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“Your brand is what other people say when you’re not in the room.” This powerful phrase by Jeff Bezos is true, especially in customer service, where the care you provide shapes the customer perception of your brand.
So, what’s the key to building a successful, lasting brand? Having the right customer service standards.
You may wonder what these standards for customer support are and how to achieve them. Stay tuned because in this blog, you will learn what they are, how to set them, and why they are important for success.
What are customer service standards?
Customer service standards are the benchmarks and guidelines adopted by businesses to deliver quality services to their customers and are based on the business’ mission, vision and objectives.
No two businesses are alike and neither are the customer service standards they set. Despite that, one thing remains constant–customers value quality services.
This means businesses have to raise the bar so high and ensure agents maintain the said standards. In return, customers will notice your brand easily and keep coming back for more.
Why are standards for customer support essential?
A report by Digital Minds BPO has indicated that customers are more likely to recommend a brand if they offer good customer service.
A brand does not just achieve this milestone by offering lip service but through having proper customer support standards.
The following are some of the reasons why these client service standards are essential for success:
- Positive brand reputation: Customers tend to lean towards brands that support and prioritize their needs consistently which in turn leads to positive reviews, word of mouth marketing, higher net promoter score, and better brand perception.
- Profitability: Exceptional customer support attracts new customers and keeps the existing ones. This boosts the customer lifetime value, ultimately leading to higher revenue for the businesses.
- A competitive market advantage: Maintaining consistently high customer service standards creates a unique selling position that easily tips customers towards such brands. With this, it becomes extremely difficult for competitors to measure up.
- Higher rates of customer satisfaction: By offering quality services as a benchmark for your business, it becomes easier to meet customers’ needs and expectations. This in turn increases customer satisfaction scores and engagement.
Common customer service standards that every team should meet
Take it from the successful industrialist Henry Ford when he once said, “A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large.”
For your team to be just as successful, you must take note of the following important customer service standards.
Fast first response time
In support, response times are used to determine how effective agents are. Truth is, customers expect fast responses across all communication channels, that is, live chat, email, social media, or phone calls.
Support teams can easily track their first response times to identify their commitment and dedication to providing quality services.
Calculate first response time using the formula below:
To meet this customer service standard, businesses can set different targets for high priority and standard tickets depending on their niche.
Pro-tip: Maintain a fast first response time by leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and automation to handle the simple and routine tasks as agents handle the complex ones.
High customer satisfaction scores
Quality and reliable services equal happy, loyal, and satisfied customers.
Every support agent or team must have at least 90% (varies with industry) customer satisfaction score for a better and long-lasting customer relationship.
Use the formula below to calculate customer satisfaction score:
The scores are a direct reflection of the customer’s perception of your team. This is, therefore, a standard for customer service that has to be held at all times in the highest regard.
Pro-tip: Collect customer feedback regularly through online social media platforms, direct interactions, surveys, etc. and implement the concerns shared to boost customer satisfaction score.
Low ticket backlog
Backlogs are very unhealthy for any team and can easily lead to longer wait times and a high number of unhappy customers.
This customer service standard can be set differently depending with the company’s objectives and goals.
Calculate your ticket backlog using the formula below:
If there’s a constantly growing ticket backlog, it proves a discrepancy in how the team resolves tickets which could devastate the company.
Pro tip: While having ticket backlogs is inevitable, it’s important for businesses to set and maintain a maximum backlog percentage that aligns with industry standards for easier control. Also, monitor this regularly and adjust accordingly based on the team performance for better ticket backlog management.
Fast time to resolution
The bar for resolving customer issues has been raised so high that teams have no option but to up their problem-solving abilities.
To be reliable as well, teams not only have to be fast and innovate, but also provide consistent quality services.
Teams can calculate this standard using the formula below:
By tracking time to resolution, teams identify the total amount of time they take to completely resolve a ticket.
Depending with the business, teams can maintain a standard time of below 6 hours for simple or common issues and below 7 days for complex ones.
Pro-tip: Use tools such as a help desk software that promotes cross team collaboration through shared and omnichannel inbox leading to faster resolutions.
Low escalation rate
When tickets are constantly being escalated to higher ranks for support then it signals a huge problem.
This can be majorly because of lack of proper training, knowledge gaps, among other gaps within the team.
It is calculated using the formula below:
To resolve this, businesses can set a standard escalation rate of below 20% of the total tickets based on their business demands.
Pro tip: Use automation to assign tickets to the appropriate agents, reducing escalation rates and increasing customer engagement.
High net promoter score
How easy or difficult is it for customers to recommend others to your brand? The only way businesses can identify and measure this is through net promoter score.
It works by asking customers a question on how likely they are to refer the brand to others. The answer has to be rated on a scale of 1 (lowest) – 10 (highest).
