Top Ten ways to rocket charge Customer Operations

Transform to a Smart MSP

Customer operations is the key to providing the best experience for your customers and employees. Below are ten things you may consider that will help get you started on the path to transforming to a Smart MSP:

• Customer service is much more than customer engagement.
  Customer service is made up of several things. It includes customer engagement plus case resolution flowing through the front, middle, and back offices. It also optimises field services if applicable. Solving just one or two of these areas won’t transform the entire experience and will keep customer service as a department rather than a company-wide philosophy.
• The secret sauce to great customer experiences is Customer Operations. Delivering a great customer experience requires strong customer operations that addresses root causes, permanently solves problems and reduces service costs over time. Half-way measures won’t allow you to deliver on the promises you make to customers.
  
• An organisation-wide approach to customer service is a continuous effort. Everyone working together requires constant care. Keep stakeholders involved and informed as things change. Sharing the wins (time and cost savings) that result from working together makes the entire company stronger.
• Black holes and dead ends are still a threat.
  You think you’re being vigilant when it comes to dead ends and black holes. Just because they were found at one point doesn’t mean new ones won’t pop up. To ensure that they don’t rear their ugly heads, always be auditing and reviewing. Also, use this time to see if existing processes can be further optimised.
• Resist the urge to work on customer issues in a manual manner.
  It can be tempting to think that you can quickly do something manually but keep tasks in workflow. As soon as things go to email, they get lost — and often permanently.
• Allow customers to trigger actions, workflows and processes that involve middle and back-office teams.
  You should trigger workflows that connect all parts of the organisation (the middle and back-office teams) so you can resolve issues faster for customers and reduce work for customer service teams. Customers who can serve themselves helps contribute to greater customer satisfaction.
• Provide agents with playbooks that automate common multi-step customer processes.
  Automate processes whenever possible. For example, if customers need an agent to change a service they’re subscribed to that also requires updating customers’ credentials and billing information, guide the agent through the steps necessary to collect the information and use workflow to update other systems (for example, billing) as needed.
  
• Always look for new ways that workflows can address common customer tasks.
  Workflows are proven ways to be more productive and eliminate unnecessary tasks. Analysing cases and contact center work will unlock insight to future automation opportunities and better cost control.
• Consolidate systems & integrate others.
  System sprawl is ongoing due to many factors, including mergers and acquisitions. The fewer systems, the less cost and maintenance. Consolidating systems makes things easier for agents, but when that isn’t possible, ensure customer service systems are integrated to provide the best possible experience for both customers and agents.
• Always aspire to deliver proactive service.
  It’s not always easy to work proactively, but it saves customers time and alleviates contact center volume. As you start to realise the benefit to customers, delivering proactive service will become second nature. You don’t need to do everything at once, though.

Try by starting small - pick a service scenario that may occur regularly and affects some or all customers, such as a digital service outage. Create a plan for how you would determine which customers are affected and the steps to take to initially notify them as well as keep them in the loop until the issue is resolved.

To find out more about how to achieve excellence in your Customer Operations please download the free eGuide below: