Reducing Customer Response Times

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Reducing Customer Response Times

• http//businesscoachingcalgary.com/

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Do you start to wonder if your email hasnt been
responded to within a few hours?

• A survey by Nielsen shows that 33 of customers
  would still recommend a brand that was quick to
  reply, even if the response was not complete.
• In todays world where most communication is done
  through technology we have been spoiled by quick
  response times. The response time refers to the
  time it takes a customer service representative
  to make the first point of contact after an
  inquiry is made. Even if you cannot resolve the
  issue at the first point of contact,
  acknowledging them in any way keeps the customer
  focused with you.

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• Does your company track response times and
  monitor? The average first response time can be
  calculated by taking the total of all response
  times and dividing it by the number of cases that
  you resolved. By knowing what your response times
  you can ensure that your company continues to
  increase efficiency by decreasing the rate over a
  period of time. If you have said that you will
  respond in a certain amount of time it is
  critical that you hold yourself accountable to
  those times.

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Scheduling

• Start scheduling customer service around your
  customers.  For example, you may find have a
  large amount of customer service cases being
  submitted between 5-6pm when people are typically
  off work but you close at 5pm.  It may be worth
  the investment to have someone stay for an extra
  hour so that they can take care of these cases
  and reduce response time. Also study your
  customers to find out if they are in various time
  zones and when is typically the best time to
  reach them and create a response strategy.

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Communication

• How do you communicate with your customers and
  are you utilizing all channels effectively? As
  humans we are only able to communicate with a
  customer one at a time. If you are using basic
  channels such as phone and email you may want to
  look into options like live chat which allow
  someone to respond almost immediately to requests
  and from there you may be able to resolve the
  issue. SMS updates and auto responders are also
  great methods of informing customers immediately
  that their concern has been acknowledged.

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Use Customer Support Templates

• This is known as the Quick Response option. If
  you have a backlog of customers with the same
  problem customer service templates allow you to
  respond quickly to multiple customers quickly.
  This lets you acknowledge quickly and get that
  first point of contact out. Start by creating
  templates to some of your most common questions
  and monitor to see if it helps reduce your
  response time.

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Contact Information

• Suite 105, 1935-27th Ave NE
• Calgary AB,T2E 7E4
• P 403.454.4883
• C [phone]
• Email kent_at_ninebusinessgroup.ca