Use the formula below to calculate your net promoter score:
The scores are then used to categorize customers from lowest to highest as detractors, passives, or promoters respectively.
To ensure your team attains this customer service standard, a 70% score or above signifies excellent services by the team.
Scores below 50% on the other hand indicates that your team requires improvements.
Pro-tip: Build strong and lasting customer relations by providing quality services, proactive customer service and personalization.
Low ticket volume
When the demand for customer support is high, there will be a high-ticket volume. Teams have a mandate to provide quality services.
Measuring ticket volume is beneficial for teams because it can be used to determine where demand for support lies and issues stemming from the product or service.
Measure ticket volume using this formula:
This is a standard for customer service can help teams allocate resources accordingly and resolve any systemic complexities. It therefore leads to better support and increased reliability.
Pro tip: Provide customer self-service options such as a detailed knowledge base for customers to troubleshoot concerns independently and reduce the overall ticket volume.
How to improve customer support standards for your team
Customer service has evolved tremendously and is no longer a buzzword but a necessity. Support agents need to go the extra mile to identify and meet customer needs and expectations.
The following are ways to improve your team’s customer support standards:
Set and track key performance indicators
Customer service is at the heart of business success and consequently, businesses have to track and monitor key customer service performance indicators to know if they are meeting the set customer service standards.
Because it is data driven, brands can easily identify ways to improve and adopt services that align with the set standards.
The key KPIs to track include; net promoter score (NPS), first response time, first contact resolution, average handle time, customer effort score (CES), and customer satisfaction (CSAT) score.
Empower support agents regularly
Businesses should first establish clear structures and formats that will allow them to fully maximize on the resources and time spent empowering agents.
- Document the customer service standards as policies or manuals that can be easily accessed by support agents. It allows agents to be updated and refer to these documentations for clarity.
- Conduct detailed onboarding to train agents from the get-go and equip them with the proper customer service standards, how to meet, maintain, and their relevance.
- Utilize tools such as a customer service software, reps can easily obtain company or product information at their convenience and leverage generative AI to improve on their knowledge and usage of products or services.
- Take advantage of advanced technologies such as virtual reality (VR) to create real-time customer support simulations that can greatly enhance their skills.
Have an omnichannel support
A report by Converzation has indicated that about 79% of customers believe that having a fast response time is very crucial in customer service.
It’s time-consuming for agents to be available and reliable, especially when your business has multichannel support without the structures to offer fast support.
Thankfully, businesses can resolve this by investing in an omnichannel inbox. It integrates all communication platforms into one, allowing agents to provide prompt responses to customer inquiries regardless of the channel they use.
Additionally, agents can switch seamlessly from one communication channel, addressing all the concerns shared without losing context for better experiences.
Provide self-help options
Most businesses provide employees with a variety of self-service resources to gain valuable information and skills that help in understanding the set standards for customer service.
These self-help resources can be provided in the form of documentation such as user manuals, tutorials, FAQs, or in multi-media format like audio and video.
Companies have to ensure that all relevant information is easily and readily accessible within a unified knowledge base software.
These self-service tools help reduce the frustration of employees having to struggle with finding solutions.
Customers should also access these resources easily, enabling them to resolve issues at their convenience and learn more about the product or company by extension.
Improve overall responsiveness
To prove how critical response time is, 89% of customers make their purchasing decisions on how fast businesses reply to their initial inquiry.
Therefore, businesses should set and map realistic service level agreements (SLAs) for every ticket with well-defined conditions based on the needs for each communication platform.
Also, the SLA terms have to be updated regularly to match new trends and metrics. This helps to enhance support efficiency and maintain responsiveness as one of the crucial standards for customer service.
Utilize automation and AI for efficiency
Customers nowadays expect a fast and efficient services with up to 46% of customers looking for an instantaneous response to their problems.
- Use help desk automation tools to streamline workflow and handle all the simple routine tasks at every stage of the ticket cycle. It saves a lot of time and allows agents to focus on the complex tasks.
- AI offers users limitless possibilities. This includes providing detailed information, enhancing personalized customer service, real-time translation, data and sentiment analysis, among others.
Together, automation and AI reduces agent workload, prevents instances of burnout, and boosts efficiency allowing teams to focus on their standards for customer service—providing quality and timely services.
Adopt high customer service standards for success
The standards for customer support provided are not the only ones available, however, they all are crucial to build lasting relationships, drive loyalty, and create a positive brand reputation.
At BoldDesk®, we offer you comprehensive features such as omnichannel support, automation and AI, that can help businesses prioritize various standards for customer support and become a unique competitor.
Try it out today with our 15-day free trial or book a live demo to have a first-hand experience. Alternatively, contact our support team if you require further assistance.
Please let us know what you think in the comment section below.
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