“You accidentally disabled my Outlook yesterday. I haven’t gotten any emails.”
“Be aware that taking control of a user’s computer without approval or acknowledgment… can create a great risk to the user’s sensitive data.”
“Her computer was taken over without notification or warning while she was on the phone with a customer.”
These are some comments we’ve seen from our clients’ customers before they began following the Perfecting Service best practices.
It takes 12 positive experiences to make up for one negative experience in customer service.
When a client opens a ticket, they’re already taking time away from their regular work duties, and the last thing they want to do is to deal with the wrong issue or request being addressed or having to correct or repeat information that they already gave.
Overlooking details like screenshots that were already provided, not gathering the correct information over the phone, or assuming certain things without double-checking wastes time for both the client and the service desk.
Our Perfecting Service team looks out for instances where corrections needed to be made in a ticket so that we can identify patterns and prevent future frustrations and wasted time. We look for instances like the wrong machine being remoted in to, the wrong password being changed, remoting in to a computer without approval, or the client having to spend time repeating themselves.
Taking the extra care to ensure that no corrections need to be made in your service tickets makes for an efficient service desk and happy clients.
Alona Bolotnikova is committed to increasing client satisfaction and retention for managed service providers. Her years of experience in customer service and an overzealous eye for detail helped form Perfecting Service, “the best-kept secret for MSPs."
Simply put, service desk technicians should pay attention to their spelling and grammar for their work to leave a positive impression on customers. Maintaining proper grammar rules increases the authority and professionalism of the organization the technician is representing. A client may think, “If they don’t know the difference between ‘their’ and ‘there,’ are they paying attention to the details in fixing my issue?” The attention to detail that is required for proper spelling and grammar evokes a feeling of competency and accuracy regarding someone’s work. Moreover, error-ridden communication can demonstrate a lack of care. Poor grammar and spelling can come off as unprofessional or sloppy and can leave customers with a less than perfect impression even if their technical issue was taken care of.
The team at Perfecting Service points out errors in grammar and spelling and corrects them so that bad habits can be addressed.
Some common words that we find misused are:
Your: shows possession
You’re: you are
Their: shows possession
There: specifies a location
They’re: they are
Then: time
Than: comparison
Its: shows possession
It’s: it is
Were: past tense of are
Where: specifies a location
We’re: we are
Affect: to influence
Effect: a result
Bear with me: be patient with me
Bare with me: doesn’t belong in the workplace
With daily feedback to service technicians in areas such as grammar, politeness, and expectations, Perfecting Service helps make sure that you and your team leave a positive overall impression on your clients.
Alona Bolotnikova is committed to increasing client satisfaction and retention for managed service providers. Her years of experience in customer service and an overzealous eye for detail helped form Perfecting Service, “the best-kept secret for MSPs."
Although most people are taught at an early age to “mind their manners,” one of the top customer service complaints is that a representative was “rude or condescending.”
A surefire way for a client to have a bad service experience is for them to be treated in a rude or even overly curt way. Additionally, customers will tell twice as many people about a negative service experience than a positive one.
Service desks can get busy and overwhelmed, but remaining polite and taking the extra split second for pleases and thank-yous is well worth it. Customers love hearing the words please and thank you repeatedly because it makes them feel important and appreciated.
Perfecting Service helps make sure that clients are getting the polite treatment that they expect from a service desk by pointing out areas where communication can be improved by increasing the level of politeness. We provide technicians with daily feedback so that they may refine their service approach and leave your clients with a positive impression.
More politeness from your team will lead to more smiles from your clients!
Alona Bolotnikova is committed to increasing client satisfaction and retention for managed service providers. Her years of experience in customer service and an overzealous eye for detail helped form Perfecting Service, “the best-kept secret for MSPs."
“This is ridiculous how you handle your customer support, it’s been two weeks!!!!”
This is a complaint one of our clients received from their customer before they began following our best practices and allowed too much time to go by before updating their customer about an active ticket.
Managing expectations is a crucial component for good customer service. Rather than being bothered or annoyed by service technicians touching base with them, customers expect to be followed up with to enhance their positive service experience. Because of this, service desk representatives should always check in with their customers as their ticket resolution progresses.
The Perfecting Service team works with customer service technicians to get them into the habit of ensuring that any delays or unforeseen problems are communicated to their clients right away, that no more than a few days pass without the customer getting an update about their ticket, and that appointment times are kept or at the very least rescheduled with appropriate notice.
