved, tell about 4-6 people about their experience. – White House Office of Consumer Affairs.
What you need to realize is that as you grow your customer base, the margin for error reduces. And if you don’t deliver consistently great experiences, your customers won’t just leave you but tell the world about it.
Take the infamous ‘Dell Hell’ case where an angry customer created a blog to gather other angry customers who were ignored by Dell’s customer service. The movement got so big that it found its way into NY Times.
Or the instance where United Airlines broke a musician’s expensive guitar and took forever to fix the situation. The musician went on to create a trilogy of “United Breaks Guitars” songs that clocked over 12.5 million negative impressions!
Agreed that both these incidents are isolated ones and are from 10 years ago but the takeaways from them are still relevant today – negative reviews can cause you to lose close to 80% of potential clients.
Without proper tools and systems to address your customer service needs, you are planning to possibly become another viral sensation (not in a good way),or lose a potential customer that you even did not know you can have.
12 tips to scale customer service in your organization
Customer service is one of the essential features that must scale with your business. It is responsible for a very important aspect of your business – customer retention. Let’s discuss twelve tips on how you can scale customer support and build a loyal customer base by consistently delivering great experiences.
1. Create the right environment
The real goal of scaling customer service is to provide an environment that allows customer service specialists to be as efficient as possible.
An environment conducive to scaling customer support where they can focus more on resolving critical issues than on routine tasks. By creating extensive how-to guides and automating time-consuming tasks, your support team can scale customer service more effectively, making better use of their time and energy.
Having the right environment in place is of course easier said than done. Your customer service reps must know where the corporate priorities are. Rackspace prides itself with a story where a support staff while on a call with a customer, hears that the client’s team is hungry and so, ordered them pizza while they were continuing to solve the matter.
2. Invest in onboarding
Onboarding is a key element of scaling customer service.
Onboarding can be as simple as just sending out a welcome email with some greetings and an explanation of further steps that the new customer should do. Or it can be as sophisticated as the elements in this visual:
ChartMogul has this explanatory and simple guide on some of the aspects of proper onboarding. This is the full set for a SaaS service.
When you are a small team, you can start with the essentials and later move on to check all the boxes. Sending out an introductory video or a short email with a couple of tips can go a long way – even if you do not have the capacity to offer a comprehensive onboarding experience.
This way you will also ensure that a notable portion of potential customer service requests is solved before it even surfaces!
3. Build a knowledge base
One of the easy ways to cover customers’ questions and issues is by implementing self-service options like a knowledge base and FAQ section.
A knowledge base usually contains answers to the most common queries that customers bring up. Maintaining a knowledge base serves two purposes.
Not only does it empower your customers to search for the solution themselves, but it also acts as an instant support database for your reps. This drastically improves your resolution time and reduces the workload on your support agents.
4. Leverage your community
User-generated content is often underrated when it comes to scaling customer support. When you have customers who’d like to share their experience using your product/service and also help other users with their questions, building a community that enables them to do so goes a long way in ensuring queries are answered on time.
Whenever I had an issue that could not be resolved through the resources/help page – I went to the CF community forum. There you may find users who had to solve the same problem as you or just fans of the platform who are ready to help.
The moderation and replies are not left to the community alone. There are official representatives of Cloudfare that help you tackle the problem or steer you in the right direction.
Another great example of community-driven customer service is the SAP Community.
SAP is one of the major multinational companies that sell enterprise software, so it is just natural that they have scaled their customer support and have a huge database of topics that their users already discussed and covered.
Feedback on the SAP community is great, and the company is truly leveraging the knowledge of its customers to the fullest. Another great thing about these communities is that the questions are indexed in search engines – making it much easier for the customer to find.
5. Create a customer service funnel
The goal of customer service is to solve queries as quickly and as easily as possible. Here’s where having a clear structure and flow to providing customer support can help. We call it the customer service funnel.
I like the way Mailshake tackles this.
