A customer service representative is simply an employee in the company who offers support to your customers. It doesn’t matter whether you offer physical or digital products; you will want to make sure that appropriate support is available to your customers. Most businesses take this lightly and end up suffering the consequences later on.

As a business owner, you need to make sure that appropriate support is available to your clients when they need it. Whether you are offering support in-store or online, having experienced employees covering the support function makes a great deal of sense for business owners.

Customer Support Is the Main Distinguishing Factor for Businesses

One of the main reasons why you need to focus on support is because customer support is fast becoming the main distinguishing factor for most businesses. As more and more startups are launched around the globe and businesses start to utilize different kinds of technologies in order to offer more efficient and affordable products, the only way to set your business apart is by focusing on customer support.

However, you really can’t do anything to set your company apart from the rest of the competition if you do not pay attention to the quality of the support that you offer. If a customer has to wait for several minutes before they can reach a support representative, it won’t take long for them to leave a negative review for your company. Do you really want that?

Nowadays, there are plenty of platforms available for customers to share their opinions and experiences. It won’t take long for them to post a negative review online of your company and the impact of one negative review could turn out to be quite heavy for business, especially if you are still in the growing phase.

Affects Business Image

It doesn’t matter how good your product or service really is; people will also evaluate your company based on the support you offer. This also has a major impact on the goodwill of your business and your company’s image is going to be affected if your business has a poor or no support function.

With multi-support channels now becoming more and more popular, it’s imperative for your business to take the needs of your customers into account. If your business doesn’t offer decent support, people will start looking at other options. They might even be willing to settle for a slightly lower-quality product as long as they know that they can get support when they need it the most.

This is huge because your company’s business image is going to be the ultimate defining factor. A poor business image will eventually result in lower sales and tons of negative reviews. Can your business really deal with that? For startup companies, it’s quite difficult to take their businesses off the ground without getting some traction, and this is impossible without appropriate support.

An Empathetic Approach

Empathy is becoming more and more important in the workplace. If your customer support representative does not show any kind of empathy towards the customers, it’s really going to decrease the overall quality of support your business offers. That is one of the main reasons why you need to hire an experienced representative.

Experienced professionals are able to empathize with the customers and make them feel as if their complaints are being understood by someone who can help them. Remember that not everyone is empathetic by their nature, so it must be nurtured at times. The aim is to let the customer know that you understand that the product is not perfect and is prone to problems.

Once you are able to get that message across, the next step is to offer help. As a support representative, your employees can use a series of options available to them to offer assistance to the employees. This could be in the form of a discount coupon or a simple ticket that could be resolved over time.

A Positive Attitude

The power of a positive attitude cannot be understated by any means. When a customer calls your company seeking support, they are probably going to be disgruntled, angry, or frustrated. In several cases, it’s a combination of all three. That is one of the main reasons why you need someone on the other end who takes a slightly more positive approach. Turning that frown upside down takes more than just a cheerful attitude, however.

Your customer support team needs to empathize with the customers closely and figure out the best way to deal with the problem. Every person has a breaking point, and if the support staff think that the breaking point is close, they may want to consider offering a discount to the customers. It’s important for you to have experienced staff who can understand the pain of the customer and offer adequate support.

Moreover, bringing a cheerful approach doesn’t work all the time because in most cases, an angry customer will sense the disconnect. This is not something that you want! The aim is to let the customer know that their problem is easy to resolve and that the customer support team is going to work on making sure that it’s fixed as quickly as possible.

A Proactive Approach

One of the most important things that your business needs to track is the time that it takes for a member of the support team to resolve a complaint. If one employee takes several hours to resolve a complaint or is unable to provide a satisfactory solution, you may want to think about moving them from this department to another.

Taking a proactive approach is essential, especially in an age where timing plays such an important role. People have very little patience and want a resolution to their complaints or problems as quickly as possible. If you are not able to provide it to them, you are going to have quite a few issues on your hands.

However, experienced support representatives are able to ensure that they meet their daily targets and resolve complaints or tickets assigned to them as quickly as possible. They know the next steps and are able to ensure that your customers are not left unanswered.

It’s easy to see the difference, because as soon as you bring on an experienced employee, your overall satisfaction ratings are going to go up dramatically!