We work to make sure that our clients’ customers do not feel the need to call or email in to check on the status of their tickets because they are getting updated frequently enough that they know that their issue or request is actively being worked on.
When customers’ expectations are properly managed, it leaves a much better impression and a happier customer.
Alona Bolotnikova is committed to increasing client satisfaction and retention for managed service providers. Her years of experience in customer service and an overzealous eye for detail helped form Perfecting Service, “the best-kept secret for MSPs."
“It’s not fixed. I can’t believe I received this. Ridiculous.”
“You’ve got to stop this closing before talking to me thing!”
“Why are cases being closed before anything is checked out that this has indeed been set up correctly? Am I the only one that finds this incredibly irritating?”
These are just a few of the comments we’ve seen from our clients’ customers before implementing the Perfecting Service customer support best practices.
A standard we instill is that the ticket isn’t completed until the customer tests and verifies the resolution and then approves that the ticket may be closed. After this confirmation, a closing email needs to be sent.
Closing emails, like the name implies, close the ticket that was worked on. They leave a paper trial about the work that was done and also give you a chance to follow up with the customer one more time and leave a lasting positive impression.
Even after a verbal confirmation, a closing email is needed so that you and the customer have peace of mind that the correct work was done and that any changes that were made are surely known. You can kind of think of a closing email as the information page you get when you get your car fixed.
Closing emails should be included in your best practices to prevent any miscommunication problems. For example, one of our client’s customers was having printing issues that were corrected while on the phone with the technician. In the resolution notes, it is mentioned that the default printer was changed and that there was a verbal confirmation to close the ticket. A few hours later, the customer wrote in angrily stating that he didn’t know his printer setting was changed and he had just wasted printing twenty ID cards. If the technician had written a closing email that included this information, this situation and a very unhappy customer could have been avoided.
We have also seen many instances of our clients’ customers being unhappy because a ticket was closed too soon and the issue wasn’t yet resolved to their satisfaction. The most important part of a closing email is the customer confirmation to ensure that tickets are not closed prematurely. You need to confirm with the customer that their issue is resolved or that their request has been completed to their liking. This seems obvious, but you can’t write a good closing until the customer has actually confirmed that the ticket may actually be closed. Even if there is a loss of communication with the customer, a closing email stating that you have been unable to reach them to get confirmation should be sent so that everything is documented.
After the confirmation, it’s time to write the email. First, you want to address the customer by their name and thank them for confirming that their specific request was successfully completed. This will again help make sure that you and the customer are on the same page. If an issue was fixed, then what was done to resolve the issue needs to be documented as well as the root cause of the issue, if you know it. Customers want to be kept in the loop, and when a closing email doesn’t include this information, many will respond asking for it, so it’s better to take the initiative and provide that information to them before they need to ask.
Next, ask the customer to please contact you if they need any more assistance or have any other questions. And lastly, thank them and wish them to have a great day. You want to end this and every other customer interaction on a positive note.
Closing emails may not be your favorite thing to do, but they only take less than a minute to complete on average and are an important and necessary aspect of providing great customer service and receiving more smiles from your customers in return!
Wouldn’t you rather be getting comments like, “Excellent follow-up! The customer service was exceptional!”?
Alona Bolotnikova is committed to increasing client satisfaction and retention for managed service providers. Her years of experience in customer service and an overzealous eye for detail helped form Perfecting Service, “the best-kept secret for MSPs."
A CSAT, or customer satisfaction score, is a crucial metric used to measure your clients’ happiness with the customer service that they have received from your help desk. Steps taken to increase this score play a vital role in customer contentment, retention, and referrals.
What is the best way to ensure that your service technicians are following best practice procedures and in turn giving your customers more reasons to smile back with a positive CSAT rating?
Keeping feedback to your technicians timely, quantitative, and unbiased is the key to providing your team with the specific guidelines that they need to succeed. Check out this post for more information.
Alona Bolotnikova is committed to increasing client satisfaction and retention for managed service providers. Her years of experience in customer service and an overzealous eye for detail helped form Perfecting Service, “the best-kept secret for MSPs."
Alona Bolotnikova is committed to increasing client satisfaction and retention for managed service providers. Her years of experience in customer service and an overzealous eye for detail helped form Perfecting Service, “the best-kept secret for MSPs."
