Finding your business at a place in which things need to grow is never a bad thing. It means you’re doing well, you’re meeting or exceeding expectations and goals. At first, the need to expand your customer service capabilities can seem like a negative—if there are more customers that need help, there must be new problems arising with your services. But most of the time, it simply means that your business is growing and you need to do the same to meet the growing demand. However, when the time comes to scale your customer support, it’s critical that you do so without compromising on service. Here are some ways to do so.

Define your standards

 

Before you take steps to expand your customer service, you need to determine what is most important to both your business and your customers. Is it high rates of first call resolution? Is it short wait times? Is it having agents available 24/7? Is it hands-on, personal service or is it quick fixes? If you define these standards ahead of time you can make sure that any changes you make in scaling your customer support capabilities continue to be in service of these goals and will not hinder your team’s ability to achieve them.

 

Automate when you can

 

When scaling customer support, automation is your friend. It can help streamline and simplify processes and free up agents from having to spend time on easy or menial tasks when they could be helping customers solve more complex problems. Some ways to incorporate automation include:

  • Utilizing auto-replies, even if just to tell a customer that their inquiry has been received. Auto-replies can also direct customers to resources that could help them solve their problem on their own.
  • Automating recurring tasks, such as follow ups that occur after a purchase has been made or an appointment has been set. Automating these routine, basic tasks instead of having your agents do them will mean they have more time to deal with incoming inquiries.
  • Auto-filling existing customer data so that agents don’t have to ask customers for information that the company already has each time they call. Technology that allows agents to search for customers and access all their data will streamline calls.

 

Improve your self-service resources

 

Once your customer service team has been at it for a while and you’ve been collecting data, you’ll start to notice patterns in the inquiries that are coming in. You may even discover that some of the most common inquiries are relatively simple, perhaps even simple enough for customers to solve on their own if they have the right information to do so. Expanding the self-service resources you offer, such as articles, how-to guides, or a place for customers to communicate with each other about their experiences with your products, will help reduce the number of inquiries that come in all looking for help with the same basic issues. In turn, this will free up your customer service agents to deal with the problems for which their expertise is really needed.

 

Expand your team

 

Sometimes, and this is never a bad thing, you simply need more bodies in seats wearing headsets and talking to customers. Perhaps your customer base has expanded to include more people in another time zone and you need agents who are also based in that time zone who can handle their inquiries. Perhaps you are starting to get complaints from customers about wait times, or you’re starting to fall short of meeting the standards you set before you began scaling your business. In these cases, as well as others, it may make the most sense for you to hire more agents to deal with the increased call volume.

Another key part of scaling your customer support is having a call center software platform like CallShaper that can keep up with your growing business. To learn more about how we can help, request a demo today.