Total 641 words used.
The Workstream Customer Support Department has been amazing while keeping pace with the 2X growth of our customer base and a rapidly evolving product suite. For the past two years, we have averaged 96.4% in Customer Satisfaction surveys (Top 2 Box, 5-point scale), 42 seconds in Median First Response Time (the time taken by an agent to send the first response to a ticket), and 22.83 hours in Median Resolution Time (the amount of time between ticket creation and resolution).
Here are our initiatives.
We know our customers. We meet them where they need help and how they need it. Most of our users are different levels of managers who make staffing decisions while running hectic operations where sitting behind a desk is not usually an option. They are on the go, and so should our support be.
We have leveraged our tech stack to keep our support channels simple:
- A chat panel that is easily accessed by the customer anywhere on the platform while they’re using it.
- Chats with Support are persistent and remain with the same agent. If the customer needs to step away from working with the agent, they can do so and return to the same agent regardless of the platform they use. They can start the interaction on desktop and continue on their mobile device, and the experience remains seamless.
- Customer-facing automations and decision trees are kept minimal. At most, there are only three clicks to get to an agent. Our customers rarely have the time to navigate a maze of choices. They simply need their issue addressed right away.
- Customers have the option to reach out to Support via email and continue via chat, and vice versa.
- A phone number where, in addition to calling in, customers have the option to schedule a callback when it is most convenient.
We optimized our staffing models. We segmented our support interactions into issues that require high time commitment but low customer involvement, complex issues that require high time commitment for further investigation by development teams, and regular issues that can be handled individually. Because these three segments were in the same queue, issues that require high time commitment got in the way of resolving the regular issues. This is not optimal for productivity.
We created two sub-teams to handle the non-regular issues:
The Back Office Team handles high time commitment but low customer involvement issues. Most of the issues they handle are provisioning and building multi-location accounts, and working with our Implementation and Success teams to ensure that our customers can immediately use the software as they go live. They also ensure that these accounts comply with our policies and those of our partner organizations.
The Tier 2 team shepherds and facilitates discussions for complex issues. When a Tier 1 team member finds a potential bug, instead of waiting for the product team to review and address it, the Tier 2 team provides real-time responses. They suggest other options for resolution, review replication steps, and submit the vetted bug tickets. They own the bug and follow up with our development teams for workarounds, potential solutions, and the final resolution.
These resulted in a 3X improvement in productivity for our Tier 1 team, who handles 90% of the customer issues.
We have instituted the following best practices to give our customers effective and efficient answers to their issues:
- Offer to do it for the customer (with their approval).
- Send self-recorded video walkthroughs to our customers.
- Send screenshots with clear directions on where to go.
- Send the related help article for their reference in the future.
Recently, we have rebuilt our integration between our Support platform and our CRM. Instead of our product teams asking for and waiting for a report to determine the most common issues, these are now displayed and can be pulled in real-time.
Nomination Title: Support that Works Simply, Simply Works
