Most business owners and executives understand the importance of a crack support team, but do you know how to build a support team from scratch?
If you are a startup, or have scaled, you may not have the personnel in place to meet your needs for external customer support, and maybe not even the right staff for an internal help desk. But because your customers expect support for your products and services, building a customer support team needs to be a top priority.
Whether you need to build a 24/7 customer support team, an internal help desk, or both, this guide can help you to get them in and up to speed fast.
Hire the right people
The best service starts with the best people. This is especially vital when you are building a support team. Remember that for much of your customer base, your support staff will be the face and voice of your company.
As Medium reminds us, hiring can be tricky for IT and tech support positions, especially “knowing that you are finding an applicant that possesses the necessary technical and soft skills to meet your company’s needs.” You will need to determine if you or your current staff can assess these qualities, or if you are better off outsourcing to a staffing or staff augmentation service.
If you need to offer 24/7 support, you may need to consider remote workers in appropriate time zones, or satellite offices, in order to meet customer demand.
Train your team
Once you have your team in place, or have started assembling them, then it’s time to train them. Obviously, building a support team involves helping them to understand your business and what you offer your customers, but it’s also vital to be clear about:
- Your company’s goals
- The expected workplace culture
- The value proposition of your product or services
- The pain points your customers may face
If your support team understands where your business is headed, they are much better equipped to help you get there.
Provide the best resources
To build a customer support team, and to help them thrive, you need to surround them with the right resources. From empowered leadership to information databases and manuals, making sure that your team has the means to answer questions, provide solutions, and solve problems in real time is essential.
You may consider also providing them, and your customers, with an accurate and easily accessible online knowledge base. According to some studies, 51 percent of customers prefer technical support through a knowledge base over talking to your help desk team. This means that a quality knowledge base can free up your support team for customer interactions that can’t be solved by a simple search.
Track the right KPIs
You will want to track the performance of your customer service team. It’s important to track the right KPIs for your particular operation.
For example, if your support desk often gets highly complex calls that require troubleshooting, then getting hung up on time-on-call may not be useful. Consider the value of customer feedback, and the desired customer experience, and figure out the best ways to track your team’s success.
Support them with the best tools
Finally, to build a support team that is prepared to exceed your expectations, support them with the best tools. Top-notch help and service desk software, with a flexible ticketing system, can position your team to provide great customer service every time.
It’s even better if your help desk software can help track the KPIs we mentioned above. As we’ve said elsewhere in our blog, “Some of the data points you’ll unlock can serve as north star metrics for your organization. These numbers, like the average age of tickets, the number of requests per customer, and customer sentiment, would be difficult to access without support software. However, with help desk software, you can share insights with a few clicks”
Building a support team, and equipping them to thrive, is an essential task as your business grows and expands. Luckily, Wavity is here to help you to surround them with the tools they need, customized to fit your precise needs.
To learn more, or to get started today, just click the button at the top of the site!