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The Coffee Booth: October 18 | Scrappy, Not Crappy

  • 13 October 2022
  • 65 replies
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The Coffee Booth: October 18 | Scrappy, Not Crappy
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bharath.chakravarthy
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My favourite question of the session and I’m sure @jamesallnutt has heard me say this a number of times on our calls 

Q4: 😀 Effectively categorizing your support teams can help set a strong foundation to the overall support experience (and thereby, customer experience)- what are the ways in which you would categorize your support teams?

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I’d start with effectively categorising the questions that come in- what is “effective” could really differ for different businesses. 

Could be based on region, product, complexities etc- is this a good starting point?

Definitely, yes. 

Region, product, agent capabilities, Complexity / Category of issue - these are all ways in which one can categories their groups in Freshdesk. 

I presume that’s why we call them groups, and not just ‘Teams’ :) 

A
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Aaaaaannnnd, the last one for the day: 

Q5: 🌈Great service experiences are likelier to lead to repeat customers. But if your agents aren’t equipped well to delight customers, it’s a moot point. What are some innovative ways in which you would facilitate training for your support team?

To answer a question, tag the answer with the corresponding number. For example, if you are answering the first question Q1, start your answer with A1 and use the Quote option 




This is an interesting one as well. Ironically, although I manage the Customer Onboarding team now, my personal favourite way to train an agent on the product has been to be hands on in support for a couple of months.

Coming back to the question though, I’ve always found a good healthy combination of self help articles, pre-recorded videos and live sessions is the best way to train a new batch of agents.

Also, try to have someone from the last training batch in your current one. They are the ones who went through the training most recently, and hence, will be able to give insights on what worked for them and what didn’t.

Really like the idea of involving someone from the previous batch to give their views after experiencing real scenarios 

bharath.chakravarthy
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I am a huge believer in gamification! 

I’d design some fun programs (that also serve as team bonding sessions) to focus on building empathy, listening skills, and putting agents in customers’ shoes.

Some healthy competition can never let us down, right? 

You’ve invoked some nostalgia in me. I remember winning this ‘Customer Wow Champion’ award in one of the quarters in our Support team back in 2016 (after trying in vain for 3 quarters). That definitely pushed us within the team.

Good ol’ days :) 

bharath.chakravarthy
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Great, so here’s the first question for the day

Q1: 🎧 A common challenge faced by many customer support representatives is not having an answer to a query. What processes do you have in place to ensure situations such as these are handled in the best manner?
 

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A1: If an agent doesn’t know the answer and wastes the customer’s time that would be the worst scenario. When I checked the feedback from the customers I noticed that the customers who complained about the service or policies never accuse the agents. They empathize with them. Therefore, the agents should be aware of the customers’ empathy and sympathy towards the CS agents. That is to say, if the answer is not found immediately, the agents can kindly say that they will be back to the customer with the solution asap. That will be the best option.

Totally with you, Finn.

Managing the customer persona is an equally important skill for an agent, in addition to knowing how to solve the issue itself. 

bharath.chakravarthy
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Anyway, thank you, everyone for chiming in. 

It was lovely chatting with all of you. Please do keep those questions and comments coming in. The link will continue to be open and we’ll be here responding to them as well. 

 

Feel free to reach out to me if you are interested in some help ‘optimising’ your Freshdesk Omnichannel setup under the guidance of our expert CAA (Customer Advocacy and Adoption) team. Drop an email to bharath.chakravarthy(at)freshworks(dot)com and I’ll endeavour to reach out to you as soon as I can. 

Signing off from Berlin, Tschüss 👋🏼

K
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Great, so here’s the first question for the day

Q1: 🎧 A common challenge faced by many customer support representatives is not having an answer to a query. What processes do you have in place to ensure situations such as these are handled in the best manner?
 

To answer a question, tag the answer with the corresponding number. For example, if you are answering the first question Q1, start your answer with A1 and use the Quote option


A1: Personally, I’ve always felt an internal Knowledge Base is indeed the best way to ensure that an agent has an answer at their finger tips. Having said that, a KBase can’t be built overnight and will have to be laid, brick by brick, article by article.

During the implementations, especially for customers who don’t have a KBase yet, I’ve always recommended the agents contributing to the KBase on the fly, by just converting their replies automatically to drafts under the Solutions tab.For queries not on the KBase, the agents can always the Freshconnect (Threads) feature inside a ticket to have a quick collaboration with others agents with the context of the ticket.

 

What about while in direct communication with a customer on call or otherwise? 

