A Better Answer Blog

Satisfaction ratings in your customer service department are dropping, and you don’t know why.

Customer service is a driving factor in any industry. It’s time to find out why customers are walking away from interactions with your customer service team feeling unsatisfied.

Conducting an audit of your current customer service efforts can point you in the right direction for resolving issues.

Follow these steps to find and remedy your customer service efforts.

How To Audit Your Customer Service

Review Your Statistics

There are many reasons why your customer service satisfaction rating could be going down. The only way to see exactly where this is happening is by reviewing your statistics.

Looking at all of your metrics—phone lines, chat, and email—will give you a better understanding of how your customers are being treated.

Are they experiencing long hold times? What is the average length of each call or chat? Are they getting their questions answered? 

When asked, two-thirds of people said they would only wait two minutes or less when on hold for a customer service call. What’s more, over 13% of those surveyed noted that no amount of waiting is acceptable.

Some calls will inevitably run longer than normal when they are complicated or when conducted during peak times, but you want to limit both numbers as much as possible to keep your customers and prospects happy. 

Missed Calls

Missing a customer support call is a cardinal sin of customer service.

Figure out how many calls your company misses out on over the course of a day, week, and month. This will help you know where your infrastructure is falling short and where you can add more people, systems, or software to your process to make sure that no call goes unanswered. 

If you are still working on your customer service infrastructure, make sure you have a process in place to document and address any missed calls or chats so that someone can follow up later. 

A customer service call is your opportunity to make a good impression. This may be a prospect’s only interaction with your company; you don’t want to leave a bad taste in their mouth.

Praises and Complaints Over Time

Another helpful way to audit your customer service efforts is by figuring out the number of praises and complaints you receive; both positive and negative feedback is beneficial to note.

While you may have complaints that are odd and rare, you should look for trends when you start to audit. If customers are often complaining about a staff member being rude, you will want to look into it and see how to resolve the issue. After addressing the source for negative reviews, monitor the complaints monthly or quarterly to see if things are improving.

On the other hand, compliments and praises are just as important to note. Knowing where your staff and company is thriving gives you support to know what you’re doing right and where you can continue to provide stellar service.

Response Rates

Answering customer inquiries as quickly as possible is not a novel idea—it’s a vital step in your customer service process.

There are so many businesses to purchase from and services to sign up for. One of the only things keeping a customer with you after a problem occurs or a question comes up is a quick and personal customer service experience. If a customer’s needs aren’t met with your company, they will go to another who values their business. There is A Better Answer.

Failing to respond quickly will result in lost business and aggravated customers.

Internal Focus Areas To Improve Your Customer Service

No matter your business’s size or industry, offering a seamless, polite, and efficient customer service experience is important. Companies will not be able to grow if they offer a poor customer service experience.

Listen to Employee Feedback 

Gathering employee feedback is almost as important as customer feedback.

Hearing about problem areas, software mishaps, and hiccups in employee processes will help you learn where to improve and help streamline your service processes.

If many staff members leave feedback about your CRM system being complicated and often shutting down, switching this software out has the potential to make your team more efficient and happier while working.

There’s no better way to gain internal feedback than getting it directly from your employees. Make sure to talk to both new and seasoned employees, as they will have different viewpoints and experiences.

Gathering this feedback can be done by anonymous online surveys, in-person conversations, or company-wide meetings.

Evaluate Automation Options

In the same way that software and automation can make our lives easier, they can also make them more of a headache.

Forcing your staff and customers to work with confusing, time-consuming programs or make processes less efficient is no way to run a business. While gathering feedback from employees is helpful, letting the information you get fall by the wayside without making the proper changes can be even more frustrating. Ensure you’re listening and implementing.

It’s okay to automate parts of your system—but even the largest and best-known companies like Amazon provide a human element to their customer service when needed. While many companies try to automate as many processes and interactions as they can, don’t forget that at our core, humans still want to speak to humans, especially in a customer service atmosphere.

Create a Plan To Improve

After you have audited your customer service and shined a light on your current processes and problem areas, it’s time to make a plan to improve.

Even if you think your customer service experience is exceptional, it’s in your best interest to conduct a customer service audit. There might be areas that are slipping through the cracks that you aren’t aware of. 

If you’re still on the fence about taking the time to audit your customer service, here is what poor customer service could be costing you.