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The Coffee Booth: October 18 | Scrappy, Not Crappy

  • 13 October 2022
  • 65 replies
  • 489 views
The Coffee Booth: October 18 | Scrappy, Not Crappy
bharath.chakravarthy
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The Coffee Booth is now OPEN! 

 

✅ New Host

✅✅ Topic of conversation 

✅✅✅ Date & Time

 

A little bit about me

Been with Freshworks for 7.5 years, starting in Chennai in the FD support team and since then moved to Berlin to be the first full time onboarding specialist. Currently, I lead a team in the CAA function in Berlin and work currently as both an Engagement Manager and also a Solution Architect for the CX product suite.

I’m a keen photographer who loves to travel, hunting for that perfect frame (the Budapest Parliament building was one such frame); also a cricket purist who loves watching the longest format of the game and plays professionally here in Berlin.

Excited to speak with you all and host MY first coffee chat - show some love in the comments!

 

Here’s the low-down:

🎧 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?

🎄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?

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

😀 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?

🌈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?

 

Date: October 18

Time: 6 PM BST | 10 AM PT

Duration: 60 minutes

Event link: Right here - this is a TEXT-BASED conversation!

RSVP and we’ll send you a calendar invite!

 

65 replies

finn
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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 

 

 

A5: The training session should be held by both the most experienced agent and the one before the new agent. The experienced agent can transfer the experiences that come from complicated cases. On the other hand, the one before the new agent can increase their knowledge while telling the processes, and policies, and comfort the new agent by empathizing with him/her. 
Secondly, the average capability of the team should be determined. The agents who are below the average should be trained again.
The best example cases may be shared with others. I mean, sharing positive emails, call recordings, or the satisfaction survey results can attract the team's attention to these examples. This may be natural training. 

Bharat and community members, thank you so much. I really appreciate your help. These kinds of brain storms helped me a lot.💡

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 👋🏼

finn
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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

A2: Balancing the number of agents according to the volume. Most companies tend to think that the best way to handle the volume is by increasing the workload or work hours. I think they miss out on the fact that (a recent study also shows) when an agent is demoralized by a yelling customer the agent can bounce back in 40 mins in the best scenario. That means the mentioned company will provide the worstest service in the next 40 mins. This also affects the agents' long-term work motivation. I always support the idea that a happy agent means good service - good service means a happy customer.

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?
 

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.

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. 

rhea.desouza
Userlevel 7
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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
finn
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Userlevel 4
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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.

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 :) 

A
Userlevel 5
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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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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?

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 

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’ :) 

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?

bharath.chakravarthy
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Userlevel 5
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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?

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 for sure, one of my favourite topics during the implementation phase where our customers are in process of deciding the groups.

The support team can be categorised in a number of ways, but I think it eventually boils down to how you want to report on it.

Some examples are categories by Level, like L1, L2, escalations, etc. OR by Geography, thereby allowing tickets to go into the right team, especially if you have a single team working in shifts. Some customers, just end up having one single big group, and use features like Agent Shifts and Skill based assignment to ensure the ticket reaches the right agent within that group

Or by language.

Or for calls by overflow groups (starting with a small group that has the same people plus additional people in the overflow group.

Definitely, language is a key driving factor as well, especially if just dividing based on Geography can’t solve that. 

For calls, yes, definitely would advocate having a fall back queue with ‘EVERYONE’ in it, especially if one is the business that demands ‘a human voice’ instead of ‘voicemails and call backs’

S
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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 

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.

S
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Userlevel 2
Badge

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.

Bernburgerin
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Userlevel 3
Badge +2

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?

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 for sure, one of my favourite topics during the implementation phase where our customers are in process of deciding the groups.

The support team can be categorised in a number of ways, but I think it eventually boils down to how you want to report on it.

Some examples are categories by Level, like L1, L2, escalations, etc. OR by Geography, thereby allowing tickets to go into the right team, especially if you have a single team working in shifts. Some customers, just end up having one single big group, and use features like Agent Shifts and Skill based assignment to ensure the ticket reaches the right agent within that group

Or by language.

Or for calls by overflow groups (starting with a small group that has the same people plus additional people in the overflow group.

“Some customers, just end up having one single big group, and use features like Agent Shifts and Skill based assignment to ensure the ticket reaches the right agent within that group” → I personally would find one big group overwhelming – especially on the agent availability dashboard.

bharath.chakravarthy
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Userlevel 5
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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.

Bernburgerin
Rank
Userlevel 3
Badge +2

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?

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 for sure, one of my favourite topics during the implementation phase where our customers are in process of deciding the groups.

The support team can be categorised in a number of ways, but I think it eventually boils down to how you want to report on it.

Some examples are categories by Level, like L1, L2, escalations, etc. OR by Geography, thereby allowing tickets to go into the right team, especially if you have a single team working in shifts. Some customers, just end up having one single big group, and use features like Agent Shifts and Skill based assignment to ensure the ticket reaches the right agent within that group

Or by language.

Or for calls by overflow groups (starting with a small group that has the same people plus additional people in the overflow group.

bharath.chakravarthy
Rank
Userlevel 5
Badge +3

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 

A
Userlevel 5
Badge +6

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?

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 

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?

bharath.chakravarthy
Rank
Userlevel 5
Badge +3

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?

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 for sure, one of my favourite topics during the implementation phase where our customers are in process of deciding the groups.

The support team can be categorised in a number of ways, but I think it eventually boils down to how you want to report on it.

Some examples are categories by Level, like L1, L2, escalations, etc. OR by Geography, thereby allowing tickets to go into the right team, especially if you have a single team working in shifts. Some customers, just end up having one single big group, and use features like Agent Shifts and Skill based assignment to ensure the ticket reaches the right agent within that group

bharath.chakravarthy
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Userlevel 5
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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.

We are all humans and feelings are important. Yes, for mundane tasks (ro)bots can take over, but if you feel really distressed you want to talk, cry, whatever...


Products, automations, bots and everything aside, we are ultimately in a people business :)

My experience in Customer support surely has made me much better human (hopefully my friends and family can vouch for that 😃 )

Bernburgerin
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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?

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 

The way your customers understands it. If your customers for instance should fill in fields on a portal these fields should make sense to them (not only to your agents). Otherwise, they will need to be recategorize later.

S
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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?

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 

Wow great question. Looking forward to your answers and @jamesallnutt others too. Would love to hear

bharath.chakravarthy
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Userlevel 5
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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 

A3: 

  1. Listen to them and ensure they are feeling understood.
  2. Open a ticket.
  3. See whether others have reported the same.
  4. In that case create a tracker ticket.

I cannot agree more. 

Especially, on calls, it is so crucial to be able to create the ticket during the conversation and have another team work on it in parallel, as opposed to wait until the end of the call to pass it on.

That way, the agent can keep the customer engaged, while the respective team works on fixing the issue in the background. And if it is a global issue, nothing better than that tracker you were referring to. 

Bernburgerin
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Userlevel 3
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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.

We are all humans and feelings are important. Yes, for mundane tasks (ro)bots can take over, but if you feel really distressed you want to talk, cry, whatever...

bharath.chakravarthy
Rank
Userlevel 5
Badge +3

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?

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 

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