Running efficient customer support is crucial for any company that wants to have a good reputation and grow its customer base. These days, customers expect solutions to their problems quickly and efficiently, and if you fail with your customer support, this is almost certain to hurt your business.
But while you may think you have a good customer support system in place, what happens when there is a sudden surge in tickets? Are you able to deal with them efficiently, or do you find your team struggling to cope?
Managing an upsurge is essential for maintaining an efficient level of customer support, so here are some of the tactics you can use to make sure you provide the support your customers deserve even when things get busy.
Set Expectations with an Updated Auto-Response
One of the first things that you should get into place is a good auto-response system that replies to incoming tickets as soon as your customers get in touch.
Customers do not expect you to sort out their problems immediately. They are usually aware that you will have other support tickets to deal with and that they will be in a queue. However, they do want to know that their requests are being looked into.
If you receive a sudden surge in support tickets, you might want to update your auto-response to reflect this. You could do this by writing an updated message explaining you are seeing a higher-than-normal amount of tickets and update the time in which you expect to reply.
Even if this reply time is longer than normal, customers will appreciate knowing that their request is being dealt with. This can improve your customer service and help to increase the overall satisfaction levels even if your customers have to wait slightly longer than they would normally.
Improve Your Knowledge Base
This is not something you can do when a surge occurs. However, if you find that you are regularly struggling to deal with upsurges in support tickets, you might want to improve your knowledge base to help take the pressure off your team and reduce future surges.
A comprehensive knowledge base provides a way for your customers to find the solutions to their problems themselves. By creating and constantly updating your knowledge base, you may find that many customers will be happy to quickly search for an answer to their problems before contacting your team. In addition finding the best knowledge base software is not difficult either.
This is especially useful for common problems that are easily resolved. If you create detailed answers to these problems, customers can quickly resolve the issues themselves without having to wait for a member of your staff to reply to them, which can speed up the whole process.
If more people find answers in the knowledge base, this will reduce the pressure on your helpdesk, helping to keep ticket surges to a minimum.
Just make sure that you constantly update your knowledge base with new answers to keep it fresh and to ensure it provides the latest information.
Alert Existing Customers to Issues
If you notice a sudden surge in requests about the same issue, it might be worth taking action to prevent yet more requests coming in with the same problem.
One way to do this is to simply send a message to any other customers who might be affected explaining that you are aware of the problem and you are sorting it out, or providing them with the solution before they get in touch with you.
That way, you can prevent more requests coming in and overwhelming your team.
Use Specialist Service Desk Software
One of the simplest ways to avoid becoming overwhelmed by upsurges in requests is to use specialist helpdesk software. A comprehensive solution can help you to automate your system, ensure tickets get to the right people sooner, and improve your response rates.
By improving your overall organization, you will be in a better situation to deal with surges when they arise.
Improve Your Service and Reputation
Bad handling of customer support tickets can cause serious frustration to your customers. If customers find that they are waiting around for a long period of time to get a solution to their problems, they may end up taking their business elsewhere.
Good customer support is one of the most important factors in a successful business, so make sure you take your support service seriously. Manage the peaks and troughs of your support requests professionally and ensure that your customers receive the high-quality support that they need and deserve.