This is a really important point you bring up @Ishan 

bharath.chakravarthy
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Keep those comments coming in for all the questions, folks. This is great :) 

Here’s the second question

Q2: 🎄With the holiday season looming, how have you and your org made it easier for agents to deal with several customers at a time on a regular basis?

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Bernburgerin
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Keep those comments coming in for all the questions, folks. This is great :) 

Here’s the second question

Q2: 🎄With the holiday season looming, how have you and your org made it easier for agents to deal with several customers at a time on a regular basis?

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A2: @bharath.chakravarthy Do you refer to deflecting tickets over a portal or additional temporary agents?

bharath.chakravarthy
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@Giovanna Carvalho 
@finn -

Would love to hear your thoughts too 

A
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So, keeping up the momentum, here’s the next one.

Q3: ➡️ Service outages are bound to happen time-to-time. What is your 3 (etc) step process to handle panicked customers who come knocking?

To answer a question, tag the answer with the corresponding number. For example, if you are answering the first question Q1, start your answer with A1 and use the Quote option 

So, keeping up the momentum, here’s the next one.

Q3: ➡️ Service outages are bound to happen time-to-time. What is your 3 (etc) step process to handle panicked customers who come knocking?

To answer a question, tag the answer with the corresponding number. For example, if you are answering the first question Q1, start your answer with A1 and use the Quote option 

 

Honestly, during downtimes, I’ve always felt that the first thing we need to address is the ‘emotion’ of the customer as opposed to the ‘issue’ of the customer. Letting the customer finish their point, not interrupting them and making sure they feel heard solves most of the troubles.

Once that’s done, we can get to actually providing a solution / ETA for the issue itself, and if you need more information from the customer, now would be the best time to ask it.

If the issue takes longer than expected, using a bulk reply option to all tickets connected a the bug (tracker) can be used to keep the customer updated periodically. A company wide status page can also help in such situations

The first point is often understated- although I completely understand it’s easier said than done when we consider the volume of tickets and how overwhelming it can get for agents too.

bharath.chakravarthy
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Aaaaaannnnd, the last one for the day: 

Q5: 🌈Great service experiences are likelier to lead to repeat customers. But if your agents aren’t equipped well to delight customers, it’s a moot point. What are some innovative ways in which you would facilitate training for your support team?

To answer a question, tag the answer with the corresponding number. For example, if you are answering the first question Q1, start your answer with A1 and use the Quote option 

Bernburgerin
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I am a huge believer in gamification! 

I’d design some fun programs (that also serve as team bonding sessions) to focus on building empathy, listening skills, and putting agents in customers’ shoes.

Do you use Arcade in Freshdesk?

rhea.desouza
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Great, so here’s the first question for the day

Q1: 🎧 A common challenge faced by many customer support representatives is not having an answer to a query. What processes do you have in place to ensure situations such as these are handled in the best manner?
 

To answer a question, tag the answer with the corresponding number. For example, if you are answering the first question Q1, start your answer with A1 and use the Quote option

A1: If an agent doesn’t know the answer and wastes the customer’s time that would be the worst scenario. When I checked the feedback from the customers I noticed that the customers who complained about the service or policies never accuse the agents. They empathize with them. Therefore, the agents should be aware of the customers’ empathy and sympathy towards the CS agents. That is to say, if the answer is not found immediately, the agents can kindly say that they will be back to the customer with the solution asap. That will be the best option.

💯💯💯

Cheers | Team Freshworks Community
bharath.chakravarthy
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So, keeping up the momentum, here’s the next one.

Q3: ➡️ Service outages are bound to happen time-to-time. What is your 3 (etc) step process to handle panicked customers who come knocking?

To answer a question, tag the answer with the corresponding number. For example, if you are answering the first question Q1, start your answer with A1 and use the Quote option 

S
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Keep those comments coming in for all the questions, folks. This is great :) 

Here’s the second question

Q2: 🎄With the holiday season looming, how have you and your org made it easier for agents to deal with several customers at a time on a regular basis?

To answer a question, tag the answer with the corresponding number. For example, if you are answering the first question Q1, start your answer with A1 and use the Quote option

My two cents:

Ticket deflection is the best way to answer tickets :)

Having a good customer support portal, with proper messaging and expectation setting through automated email notifications will allow us to buy some time for the agents (mostly operating on limited staffing owing to the holiday season).

Makes total sense! Also feel a well thought out FAQ page and overcommunication on websites/ product/ shipments can go a long way in reducing number of tickets.

I truly appreciate all agents supporting customers through the holidays- such champs

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