@Crocus_Benford - Hi Be, so great to hear from you and how you organize your day! I’d definitely love Fridays if pets were allowed - what a happy day !!

Hi all,

I’m glad to be a part of the FreshWorks Community!

I’m open to any further questions anyone may have about how we use FreshWorks at Crocus, and share any more tips and tricks. My answers were quite brief so I am happy to expand on them. 

You can check out what we do in the UK at Crocus

If you are here just for my sidekick Nova, she has her own Instagram - @Nova._thesiberianhusky

Hi @Crocus_Benford! Loving your tips and tricks and Nova is super adorable! 

My questions for you - 

• What’s one challenge that you face even now when it comes to customer support? How do you intend solving for it? Or it can also be any recent challenge/ problem that you overcame in your CS journey.
• With the holiday coming soon, how do you go about planning your work accordingly to make it less overwhelming for you and for your customers?

Thanks! 

Would love to hear from you all @finn @Jerome.Haynes @laurence.hendy , if you have any questions for Ben :) 

Also for the attention of some of our amazing members!

@prithi.pillay @lyle.smith @pproost @j.haguet 
@cmcewen @mindrey 

You can also come for the questions, and stay for the SuperNova (I cannot get over how adorable she is!)

@Crocus_Benford Hi Ben, thanks so much for doing this. I wanted to ask you how you deal with some particularly difficult conversations with customers? 

Here’s my go to man for bad days, Mr Thomas. He’s 11  years old and is a rescue!

Hi, @rashmi.nag

Thank you! Some great questions. 

What’s one challenge that you face even now when it comes to customer support? How do you intend solving for it? Or it can also be any recent challenge/ problem that you overcame in your CS journey

One of our challenges is agent consistency. Making sure the agents have the same level of knowledge, tone of voice and provide similar resolutions. We have Canned Responses and an internal knowledge base as part of Solutions, but we found agents were not aware of all of the responses and articles available and therefore were not utilising them. 

So we created a weekly CS Newsletter which mentions any new Canned Responses and Solutions articles added to FreshDesk, with its name and in which situations it would be used. Also in the newsletter is a spotlight on an existing Canned Response or Solution to ensure they can remain fresh in the minds of the agents. 
 

With the holiday coming soon, how do you go about planning your work accordingly to make it less overwhelming for you and for your customers? 

Crocus is a plant and garden retailer so our holiday rush is actually in the Spring, which still feels very strange. For our Spring peak period one of the biggest helpers relates to my tip above about identifying time sensitive issues, or issues that will require more agent time if left unactioned. 

To add to my keyword tip, I have ‘Change’, ‘Amend’, ‘Mistake’ among others that update the ticket to Medium Priority, this is because if the order progresses too far, we need support from our warehouse team or we lose the ability to do any changes to the order and have the extra task of arranging the order to be returned to us. The more of those queries we can resolve as quickly as possible, the less work we make for ourselves and the business in the long run.

We also have a similar rule for keywords such as ‘Complaint’, ‘Frustrated’, ‘Disappointed’... updated to High Priority, these customers are likely to send follow up emails or use a different channel if they don’t get a response in time. This helps ensure less agent time is spent clearing duplicated contact and also can prevent the customer becoming more frustrated by our delay in responding.

Hi @Arvind Ramamurti 

Thanks, Mr Thomas is very handsome!

I wanted to ask you how you deal with some particularly difficult conversations with customers? 

I have a 4 step process when handling difficult conversations with L.E.R.F

Listen - It’s important to allow a customer to vent but also ensure the agent is fully aware of the situation, if the customer has multiple disappointments, each one should be addressed, not just the biggest one. By listening to the full situation, we get a clear understanding of the customer’s frustrations.

Empathise - A customer needs to feel confident that we are going to resolve their issues. By showing empathy we can build that trust with the customer. I always tell agents that a complaint is never ‘You Vs The Customer’ It is always ‘You + The Customer Vs The issue’ 

Resolve - We give agents the authority to resolve issues as they see fit. We give training on the financial impact between replacements, vouchers and refunds so that an agent can provide the most appropriate resolution that is mutually beneficial for the customer and the business.

Follow-up - The complaint doesn’t end with the resolution, there can be occasions where further issues occur, we need to follow it through to the very end and make sure the customer is happy with everything before we can consider the case to be closed. 

Hi @Crocus_Benford - these are some really great nuggets of information! I especially love the L.E.R.F process that you have mentioned above! 

Just to pick off from the earlier questions:

• Ahead of the holiday rush, is there any additional training that is given to the agents?
• How do you keep them motivated when dealing with disgruntled customers?

Also, please meet my best friend Thunder! He just turned 3 :

Hi @alyssia.correa,

Happy 3rd Birthday to Thunder, what a great name!

How do you keep agents motivated when dealing with disgruntled customers?

There are lots of little things that we do such as flexible working, office snacks and team building activities that create a positive working environment. This makes a huge difference to how someone feels about the world outside of a difficult call when the call ends.

Also by giving the agents appropriate training and encouragement, we can change the opinion of a negative call to something positive by celebrating their efforts in how they handled that contact.

The way we provide encouragement is by gathering positive customer feedback comments from our surveys and sharing it with the team so that they can see first hand the impact that their service has on our customers. We send positive feedback in a weekly shout-out email and also pin reviews on the wall for everyone in the business to see and for the agents to be proud of. 

Thank you @Crocus_Benford! It’s the little things that count and these are fantastic ways to show the agents that you care and understand their stress! 

I love the weekly-shoutout email and pinning reviews, such a great way to encourage and positively reinforce them!

Thank you for sharing @Crocus_Benford. Your day doesn’t sound too different from mine… You can see what I do in this thread. Ultimately we do whatever is necessary to drive results while improving Employee and Customer Experience!