How to Meet Customer Expectations (Customer Support Edition)

Stop trying too hard!

If you and your support team have been following the conventional wisdom – go above and beyond to delight customers; then you need to calm down.

Well, I get that it is counterintuitive for most businesses. However, ‘exceeding customer expectations’ is a waste of time, money, and effort.

Why the idea of exceeding expectations does not help

As per a research from Gartner, when you try to please customers with free services, free products, refunds, etc., the results are not what you would expect.

The research also found that when sales and customer success representatives focus on exceeding customer expectations, they end up creating confusion and unnecessary expenses.

The reason behind this situation lies in the classic expectation v/s reality debate. There is a huge huge gap in customer support.

A gap between what companies perceive to be great support and what they are able to deliver.

80% of companies believe they provide great support. Contrary to that, only 8% of customers believe they received superior support.

‘Make it easy’ is how you solve the problem

The said research also highlights the solution. It suggests that when it comes to providing customer support that is more customer-centric, companies need to help customers solve problems easily.

You may ask what does that even mean? Well, ‘make it easy’ simply means meeting customer expectations by removing obstacles.

• Is it easy for customers to get in touch with you?
• Do they have to keep repeating their issue?
• Are they constantly transferred from one department to another?
• Do they have to keep switching from one support channel to another?

With this understanding of making things easier for your customers, you can fundamentally change your support processes.

Try to align it with the basic requirements of your customers and how you can meet those. Once you find a way to achieve this, you will be able to truly delight customers and reduce churn.

A checklist to meet customer expectations and build a happier & loyal customer base

Given below is a list of top aspects that any business that wants to enhance their customer support, needs to focus on.

A. Be quick in responding to queries

There’s hardly a need to tell you the importance of providing quick responses.

The faster you are in understanding the issue and resolving it, the better impression you have on your customer. They feel like you understand their perspective, and value them.

Now, every customer complaint might not be a priority for your support teams. However, for them, it is a #1 priority. Here’s what you need to take care of:

❌: Never be vague in terms of response time. ‘We will get back to you’ – nope that doesn’t work.

✅: Instead, be very specific about when customers should expect a response from you. Set KIPs like ‘Process emails within 40 minutes’, ‘Answer queries on social media under 15 minutes’, and so on.

Share these KPIs with your support teams, as well as post it on your website to give customers a fair idea.

Related Read: Top Help Desk Automation Features For Delivering Quick Support

Good example

Response times go hand in hand with customer loyalty. Here’s Glossier, a renowned beauty brand acing at providing rapid responses to customer queries on social media.

Solutions to improve response time

• Instead of manually sorting tickets, you can automate the ticket routing process. Using help desk software like DeskXpand, you can set ticket properties like priority, ticket type, agent, etc. Based on these pre-set rules, you can sort tickets to quickly resolve them.
• Use pre-formatted canned responses templates, so you won’t have to waste hours drafting a perfect message. Modify the template based on your needs, and you can send replies in just a few clicks.
• Utilize live chat to be available to your customers round the clock. In real-time, support teams can converse with customers, and help them solve problems.

B. Let customers help themselves with self-service

To meet types of customer expectations, self-service is a must have for businesses irrespective of their size or the industry they cater to.

Customers want to solve common problems themselves without having the need to contact support agents. 67% prefer serving themselves over speaking to a customer expectations of service representative.

Self-service. by making customers independent, enhances customer satisfaction, and also helps reduce overall ticket volume.

Let’s say, for instance, a user wants to know how to edit their profile. Instead of getting on a call with an agent, they can browse through articles and tutorials.

Knowledge base articles give them instant answers to their questions. Plus, it saves your support agents a lot of time.

❌: Do not forget to keep your customers in mind when building a knowledge base. If your articles are not organized, and easy to use, customers will face challenges in getting the right information.

✅: Create a structure for knowledge base. Think about the common queries that you want to address. Always remember to categorize articles, and keep the content easy to skim.

Good example

Asana’s help guide is a perfect example of a well-created knowledge base. The categories and sub-topics make it easy for a user to navigate. The design is also sleek and intuitive. When you select a topic, you get a detailed step-by-step guide along with pictures to help you understand each feature in detail.

An easy solution to create a knowledge base

Building a knowledge base from scratch can be a time consuming process. But with DeskXpand help desk software, you can create articles easily with ready templates. You can further modify the templates, categorize articles, as well as invite support reps to collaborate.

C. Listen to customers and take their feedback

Feedback on a regular basis is the best way to meet customer needs. If executed correctly, surveys boost customer satisfaction by making customers feel involved.

Create surveys and ask questions about the overall customer experience.

Are they able to get the right information? Is the given information helpful to the customers? Is there room for improvement when it comes to providing support?

❌: Do not send surveys that are too long, complicated, and impersonal. No one wants to spend hours on it.

✅: Be very clear about the intent of the feedback form – what are you surveying for? Additionally, always add a personal touch to the surveys. It increases the possibility of a user considering taking the survey.

Good example

Here’s a screenshot of a survey by Slack. The survey is a good example because it appears to be more exclusive by mentioning it was sent to a handful of people. Plus, adding the time-frame is a good idea too!

Quick solution to taking support related surveys

With a built-in customer satisfaction survey feature, DeskXpand enables you to create and share surveys with your customers. You are free to customize the questionnaire, set a rating option (0-10) as per your business needs. You can further attach those forms with emails, messages, notifications, etc.

Say “Hello! 👋 ” to DeskXpand

By now, you might have got a clear idea of what DeskXpand is. It is an ultimate help desk software that takes care of all your support related processes.

From ticket routing, to creating support articles, to internal team collaboration, DeskXpand gives you everything you need to streamline your customer support.

It aims to help support reps be more efficient and productive, ultimately leading to enhanced customer satisfaction.

With varied features like ticketing, live chat, knowledge base, reports and analytics, customer support portal, ticket notifications, shared inbox, and a lot more.