How to Eliminate Friction and Improve the Customer Support Experience

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Top Takeaways:

• A common problem is when the customer knows that the company has information about them, yet the customer support rep solving the problem doesn’t know anything about the customer. Every support agent should have all the information about the customer in front of them. By having knowledgeable agents, you can increase productivity by 20%.
• When you create friction, you end up creating a complaint. To eliminate friction, agents must have the relevant data about the customer at their fingertips, reducing the time of the phone call and the number of emails exchanged.
• Consider using a “sentiment rank” to gauge how happy or angry the customer is. Then find all the unhappy customers and reach out to them to try and get them to re-engage.
• Chatbots are best used for simple requests and less effective for personal service. Combining a chatbot with a Conversational Form is an effective way to use the chatbot to collect data or conduct a survey. It may feel like a chatbot but is really collecting data along the way. This makes customers feel like they’re immediately in the chat instead of having to make selections to get to the right place.

Quotes:

“Want to have 100% less frustrated customers? Don’t ask them to give you the same information again and again.” – Brad Birnbaum

“In the age of improving customer service, it’s about reducing frustration and friction.” – Brad Birnbaum

“Wow the customer by telling them at the beginning of the conversation, ‘I know why you are calling, and here’s what we are going to do about the problem.’” – Brad Birnbaum

“Chatbots only as good as the person who programs it or creates it.” – Brad Birnbaum

About:

Brad Birnbaum is the CEO and Co-founder of Kustomer and is a 20-plus veteran of the customer service industry.

Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, New York Times bestselling author, award-winning keynote speaker, and host of Amazing Business Radio.

This episode of Amazing Business Radio with Shep Hyken answers the following questions … and more:

1. What are the latest tools being used in customer support?
2. What is the cause of customer frustration?
3. What data should we be using in customer support?
4. How are chatbots best used?