When you press the help button in your client dashboard, you are greeted with this:
This is the first part of its customer service funnel. In these videos, you will have a step-by-step guide on how to use their service. In case it is not enough, you may click on “I Still Need Help” and this window will popup:
Here you can search for queries and check if they are already answered. Or browse through popular topics. If you still can’t find the answer, you can write to them:
While Mailshake leads their customers through two levels of self-help before connecting them to the human customer service rep. It is very seamless and does not feel cumbersome This is a great example of a simple customer service funnel.
6. Invest in automation
When you have just two or three members in your customer service team, you might not feel the need for a good customer service tool. But as your support team grows, the right mix of software will help your team be more productive, reduce errors and provide a great customer experience.
Customer service software like Hiver will help you deliver fast and empathetic customer service, that too right from Gmail!
- Automate recurring tasks: Implement your customer service workflows to free up time for important tasks. Automatically assign emails to your customer service reps based on pre-defined rules. You can also tag categorize emails based on certain conditions. For examples, an email from “[email protected]” can automatically be tagged “High Priority”.
- Manage email queues: Delegate and track emails without “forwards” and “Ccs”. Convert your customer service emails into simple tasks and assign them to your team members so that no email slips through the cracks.
- Offer real-time support via live chat: Serve your customers in real-time without moving out of Gmail through Hiver’s live chat.
- Monitor your team’s performance: Deep dive into your team’s performance with built-in reports for monitoring customer satisfaction, team workload, resolution times, and more.
- Collect customer feedback: Measure customer feedback in real-time with Hiver’s CSAT surveys. Identify areas of improvement and deliver superior customer service.
Recommended Reading
7. Use chatbots
Chatbots are quickly entering every level of customer engagement. They are used in sales, they answer questions about products and lately, they are also making their way into customer support because of the fact that a chatbot builder is so effective and easy to use.
The advantage of chat support is that it is real-time.
Though chatbots can not fully substitute a human (at least for now) they can provide a quick first line of response to help a customer in need.
Consider this:
- Chatbots can save up to 30% in customer support costs
- They can speed up and answer up to 80% of routine questions.
If you are worried that users will be frustrated that they aren’t able to talk to a live agent, fret not. What you can do is combine the chatbot and human customer support. So, if the customer is not able to solve their issue with help from the bot, you can immediately connect them to a live representative using options like an IP phone service.
8. Create a standard operating procedure manual
When starting a business, you probably know everyone who works in your support team by name. Moreover, your individual leadership qualities would probably be sufficient in keeping them motivated and overseeing the work they do.
This changes when your customer service team is growing. It is critical to have established rules and procedures that a larger team can understand and follow. This is where an SOP comes in.
In this manual, you will list all the procedures and frameworks that define the way you deliver support. The SOP has to be complete in a way where a newcomer can easily pick it up and know what to do when a customer calls with a problem.
If you are wondering where to start with the creation of SOP, here is a short guide and some great tips.
The SOP will help you to:
- Provide consistent service across multiple channels
- Save time and resources in training
- Improve communications between teams
- Set up clear guidelines and allow you to hold employees accountable
Establishing an SOP will include:
- Monitoring your customer service processes.
- Discussing the results with your employees.
- Getting feedback from your employees on the SOP
While having a standard process is crucial, allow your reps to tweak the responses to give a personal touch. This will make your customers feel that you care for them. When you have all these things in place, the next important thing to do is to measure and track performance.
9. Monitor, measure, analyze
If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it. Unless you start tracking what your customer service team does on a daily basis, it becomes very difficult to identify bottlenecks in your team and find areas of improvement.
Some of the main metrics that you should monitor include:
- Customer Satisfaction Score
- Customer Effort Score
- Net Promoter Score
- Social Media Chatter
- Customer Churn
When it comes to operational data:
- First Response Time
- Overall Resolution Rate
- First Contact Resolution Rate
- Customer Ticket Request Volume
- Average Ticket Handling Time
While tracking metrics is essential, you also need to take into account qualitative customer feedback and use it to improve your processes.
Customer service is about striking a balance between addressing customer feedback and vigorously tracking numbers to improve the quality of support.
10. Monitor social media
As your customer base increases, you will have more people reaching out to you via different support channels. That includes platforms like email, live chat, and social media.
