Making (Customer) Spirits Bright: How to Ensure Stellar Tech Support During the Holidays

The holidays often signal an influx in tech support queries for B2C companies—after all, what good is the new, flashy must-have tech gadget if it doesn’t work? An organization unprepared for this uptick in activity risks long customer hold times, overworked reps and poor first call resolution scores. In short, less than stellar customer service. So how can companies accommodate the seasonal-related influx in requests without taking a hit in customer service?

The answer lies in employing remote support technology that enables reps to be more effective and deliver a better customer experience. Unlike the traditional phone-based support model, which cannot be scaled beyond 1:1, remote web-based support is much more scalable and enables reps to handle multiple sessions simultaneously. As a result, companies can drive efficiencies and turn the support department from a cost center into a strategic business resource.

Below are just a few ways in which remote support innovations can engender better customer service:

Seeing is Believing

A key limitation of phone-only support is that it falls to the customer to accurately describe the problem they are experiencing. This can lead to confusion and delay resolution of the issue for any number of reasons—language difficulties, incorrect terminology, the list goes on. One of the best things about remote support is that it enables reps to see and control remote screens. And any customer service professional will tell you, when you’re able to see the problem it gets resolved much faster. Not only does this lead to a more positive customer experience, it also helps reps reduce the amount of time it takes to resolve the issue. When applied to numerous reps with numerous interactions over the course of the day, this can lead to significant cost and efficiency improvements.

The Right Match

As consumers have grown increasingly tech savvy in recent years, most are able to solve simple issues themselves and contact companies’ support channels only with more complicated problems. In this environment, it’s increasingly common that the least busy support rep is not necessarily the most qualified to fix the issue. Staffing in this manner could lead to dissatisfaction or a disjointed experience if the customer is transferred from rep to rep in an attempt to solve the challenge.

This is where remote support technology comes in. Features like skills-based routing enable managers to match support staff skills with those needed to resolve an incoming incident as efficiently as possible. This reduces transfers and escalations, improves first contact resolution and enhances customer satisfaction.

A (Discreet) Cry For Help

Even when incidents are routed to the appropriate support rep, it’s not uncommon for the first-tier technician to need some assistance in order to resolve the issue. In situations in which reps are remotely accessing and controlling end-users’ screens, collaboration technology can be utilized to improve session resolution times. This technology not only allows multiple reps to view the screen simultaneously but also enables them to broadcast a request to have others join the session—all without notifying the customer. In addition to providing a seamless customer experience, this also allows companies to be more cost-effective by ensuring more experienced resources are utilized appropriately.

This technology can also be extended outside of the support organization to vendors or other external groups—providing secure, one-time limited access to a shared session. Again, because the customer doesn’t experience any “hold” time while the vendor is brought into the session, overall satisfaction scores tend to be high.

Survey Says

Of course, one of the best ways to determine how satisfied your customers are is by asking them about their experience immediately following the session. Remote support innovations enable companies to customize survey questions to specific incidents and use this immediate feedback to their advantage. Addressing an issue with a rep’s performance in near real-time is much less likely to result in a repeat of the particular behavior during the next interaction, for example.

Survey responses can also be used to pin-point improvements on a macro level. By measuring customer feedback over time, companies can spot patterns that can be used to improve productivity or identify additional ways to enhance the customer experience.

The above are just a few remote support functionalities that can be used to ensure customer service does not suffer—even as request volumes increase during the holiday season. Of course, there is no such thing as down time when it comes to customer support, which is why savvy companies avail of this technology year-round. But if you find that your customer service is lacking in the final weeks of 2016, make switching to a modern remote support solution a top priority on your resolutions list.