As a customer, your goal when buying a new technology is simple: you want it to work as promised. You want the experience to be easy and straightforward, and you want the technology to provide you with the benefits you were offered during the selling process.
While this is a great goal, let’s face it: the likelihood is good that you will experience some glitches. Of course there will be those issues you can fix yourself. If the company that sold you the technology is on the ball, it will have a good technical support section on its website. Through that option, you can learn how to resolve at least some issues you may experience. But there will also likely be some problems for which you need additional help.
This leads to what should be your secondary goal: to be able to easily contact customer service and/or technical support and get accurate and decisive resolutions to your issues.
Read: Scoring the Customer Experience: NPS vs CSAT vs CES
Hopefully, the company you’re working with provides you with the breadth of tools (chat, phone, cobrowse, social media, etc.) to contact them easily. That’s step number one. What happens once you use those tools and connect with a live person is another question entirely.
When working with customer support, positive interactions are remembered fondly, but negative interactions become baggage that is difficult to dislodge. Not unlike a bad relationship, the damage can be permanent.
While you can’t always control how the company is going to treat you, you can influence it. Here are four steps that you, as a customer, can take to make customer support a better experience.
Get help
Technology can be very complex. Things break and the reason isn’t always obvious. If a sales or support person tells you otherwise, it’s a lie.
It’s worth it to investigate whether investing in a support package and/or training makes sense. Having access to a solid support team will save you frustration, increase efficiency, improve the benefits you’ll receive from your technology investment, and encourage long-term productivity.
Don’t be rude
If you had a past negative experience, it may not be reflective of all of the customer support reps with whom you will come into contact. Support reps shouldn’t have to earn the right to be treated with courtesy and respect. Remember that there’s a human being on the other side of the line. If you would not say rude things to his or her face, don’t say them over the phone.
Read: Customer Experience: Show Customers Love at Every Stage
This doesn’t mean that you have to be a pushover, by the way. You deserve solid backing from a customer support team. Just don’t start the conversation with a chip on your shoulder.
Never tell a lie
Tell the truth to your tech support rep when asked a question. You may have received an obviously wrong answer in the past when a customer support person was just trying to end the call quickly. I’ve experienced that myself and being blown off is unpleasant, uncalled for, and rude.
Read: Grow Customer Satisfaction by Practicing Respect
However, lying about your issue or exaggerating the problem isn’t going to get you an accurate solution. If you end up with a support person whose knee jerk reaction is designed to get you off the phone, recognize that this rep clearly does not know the answer or doesn’t know how to go beyond a script. Hang up and try again. There is a dud in every batch.
Say goodbye
If the tech support from a company is consistently poor, end the relationship. Life is too short for that kind of hassle. If quality customer support is not encouraged from the top down, the situation likely will not get better any time soon. Get out fast.
Hopefully you can soon find a company that believes in great customer support. With you and them working together, there’s no way you can lose.
Are you ready to discover how Glance visual engagement solutions can improve customer engagement and increase sales for your business?
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About Glance Networks
Glance helps enterprise organizations create the ultimate customer experience with smart, omni-channel visual engagement solutions based around integrated cobrowse, screen share, and one-way agent video. We are one of the world’s simplest, most reliable and secure platforms that enable companies to see, show and share anything online, creating a frictionless path to great experiences in sales, support and customer service. The result is improved customer satisfaction and loyalty, increased revenue growth and operational savings. From financial services and healthcare to retail and travel and leisure, even the most advanced technology and SaaS organizations – we transform the customer experience for today’s business. Learn More »
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