But social media seems to be the staple today. 59% of consumers would favor you if you answer queries through your social channels.
Take note of how Kiwi (one of Europe’s biggest online travel agencies) was quick to respond to a disgruntled customer and acknowledged that their query is being worked upon.
Social media is all about timing, and you need to be on top of what’s happening there – if you’re looking to deliver great customer support.
Taking charge of a problem will not only appease existing customers but make your brand look good in the eyes of potential customers.
11. Focus on culture
One of the most important aspects of scaling customer service is that your company culture must become customer-centric. And no, it is not the same as telling your two customer service reps (when you were just starting out) that the customer is king. Now you have to deal with a much bigger in-house team, larger customer base, vendors, suppliers of outsourced services, and more. So, catering to customer needs must become a religion within your company.
Recently I had an issue with an item I purchased. When going to return it, I was expecting a lengthy explanation of why I am returning it. To my surprise, the employee just took the item, apologized that it was a bad fit, and returned the money.
When I commented that I am surprised by this approach, he informed me that it is company policy to take returns – no questions asked.
In another situation, there was a mistake in my grocery delivery. The brand apologized and said that I may keep all the items that were a mistake and that they’d refund the money (for the ones that I ordered) or re-send me the correct order.
Again, see how having a customer-centric company-wide policy can make a huge difference between a positive and negative customer experience.
While the company definitely bears the cost when things go wrong, keep in mind that you’re making a customer happy and chances are that they’ll tell their friends and family about this experience.
12. Motivate your team
While it sounds very obvious, this does not mean that you can throw a couple of inspirational quotes and be done with it. Takes a bit more than that.
- Make sure that your customer service team knows their real impact. Announce a service case of the week, show how customers are spending more due to good service. Make their work matter.
- Gamify your rewards system. Have a leaderboard in place for metrics such as average resolution time or first response time. The winner at the end of every month could get very unique rewards – it can be anything from a mug with a clumsy photo of theirs imprinted or a video compilation of everyone else on the team talking about what they like about this person.
- From time to time, let your customer-facing employees go around and see how other departments work. Show them how product development works, get them to talk to the sales team, or even marketing. This helps them get a more overall understanding of how the organization works – they know who is responsible for what and are better equipped to deal with different types of customer queries.
13. Leverage AI to scale customer support
In 2024, incorporating AI into customer service strategies is pivotal for organizations aiming to scale their customer service effectively. Here are some ways in which you can add AI to your customer service strategy and make it more efficient:
1. AI-Powered Chatbots: AI chatbots can manage numerous customer inquiries simultaneously, offering quick responses to common questions and freeing up human agents for more complex issues. They can adapt to user needs through continuous learning. Some tools that can help you with this include Hiver and Drift.
2. Predictive Customer Analytics: AI-driven analytics can predict customer behavior and needs by analyzing interaction data. Tools like Google Analytics and IBM Watson Analytics enable companies to proactively address issues, personalize customer interactions, and enhance overall customer satisfaction.
3. AI-Enhanced Agent Assistance: AI can assist customer service representatives by providing real-time suggestions, automating routine tasks, and quickly retrieving necessary information, thus improving response time and the accuracy of the information provided.
4. Automated Quality Assurance: AI tools like CallMiner and Gong can monitor and analyze every interaction in ways that human supervisors cannot scale, ensuring quality standards are met consistently and identifying training opportunities for agents.
5. Sentiment Analysis: By analyzing customer feedback and communication for emotional cues, AI can help understand customer sentiments, adjusting service tactics accordingly to enhance customer experience. Some tools to help you with this are Clarabridge and MonkeyLearn
AI’s role in reporting and analytics cannot be overlooked. By processing vast amounts of data, AI can identify trends, monitor performance metrics, and generate insights into customer satisfaction and agent efficiency—helping you scale your customer service with ease.
Wrapping up!
While scaling customer service, it’s important that you don’t get overwhelmed. It might seem like you’ve got a lot of things to do, but know how to prioritize. See how you can best equip your customer support team to delight customers and double down on that.
Also, the above-mentioned tips will help you navigate the waters, as your support team is growing in size.
