What is IT customer service?
IT customer service is a set of actions aimed at providing customers with help and guidance before, during and after the purchase of goods or services. IT customer care representatives make sure the IT company doesn’t focus solely on developing and adding new features into the software but is also customer-centric. This makes sure the product stays up-to-date and the customers using it are heard.
To provide the best IT customer support, the agents must go through proper training. This way they will get all the necessary customer service skills.
IT support — customer service representatives skills
A perfect IT customer service team must have a lot of different traits. That is why it is so difficult to develop and cultivate them — it takes too much time, especially for an in-house team.
Among others, the most important skills of an IT customer service team are:
Personalization
94% of customers claim personalization is “important,” “very important,” or “extremely important” for them. Personalized offers and communication are the keys of making customers feel special — something of paramount importance in the world of everything-mass-produced.
The more personalized IT customer support is, the better customer communication will be. It is reported 77% of customers are willing to pay more, if they are offered personalized customer experience. The same amount reported to have recommended a service provider willing to personalize their offer to their friends and family.
By bringing personalization to IT customer service, it is easy to enhance customer experience as well as increase customer conversion and return rates.
Flexibility
Flexibility can be named a subsection of personalization. But if some things cannot be personalized, almost every element of IT customer journey can easily be made flexible:
- Payment timing;
- Subscription model;
- Communication approach and channels and so on.
Even though IT customer service might not see as many possibilities for flexibility, an IT vendor still needs to do everything to make the most flexible and adaptable offer. This is bound to attract more customers. It will also make the service look more professional and customer-oriented.
Patience
IT and customer service representatives deal with a lot of different customers. And they might not necessarily be tech-savvy or have enough time for a lengthy explanation. They need their answers and resolution here and now.
Patience is a virtue. More so when it comes to customer service and support. Dealing with a lot of different people, especially when they are disgruntled or in a hurry is sure to cause a lot of stress for IT customer service consultants. Training them to be patient and accept the customers as they are will go a long way for them and for the quality of service.
Empathy
Empathic approach makes all the difference. Often customers call a customer support IT team just to have someone to talk to. It is also necessary to remember: if a customer doesn’t plan on returning to your business after a bad experience, they will not call a customer service team. They are more likely to go on sharing their experience with their friends and family.
Remember: if a customer calls your IT customer service team, they are willing to give you another try. Take an empathic approach to resolving their issues. It will increase their satisfaction level, erasing the bad impression even faster. Use such customer service language as:
- I understand;
- I hear you;
- I would feel the same way too;
- Let me help you with that;
- I will be glad to assist you today.
These seemingly simple phrases will make all the difference when it comes to customer service in IT. It will also increase return rate and will help your customer base turn loyal.
Positive language
Being a professional IT customer service representative means knowing what words to use and when to use them. Language plays a pivotal role in satisfying and relaxing the customer no matter what issue they have. Customer care IT professionals who know how to use language to their advantage and turn the customer loyal with ease are valued by any IT company.
Even though using a positive language might be difficult, especially when dealing with grumpy and rude customers, it is a skill that goes a long way in the IT customer service field.
Why is IT customer care important for any business?
The IT customer service department is not the easiest to set up. One needs to:
- Make sure all communication channels are covered;
- Make sure all SLAs are fulfilled;
- Check the level of customer service team’s knowledge regularly;
- Provide good salary and work conditions;
- Set up all the necessary hard-and software.
This is a lot! That is why so many businesses outsource their IT customer service teams. It allows them to save a lot of resources and focus on other aspects of their businesses rather than on the IT customer service team.
But why is the customer service IT team so important? It helps businesses establish a trusting relationship with their customer base even before the purchase is made. This makes the chance of loyal relationships higher from the get-go.
In short — a customer service team makes your customers happier from the second they decide to use your services.
IT support as a service — SupportYourApp and team training
Of course, having provided IT companies with outsource customer service for a decade, we at SupportYourApp know all about team training and how to prepare our professionals for the most challenging of customers.
We learn everything about good customer service
We learn everything about excellent customer service. And we adapt this knowledge to every IT product we work with. Nothing is too challenging for us.
How do we do it? How do we train so many teams to provide equally good customer service?
- Expanding the team — we begin by selecting only the best and most experienced candidates for the job. We always make sure they have the necessary soft and hard skills to not only be the best customer service provider, but also to be the best teammates.
- Onboarding — during the onboarding process we lie down the basis for the most necessary skills and traits of the IT customer service consultants:
- Positive language;
- Empathy
- The ability to listen;
- The willingness to help;
- Initial product training — we make sure our customer service consultants perfectly know the IT product they are working with and can answer virtually any question that can come from the customers.
- Further QA — we conduct a quality assurance process every month or as often as our clients require. We not only check the quality and the speed of answers, but also make sure to check the product knowledge. Our Delivery Managers hold separate testing and additional training to confirm our teams know and remember all the information perfectly.
We develop a sense of the team
SupportYourApp has a very long history of team building tradition. We hold it frequently, especially if the IT customer service team is growing and adding new members. This way we form not only professional but personal bonds. This helps us have the sense of the team even in the hottest of seasons.
How does it reflect on customer service? Customers get seamless experience. There are no interruptions. Our omnichannel ticket resolution system is perfectly supported by our teams’ collaboration. Both of them help our customers get correct and timely answers they need when they turn to the customer service team.
We respect our clients’ customers
Providing the best customer service is impossible without respecting the customer. That is why we teach all our IT teams to respect any customer and provide the best IT customer service possible to them. We strive to maintain the same 95% customer satisfaction KPI across all our teams of professionals.
Respect, understanding and the willingness to help the customers are three pillars we at SupportYourApp are basing our customer service on.