Customer Support

Ask James Watson, Director of Customer Relations for Webs.com about support tickets and he’ll tell you they’re the absolute best form of two-way communication between you and your customers.

Webs.com is a social publishing platform and is one of the top 80 most trafficked sites on the Web today. His nine-member support team gets on average 13,000 service requests a month.

James and his team went about changing their customer support mindset from a “numbers” game focused solely on deflecting inquiries to reduce costs … to using the tickets to really listen to users. So rather than judging success just on how many tickets were resolved and how fast, James challenges his team to do more than simply resolve the issue and move on to the next ticket.

Here’s a little insight into his approach.

First, James asks each CSR to think fundamentally differently about customer support and stay focused on the importance of each and every communication with customers. Take a broad view of the customer’s underlying problems that go beyond the product and the one ticket.

Second, act differently. From the ticket content, are there gaps in the knowledgebase that could and should be filled? The information gained through tickets is a perfect way to build the knowledgebase properly. And when it comes to an effective knowledgebase, it’s all about quality, not quantity. Ask your CSRs to keep an eye on the knowledgebase ratings. And be sure the folks who interact with customers the most are involved in building the knowledgebase, not just the product team.

Finally, ask your specialists to question that status quo, says James. Encouraging out-of-the-box thinking mixed with pragmatic business judgement can enhance both the organization and the user experience.

What do you think? Does the “hidden information” in your support tickets make its way to creating a better knowledgebase? Are you getting the most out of your support tickets?