When your customers are experiencing any issues, regardless of how minor they may be, they will contact your support team. This can be some small bug, an error on their statement, or anything else they have a problem with. When you receive such inquiries or complaints, it is important to make sure that you have the necessary personnel available who will be able to take ownership of the process. Today we will take a look at what exactly a customer service department does and how to properly structuralize it.
What Does a Company’s Customer Service Department Do?
In a broad sense, the consumer service department interacts with your clients and serves as the face of the organization at that moment. Support agents usually service many different support channels and need to solve issues of various complexity quickly and efficiently. Some important functions include:
- Responding to customer inquiries
- Troubleshooting tech problems
- Take ownership of customer issues
- Handling complaints to building strategies for improving the overall customer experience and fostering loyalty
Now that we know what the department of customer service does let’s move on to how it is usually structured.
Customer Service Departments Tiers
Tiered support refers to organizing a support center into different levels to most efficiently handle incoming support issues. With the right combination of staffing, automation, and systems at every level, filtering your support through different tiers proves useful for several reasons, as it strategically addresses customer needs and empowers customers to be self-sufficient when possible.
The customer service dept is structured as follows:
- Tier 0 – At this level, the customer is responsible for finding solutions to their problems themselves, but you can assist them by providing useful FAQs, knowledge bases, and other resources.
- Tier 1 – Here, the responsibilities of customer service are to provide a basic level of support. This usually involves troubleshooting basic user issues.
- In-depth technical support – Agents working at this level would be responsible for providing in-depth support. So they really need to be tech-savvy and know the product inside and out.
- Code-level investigation – If there are some major issues or bugs that require getting into the code and conducting an investigation, agents at this level would be able to do that.
- Outsourced hardware/software vendors – If it costs too much to develop and service a product in your local market, companies usually outsource such services to a dedicated software or hardware vendor.
Teams Within a Customer Service Department
A little earlier, we talked about what is a service department so now let’s explore the teams that are inside this department:
- Account manager – This person is responsible for managing the overall relationship between the company and the client. This is an important role because this person will be the face of your company in front of the client.
- Loyalty and rewards – These agents are responsible for making sure your most loyal customers are taken care of and receive the rewards they are entitled to.
- Returns and warranty – There will always be customers who want to return the product for whatever reason, and you need to have agents who will help them do this.
- Issue management – Whenever your customers are experiencing issues, they will contact your customer service team through various channels, which is why there should always be agents standing by to help.
- Support – When customers need help using your product, they expect to be able to talk to knowledgeable professionals from your company.
- Sales – Companies are always looking for new clients, so you need people who will generate leads and close opportunities.
6 Tips for Creating a Strong Customer Service Department
We talked a lot about what a customer service department does and how to best structure one, so now let’s explore some tips on how to create one.
- Thorough training – This is really important because your customers expect a knowledgeable professional to handle their inquiries. If they get anything less, they will feel that your company is not professional. This could hurt your reputation. This is important because Americans will pay 17% more to do business with firms with great reputations when it comes to customer service.
- Quality control – You always need to be on top of how well your agents are performing their jobs. Remember, it takes 12 positive customer experiences to make up for one negative experience. That’s not a situation you want to be in as a business.
- Proper scheduling – Since your agents can only work a certain amount of hours, you need to make sure that you schedule your shifts appropriately. There always needs to be somebody available to help your customers, especially if they are experiencing major issues.
- Create a safe and comfortable work environment – Let’s face it. Customer service can be a stressful job. One of the best ways of helping your agents cope with all of the stress is by providing them with a working environment where they want to come to work. They feel safe, and they understand that you are helping them grow professionally.
- Offer your team support when they need it – Even the best customer support teams need help once in a while. Nobody in your company should be afraid to ask for help. Make sure everybody is aware of the procedures they need to follow to get the assistance they need.
- Hire the best people – When you are looking to take on new people, make sure that they have the skills you are looking for. Don’t be afraid to be picky. If they don’t have the skills needed for the job, it will be harder to train them later on.
Trust Pexly With All of Your Customer Support Needs
If you are looking to expand your current in-house team or set up an entire dedicated offshore support team, you can trust Pexly to provide you with a comprehensive set of services to meet your support needs. We have the experience to properly set up your team and make sure that all of the new team members are onboarded and trained properly so they can hit the ground running. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you.
