At InvGate, our mission is to provide great service with every interaction, be it with our Sales, Support, or Customer Success teams. In fact, the kindness of our people is one of the positive aspects our customers always highlight in reviews. After all, customer satisfaction is a measure of how our products meet or surpass expectations, so we take it very seriously.
With that in mind, we’ve pulled together our top tips to help you provide an outstanding experience to YOUR customers – here are our 10 commandments of IT Customer Success.
1. Thou shalt not fail to understand customer needs
Active listening is the key here. Avoid interrupting and listen carefully to every concern and pain point your customer is having. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you know what they need before they ask for it; sometimes they don’t even know the full scope of their issue, so you have to help them find that out.
Also, your time is as valuable as theirs, so don’t rush them off and book some time to have an actual conversation, especially when the situation needs a walk through or troubleshooting. During this conversation, try to minimize your multitasking so you can really listen and dig deeper. Plus, in addition to listening, you need to focus on asking the right questions, so you can get to the bottom of the issue as quickly as possible.
2. Thou shalt not blame the customer
The reasons why the customer might be having an issue are infinite. There might have been a wrong configuration or a failed attempt when following instructions on their side, but it could also be that a solution provided by someone from your company in a previous interaction or an outdated article is the root cause.
So don’t rush to blame the customer or find out ‘what they did wrong’. Instead, focus on solutions, explain any issues that led to the incident, and work to prevent them from happening again. If the issue was indeed caused within your company, such as a system outage or a bug, don’t blame your peers either. Apologize and find a way to manage it better next time.
Genuinely, if there’s something you need to apologize for, don’t hesitate to do it. An open and honest communication will make you appear reliable and calm