INDEED, HOW TOPCON EXCELLED AT CUSTOMER SERVICE
Everyone wants to excel at customer service. But only a few analyze and make changes to the areas that matter the most, like customer support. Without excellent customer service, your plans for predictable revenue are shattered. Without predictable revenue, there is no hyper-growth. As an organization, it is vital to offer the best service to your customers, especially when they come to you with a problem.
So, keeping track of your customers is the very first thing to do. Try the CRM of the FaceValue Application, the Purchase Generator. It is ideal for recording your customer details, customer support details and customizing your interactions.
Two sides of the same coin - customer support and customer success
Customer support and Customer Success are two sides of the same coin. Customer support helps people fix problems after it has happened. Customer Success tries to prevent the problem from happening in the first place.
Customer support is a hard job. You have to deal with angry, irritated customers, too much work, low pay, and sometimes little respect. They can't take time off to deal with their burnout. These two critical teams that deal with customers are commonly mistreated and underappreciated.
This situation should change. Else, these frustrated customer service agents will lead to frustrated customers and we don't want that.
TopCon's excellent customer service
Topcon Positioning Systems is a part of the $1 billion global Topcon corporation with 4,000 employees. It is the world's largest manufacturer of positioning systems and its clientele includes people from civil engineering, agriculture, surveying and any other sector where the mapping and positioning are critical. They have contact centers all over the world.
Angie Todd supervises Topcon's 18 agents in Columbus, Ohio, Kansas and Olathe. She spent four years as a support agent and then worked as a supervisor for four years. Angie says that five tips help them to provide predictably excellent service.
Angie’s five expert tips
1. Get agents away from the phone
Their team handles 25,000 calls per year. So, every agent spends 40 hours every week on the phone, speaking with frustrated customers and solving the problems. It can lead to burnout and therefore, it is important to leave their desks for product cross-training and direct customer visits.
When the agents visit the customers at their locations, it keeps them engaged and confident and fosters a better attitude. They will also understand how to help customers better, which eventually helps in increasing first-call resolution rates.
It has become easier to route the calls to the agent's mobile phones in the past few years. So agents don't have to be chained to their desks anymore! Their job is now made flexible and more comfortable for the agents.
2. Use technology to help customers as well as yourself
Yes, technology is about improving the customer experience. But it is also for reducing your costs.
As a call comes in at Topcon, their NewVoiceMedia system compares the customer's phone number against their Salesforce CRM and automatically routes the call to the right agent. This way, it saves the customer a load of work from giving out all the information or type anything.
3. Continuously listen to feedback
In any organization, the one team that has the most interaction with the customers is the customer support team. But often, many overlook their feedback. Their insights can give a better and deep insight into customer expectations.
4. Create a career path
The best employees in any organization expect growth and the same is for Topcon too.
In the beginning, the employees will learn all there is to know about Topcon. The customer service agents at Topcon know that they will be spending two to four years in Support. Soon after that, if you hire the right candidates, the experience as a support agent can serve as a great training experience that helps them to become experts of tomorrow as you promote them in the company.
5. Specialize agent roles
At Topcon, there are five first-level agents who have a basic understanding. 13 more agents specialize in an application or industry to better serve the customers. Such a structure also creates an opportunity for the agents to grow inside the support team.
To start offering the best customer service, you need to know where you and the customers stand.
Looking for an easy way to understand your customers?
Use the Customer Survey feature in the FaceValue Application to send out relevant survey questions. You can easily use the survey answers to analyze the response, cross-verify with the customer information and gain vital information about your customers. You can do all of it and much more from FaceValue. Want to know more about what you can do? Try FaceValue now.
This blog is excerpted from: ‘From Impossible to Inevitable: how hyper-growth companies create predictable revenue’ co-authored by Aaron Ross and Jason Lemkin.
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