Flawless Customer Service: 3 Training Tips for Success

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High-growth ecommerce brands know how vital it is to find and acquire top talent, especially for shopper-facing support teams. Not only do these individuals tackle customer queries on a daily basis, but they also act as valuable revenue drivers for businesses.

Of course, this process starts with interviewing and hiring the best candidates, but that’s not enough on its own. Businesses must train their support teams to cultivate unforgettable experiences which develop customer trust and build customer loyalty.

Below, Gladly shares three training tips that put teams on a pathway to providing flawless customer service. Is your support team ready to level up from being reactive to proactive, and shift from being a cost center to a revenue generator? Here’s where to start.

Tip 1: Screen for the Best of the Best

Training doesn’t necessarily start when new agents are onboarded. When searching for the next crop of champions for your ecommerce brand, it’s essential to screen candidates for the skills and potential that will make them an asset and potential future leaders in your company.

The traditional customer service interview process doesn’t always reveal which candidates are best suited for a customer service role. The best tactic is to tap into their approach to service during this screening process. Rather than asking them to recall times they solved issues in the past, take them through a real-life situation and see how they’d handle it in practice. The candidates who show a conversational approach and react with empathy are the ones who are prepared to work toward goals of flawless customer service, radical personalization, and create loyalty-building touchpoint.

Similar to acting as a brand ambassador, the ideal candidate will naturally think about fostering relationships. While cultivating personalized conversations can certainly be covered during training to some extent, those eager to go beyond training scripts are much more naturally inclined to help you reach your company’s revenue generation and long-term growth goals.

Pro tip: When screening candidates, take them through a few tiers of customer issues, ranging from simple to complex. Even if candidates have not handled the exact scenarios, seeing them work through potential solutions in real time will give you a good idea of how they’ll perform on the fly.

Tip 2: Meet Your First Line of (Brand) Defense

Start at the very beginning and ask yourself: How do you describe your customer service team’s mission or purpose? Is their main focus resolving customer problems, or does it go beyond that?

Your service agents often provide the first personal interaction a customer will have with your brand, the first step in a journey of building customer trust. They are, in essence, your brand ambassadors—and you should train them accordingly! Yes, they should be versed in your products inside and out, but not just to fix small problems.

Every new support team member you onboard can help bolster the quality of your ecommerce customer experience. These teammates act as an extension of your brand to drive retention and create a loyal customer base. The more you can instill the values of both your commitment to service and superior products from day one, the more your support staff will pass that on to customers.

Customer support promotes personal service that makes every shopper feel like they’re being taken care of individually, rather than treated like a number on a list. This approach enhances brand affinity and addresses customer needs effectively. (This is why ticketed systems inherently fail support teams by limiting personalization and preventing deeper, more valuable conversations.)

Pro tip: When training new support team members, show them examples of how other agents have brought your brand values to life, creating brand affinity. Look for times your team members demonstrated patience, attention to detail, or gone above and beyond, and highlight those examples. By aligning their actions with your brand values and focusing on meeting customer needs, you can cultivate strong brand affinity and deliver exceptional customer experiences.

[Gladly’s Customer Profile: Know who your customer is in the first five seconds of a conversation.]

Tip 3: Use Tools That Unleash, Not Limit, Your Team

Craftsmen are only as good as their tools, and for service agents, that translates to having a customer service platform that provides an expansive toolkit for helping customers. It’s certainly possible to train anyone on how to use any platform. But the best support technology enables and empowers agents to accomplish more rather than challenge or frustrate them. Brands need to rethink how their software allows service teams to work.

Customer-Centric Support Platform

A customer-centric customer service platform is a foundational tool that allows teams to manage and track customer interactions, gather invaluable customer data, and maintain a comprehensive customer database. It enables teams to have a holistic view of each customer, track their history, preferences, and provide personalized support. Customer-centric platforms focus on putting the customer at the center of every interaction, which fosters meaningful conversations and builds lasting relationships.

Knowledge Base and Self-Service Tools

Providing customers with self-service options can enhance their experience and alleviate support team workload. A knowledge base or self-service portal containing FAQs, tutorials, and troubleshooting guides empowers customers to find answers to common questions and resolve issues independently. It reduces response times and allows support teams to focus on more complex or unique customer needs.

Customer Feedback and Survey Tools

Gathering feedback from customers is essential for understanding their satisfaction levels and identifying areas for improvement. Feedback and survey tools help teams collect customer insights through feedback forms, satisfaction surveys, and Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys. To this end, Gladly integrates with popular survey tools like Medallia and Delighted.

Explore all Gladly Integrations

Task Management Tooling

Task management plays a vital role in facilitating seamless internal team collaboration and coordination. These tools are specifically designed to enhance task organization and workflow efficiency. With task management tooling, teams can communicate effectively, share relevant information, assign tasks, and collaborate on customer inquiries, leading to streamlined processes and swift issue resolution.

Analytics and Reporting Tools

Analytics and reporting tools provide valuable insights into customer service performance and enable teams to measure key metrics and track progress. They shed light on response times, resolution rates, customer satisfaction scores, and other relevant metrics. Explore Gladly’s robust reporting tools, including Liveboards and Insight Builder.

Secure Payment Processing for on-the-fly Purchases

Chat has emerged as a popular channel for real-time customer interactions, providing an opportunity to recapture abandons and convert “just browsing” customers. With the integration of secure payment capabilities within chat, customers can effortlessly finalize their purchases without the hassle of switching platforms or encountering unnecessary complexities. This streamlined approach not only enhances efficiency but also ensures a user-friendly payment process. With Payments from Gladly, brands can offer their customers a secure and reliable payment experience directly within the chat interface.

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