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Reaching the final stretch of product development is one of the most exciting milestones young companies experience. You’ve pushed, pulled, and clawed your way to the finish line, and now you might be tempted to hastily push the big red launch button and celebrate… But be careful.
Before you launch prematurely, you need to ensure you have everything in place to manage the customer service requests that will flood your inbox, post launch. To help you navigate the dos and don’ts of customer service, we sat down with one the experts at Desk.com — a leading customer support software provider. Nicole McCloud, a Service Specialist with Desk.com shared some insider tips to help ensure you’re primed and prepped for your big product release.
1. Amp up your customer-facing content…
They say content is king, and that couldn’t be more true for customer support. According to McCloud, one of the best measures you can take to ensure customer success and happiness is to build a robust knowledge base with informative content, which helps customers quickly find answers to their questions. Landing pages, customer portals, FAQs, and customized articles can all help streamline the customer support process.
“You’re going to receive a ton of questions from your customers, and you’ll want to have channels in place for them to get an answer as fast as possible,” McCloud said. “When you’re a new company, you need to help your clients find the answers they need quickly or they could leave and go to someone else. Take the time to build out a robust knowledge base to empower your customers to help themselves and get immediate answers to their questions.”
2. ...and make sure your internal knowledge base is up to par, too.
But it’s not just your future customers you’ll want well informed. You’ll also need to ensure that whoever's responding to customer service requests — whether they’re a dedicated representative or a team member temporarily stepping up to the plate — is armed with the right information and resources to field questions and complaints. Updated content needs to be part of your release plan for every new release or product update too.
“When you’re pre-launch, you don’t know how quickly you’re going to scale or how many support people you’re going to need. Making sure your customer service agents have a fast, searchable way to access information and provide the best answer to your customers is incredibly valuable.”
3. Streamline the process with macros and canned (but personable) responses.
Digital tech companies tend to run lean operations, especially in the beginning. Most employees wear multiple hats, and come product launch, a few of them might need to handle customer support on top of their other duties.
In order to maintain consistency in both brand and messaging, McCloud recommends having a bank of macros and/or prewritten responses at your employees’ disposal, which can be used to quickly handle service requests, especially if that request is completely outside of their wheelhouse. This helps build process and consistency across the organization. This is also an opportunity to help build your brand, so be sure they are personable and reflect your company’s personality.
4. Focus on why customers are reaching out in the first place.
This tip might seem obvious at first, but McCloud said it’s still crucial to focus not only on how to respond to customers who are reaching out, but also on what’s causing them to reach out in the first place. Customer service shouldn’t be exclusively reactive, but instead, it should also highlight what preventative and actionable measures can be implemented to fix problems before they arise.
“Analytics are key. Knowing why your customers are reaching out, that’s paramount,” McCloud said. “Prior to product launch, it’s impossible to know exactly what the customer wants, but once you go to market, they’re going to be vocal about it. This is your opportunity to listen, modify, and streamline your approach moving forward.”
5. Be prepared and get something in place before you think you need it.
Truth be told, there are bound to be growing pains during your product launch. Whether or not the product/service is flawlessly designed and developed, users will inevitably have questions, and/or concerns. McCloud noted it’s always better to err on the side of caution.
“Picture what you want your support team to look like in six months or a year, because it’s a lot easier to build that out now when you have the time, as opposed to once you are totally in over your head,” McCloud said. “Desk.com, an out-of-the-box, multi-channel service and support application, will have an immediate impact on your business. Investing in the right tools, and taking proactive steps to ensure your customers are satisfied, that’s as powerful as investing in a strong sales team.”
Ready to get your customer support started? Click here to start a 14-day free trial of Desk.com today.
This post was sponsored by Desk.com
