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Português Struggling to provide good service during COVID?
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Customer service during Coronavirus
Providing excellent customer service while keeping your employees safe during the coronavirus pandemic can be challenging. The most important thing is to do is to remain calm, get organized, and think outside of the box. If you need some tips on how to keep operating your business during this trying time, read on.
What is Coronavirus?
COVID-19 is a new coronavirus that emerged from China in December 2019. COVID-19 spreads from person to person through the air. Symptoms include a cough, fever, and shortness of breath. In some cases the virus has proven to be deadly, however, the most at-risk individuals are seniors or people with pre-existing cardiovascular and respiratory problems.
The best way to prevent yourself from catching the virus is to avoid contact with others, wash your hands often, cover coughs and sneezes with a tissue and avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth.
How does it affect businesses?
The coronavirus has already had an impact on the global economy. The stock market has taken a plunge, travel bans and quarantines have been enforced, and grocery stores are completely sold out in certain areas due to panic.
For the sake of prevention, many European governments have ordered all non-essential businesses and organizations (other than pharmacies, grocery stores, post offices, doctor’s offices) to shut down temporarily.
How to prepare your business for the Coronavirus
We understand that not all jobs can be done remotely. However, if you are an e-commerce or SaaS business, we can assume that a lot of work can be done from home. Your customer service agents, developers, sales guys, and marketers can take their computers home, and continue working remotely. In essence, nothing has to change — as long as your employees have a good work ethic and stay motivated.
Offer compensation & compromise
If you can’t ship out products, or deliver your services (for example, if you’re an airline that’s affected by the travel ban) offer your customers a compromise for compensation. For example, if you can’t issue refunds, offer your customers credits. The credits should have the equivalent value of their original purchase price and should be available to redeem in the future.
If you handle things in this way, your customers are bound to be more understanding, less frustrated, and more inclined to purchase from you again in the future.
Mitigate losses
In times like these, it’s important to mitigate losses. Shift your focus on what’s working right now. Offer sabbaticals, let people think of new profitable projects, cut company profits to let your employees feel financially stable and safe, or offer bundles and subscriptions that bring in less revenue in the long-run but prevent cash flow issues today. It’s time to think smart and keep it cool.
Do work you never have time to do
Focus on doing things you’ve never had time for. Maybe it’s time for the complete web redesign you’ve been putting off. Or maybe it’s time to jumpstart your blog again. Get creative, there’s always room for improvement.
Impact on customer service industries
Refunds everywhere
When dealing with cancellations and refunds, it’s important to consider the human aspect of business and remain flexible and understanding towards your customers.
Overloaded chats/phones
Navigate through long call and chat queues with smart call-routing, IVR, or pre-chat forms. Give your agents the time and space to get organized and answer all customer queries effectively.
Decreased customer satisfaction
Stay motivated and understand that current dips in customer satisfaction are only temporary. Try to think of new ways to engage with your customers that can transform the negative experience into a positive one.
Get inspired
Take inspiration from Martinus, a Slovak book store, which continues to provide customer service online. Customer service agents are ready to advise shoppers with their book selections in video chat sessions. It’s cute, it’s effective, and it’s memorable.
Adjust resources
Because ticket volumes are high and only increasing, it’s important to re-allocate employees into customer support teams as needed. Even if the re-allocated employees aren’t knowledgeable enough regarding your product and the technical tickets surrounding it, you can assign them “beginner” tickets that deal with easy questions such as “How do I reset my password?” or “How can I upgrade my subscription?”
In this manner, your knowledgeable support employees can focus on tickets of higher complexity and importance. This is a win-win situation as you won’t be keeping your customers waiting, and you can utilize your available workforce without layoffs or new hires.
Adjust agent shifts
When ticket volumes are extremely high, it’s important to adjust agent shifts so that your customer support is available 24/7. If you can’t adjust agent shifts, think of ways to provide your customers support even when you’re not available. Think knowledge bases, forums, how-to-articles, offline chats, YouTube content — basically anything that can be utilized by your customers in self-service.
LiveAgent combines excellent live chat, ticketing and automation that allow us to provide exceptional support to our customers.
Increase available agents
If you have the option of hiring temporary remote customer support agents, then definitely do so. As quite a few people might find themselves laid off and in a tough financial situation, it can be a lucrative position for many.
Prepare canned messages
Preparing canned messages and automating certain email responses is a great way to resolve tickets quickly. For example, canned messages can be automatically sent to anyone requesting a refund. The message should have a pre-prepared text which walks the customer through the process and answers any FAQs regarding the refund.
Happy customers are the best customers
We offer concierge migration services from most of the popular help desk solutions.
Profit from real-time typing view
Anything that can save you time during a high ticket influx period is a plus. Make use of advanced help desk tools such as the real-time typing view, which allows you to see what your customers are typing on live chat before they even hit send. This gives you extra time to look up their past orders, tickets, and all other important information that you might need when assisting them.
Keep calm
The key takeaway from all this is to stay positive and motivated. Think of out of the box solutions that can help your customers and your agents alike. Remember that this is all only temporary and that everything will return back to normal soon.
If you need a help desk solution that will fulfil all your remote work requirements, try LiveAgent. We offer a built-in call center, ticketing system and a native live chat.
At a standstill? Increase sales with LiveAgent!
LiveAgent is a multi-channel help desk solution that centralizes emails, chats, calls, and social media mentions. It offers features to increase sales, such as a ticketing system with hybrid ticket streams and real-time live chat. It also supports social media integration and provides automation, canned responses, and data analytics. Many companies switch to LiveAgent due to its affordability, advanced automation, and user-friendly features. Providing good customer service is crucial, as poor service can lead to customer abandonment and negative reviews, ultimately impacting a company's bottom line.
The right fit for every business
LiveAgent is a versatile help desk software used by businesses to boost revenue, improve customer satisfaction, and increase customer value. It offers a free trial and caters to various business models. Customers praise its affordability, support team, and advanced automation features.
LiveAgent is a reliable platform used by companies like Contrado to effectively serve their customers. Contrado has resolved 8,000 tickets per month using LiveAgent and has a customer satisfaction rate of 97%. LiveAgent provides features such as Facebook and Twitter integration, advanced reporting, and powerful automation. Implementation of LiveAgent went smoothly and the tool allows for streamlined contact methods and enhanced agent productivity. Overall, LiveAgent has helped Contrado provide better and faster customer support.
A dedicated hub with customer portal software
Customer portal software allows for efficient self-service, knowledge sharing, and internal communication. LiveAgent provides a comprehensive platform with features like a knowledge base, forum, and ticket forms to enhance customer support and increase business partner satisfaction. Start a free trial to experience the benefits.
Customer service is essential for building strong relationships and adding value to products. Effective communication and knowledge of products are key. Using customer service software can significantly improve efficiency and customer satisfaction. A customer service system includes tools and software to handle interactions efficiently and foster brand loyalty. Great customer service is crucial for business success, as it can deliver exceptional experiences and create loyal customers. LiveAgent offers live chat software with customizable features and fast response time to improve customer experience and boost conversions. Loyalty programs can also engage and retain customers, driving brand loyalty.
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