Once you started working on the issues, you may encounter situations which can’t be handled by your technical skills alone. The client might have some emotional/sentimental reasons for a particular issue and where you should showcase your skills in responsive customer support to make the client comfortable. Even though the client’s demand is beyond your control, work your level best with the client using your brain and heart to make the client pleasant.

Now let us look into the favorable features such a response should possess.

12) Positivity

A client approaches you for a cause and wouldn’t like to get hurt with a blatant “No”. Hence never ever convey a negative message directly. You can use more polished sentences to express your limitations without hurting the client’s ego.

Eg: You can say something like the below one for a feature request which you don’t offer

Unfortunately, we don’t offer this product/technology right now.

If your answer ought to be negative, always try to include alternative suggestions to make your reply positive.

Eg:-

Unfortunately, we don’t use Varnish cache in our servers. Our servers run Litespeed and you can use Litespeed cache to speed up your wordpress website which is much more effective than Varnish.

Guys, kindly excuse me for the usage of web hosting support examples here as well. Even though I try my level best to make a neutral technical support or customer support article, web hosting technical support terminologies creeps in unintentionally and I am too lazy to rectify it ð

13) Be calm and patient

This is really important in a customer support role. Customers may blame or abuse you for an issue which is not due to your fault. However, you will need to control your emotions and stay calm. You can explain the cause of the issue and make him understand that this was not due to a fault from your end. I know it is not that much easy as it sounds ð

Those who worked with outsourced support companies definitely will have some stories to tell. Some times you might have done all the troubleshooting steps you could but the issue remains unresolved and there is nothing more you can do at the server level to resolve the issue. You are waiting for a response from the client, who is sleeping tn the other end of the world. When the day breaks, the client gets upset as the issue is not fully resolved and his dedicated admin is not available as you are already in your bedroll since it is night here. Definitely the client won’t be happy as he looses business and starts blaming you and the company to which he outsource hosting support.

Even though the issue is not your fault, do understand that the client is affected and he is venting out his frustration. So be cautious that you don’t loose your control. Explain to the issue without any form of irritation something like

Eg:

I understand how you feel. However, please note that this was not due to an issue from our end. Let me explain this. Followed by your explanation.

14) Be honest with your customer

Always be honest with your customers. If you lie to the customer and the customer finds it, that will badly hurt the reputation of the company you represent.

For exampe, suppose your DC is facing some network/hardware issues which causes some web hosting servers to go down. Customers will contact you and suppose you lied to some of them. Nowadays, clients discuss about such issues on social networks such as Twitter to find out whether any others with your hosting services are also facing the same issue and if they find that it is due to a network outage, it is really going to hurt the company’s reputation.

Also, if you don’t know about some technical/product query thrown to you, you can tell the customer that you are not aware about it. But give him an assurance that you will check on it and will get back to him with the details as soon as possible.

Example:-

Sorry, I am not much familiar with that technology. Let me do a quick research on it and get back to you. Kindly standby for updates.

15) Build a rapport with the customer

Try to build a close and harmonious relationship with the customer so that you both understand each other’s feelings/ideas and communicate well.

Sorry, I don’t wanna to give you my advice about how to build friends, continue it in your own ways.

16) Educate the customer

Once you have resolved the issue and if the fix is something that the customer can do from his end, explain the cause of the issue and provide him with the steps you have taken to resolve the issue so that customer can fix it by himself the next time. This not only makes your interaction with the customer a rewarding one, but also makes your jobs easier since he don’t have to seek your help next time.

Example:- Suppose if the customer has asked you to create an email account under his domain hosted in your server and you have created the email account. Instead of simply replying back that you have created the email account, you should also educate the customer how to create an email account so that he don’t have to contact you the next time regarding this.

Example:-

I have created the email account as per your request. Please see the email login credentials below:-

===
Email account login credentials

===

You can also create email accounts from your end from cPanel -> Email Accounts. Please follow the steps below to do so:-

===
a) Log into cPanel and Access Email accounts.

b) Enter the email account name (only the first part) in the first text box corresponding to the email account name and choose the domain under which you want to create the email account using the dropdown there.

c) Enter the password in the text boxes corresponding to the options saying “Password” and “Confirm password”. You can also use the password generator tool there. It will generate a strong password and autofill these text boxes automatically for you.

d) Enter the quota (Amount of disk space the new email account can use) for the new email account. You can either set a custom value or set it to “unlimited”. Please note that your email account disk space usage should be within your account’s disk space limits. Even if you set it to unlimited, the email account may not work if your account exceeds the disk space limits on the server.

e) Create the new email account by clicking the “Create email account” button there.

Such instructions, will give the client to do some operations in his level and it will make him more confident to test new waters. This in turn will help them to avoid contacting the technical support every time for tasks which can be done from their end.

17) Clear communication

If you provide some steps to the customer, make sure that you have given it clearly and correctly. Provide the steps in simple English as if you are giving them to a person with least knowledge about it. Double check your responses for any grammatical/spelling errors before posting them.

Example:- Suppose some of the website files of your customer’s website got corrupted and you want the customer to restore the “public_html” directory alone from R1soft. Make sure that you have mentioned it clearly in your reply instead of simply saying. Or else the customer may restore his entire “home” directory.

Incorrect:- Seems like your website files are corrupted. Please try restoring the website files from cPanel -> Restore backups.

Correct:- Seems like your website files are corrupted. Please try restoring the “public_html” folder from cPanel -> Restore backups. Please follow the steps below to do so:-

a) Login to cPanel and access R1soft Restore backups.

b) Double click on the “home” folder icon and the resulting page will show you the contents of your home folder.

c) You just need to restore the “public_html” directory. Select “public_html” directory by ticking the check box before “public_html”.

d) Click on the “Restore Selected” button at the top left and click on “Confirm” when prompted.

18) Appreciate the customer

Some customer’s may fix the issue by themselves after contacting us or the issue might have been solved by the steps you have given him. In both cases, appreciate the customer for the work he has done. Every human likes appreciation!

Example: Great work! Glad to hear that you were able to resolve the issue by yourself/it is working for you now. Seems like you are an expert in this ð

19) Closure and follow up

There are three main points to remember while closing your conversation with the customer.

a) Confirm the issue is resolved –

It is better to confirm that the issue is resolved before closing your conversation so that the customer don’t have to contact you back again regarding the same issue.

Example:-

Just to confirm, I believe your issue regarding ….. is resolved after we have …(steps you have done to resolve the issue), isn’t it?

b) Show your readiness to help further

Make sure that the customer has got all his issues resolved before closing the conversation. Or else, he may contact back again within a few minutes.

Example:

Is there anything else I may help you with? I’ll be more than happy to help!

c) Closing

Close your conversation with proper closing sentence.

Example: –

Thank you for contacting “Company name”. Have a nice day!

The way to handles a customer issues through responsive customer support will make the client more comfortable and will yield better relationships. We will be discussing other aspects of customer support in the next article.

Recommended Readings

Turn Clients to Fans

Understand the client

Keep Reinventing Yourself

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26 Ways to turn your clients to fans – Part 1

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Turn clients to Fans – Part 4 – Keep Reinventing Yourself

Turn your clients to fans – Part 2 – Understand The Customer

Posts by Sanjeev Jacob

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