Ensuring customer satisfaction: 5 tips to consider

With the rising competition in the managed service provider (MSP) world, it’s become more vital than ever to invest in positive customer experiences that will elevate their overall satisfaction, and hopefully loyalty. Truth be told, not every MSP has a good product fit for every customer out there, but even with the best fit, you can encounter performance issues that can derail their experience.

One of many effective ways to focus on customer experience and thus ensure higher satisfaction rates is to combine the right tech with the right tactics. Simply put, you need to align your service performance with your tech capabilities and be there for your customers when and where they need you most. 

In doing so, you will not only ensure continuously growing satisfaction rates, but you can also expect to accomplish your marketing goals and drive sales forward more easily. Here are a few core tips to keep in mind.

• Choosing customer service software
• Using a knowledge base to elevate CX
• Encouraging and leveraging customer feedback
• Do you need conversational AI software?
• How to turn negative experiences into success stories

Choosing customer service software

So many MSPs are notorious for their ineffective customer service — differentiate yourself from the rest by improving that aspect of your customer-facing communications. For starters, make sure that you develop robust standard operating procedures (SOPs) to boost your IT Helpdesk’s performance.

SOPs are essential when your customer support team brings on new members or someone leaves your company, to make sure you always have someone up to the task of resolving issues.

In addition to SOPs, you also need reliable customer service software to keep track of all outstanding tickets and issues, delegate and prioritise tasks, and enable collaboration. It’s a good idea to choose a web hosting plan that allows you to integrate all your tools for seamless customer service and ticketing. 

An automated system can take care of menial tasks and other busywork with fewer errors, leaving more time for your team to focus on customer-facing communication.

Streamline your service by using sites that generate and sign legal business documents. After all, your team should be able to learn to resolve issues faster and more efficiently over time with the help of the right software, boosting customer satisfaction.

Examples of automated systems that help with your relationship with customers range from e-mail tools, to chatbots, to CRMs. These are great for communicating, and then there are a few that help with the actual exchange of money, goods and documents. Some examples are the billing and e-commerce plugins for your CMS, as well as the platforms that are used to sign legal business documents.

Using a knowledge base to elevate CX

While we’re on the subject of learning and resolving issues faster, there’s one crucial element of support you need to provide for your customers: self-service. 

This support is especially potent when your customers require a simple solution. It reduces your support team’s workload and allows them to better serve customers with more urgent and complex issues.

To enable self-service for customers, you can leverage knowledge base software to establish user-friendly “user manuals” that continue to grow with better data and faster solutions for customers. Combine this approach with your landing pages and blogs to create a comprehensive educational ecosystem that boosts the engagement and retention of your users.

Building a self-service portal such as a knowledge base can be extremely effective in elevating customer happiness. They will no longer have to wait in line to be served for even the smallest issue on their end, and they’ll be able to maximise the use of your service without delays. 

Encouraging and leveraging customer feedback

To build customer happiness and positive experiences across all your digital touchpoints, you need to understand what your customers want and need. The only tried and true way to know what they want is to ask them directly; service providers need to ask for customer feedback whenever appropriate and encourage customers to share their positive experience.

Tracking customer feedback can help you optimise your digital marketing and sales efforts, and also collect invaluable insights to improve your service and brand experience as a whole. You can plug these insights into tools like SEMrush or Ubersuggest and other SEO tools to better understand your audience and deliver quality, personalised content. 

Here are a few ideas you can use to entice customer feedback and use it as organic social proof:

• Provide your support teams with questions they can ask each customer to make sure they understand the experience
• Set up in-app surveys that are quick and fun to fill out
• Offer different options such as star or number-based reviews both on your website, after resolving an issue, and on third-party review platforms
• Run social media polls to collect feedback

The more you diversify your feedback sources and the more options you provide, the more information you’ll collect that you can turn into actionable steps for your business. 

You can automate the feedback-gathering process, but it will still be up to you to implement the changes your customers ask for and publish positive experiences on your site to attract more customers to your business.

Do you need conversational AI software?

AI has been around for a while now, and while we may dread some of its implications in the future, the current state of technology allows companies to leverage AI to provide a better service. 

To provide optimal support for your customers and boost their experience, you can leverage advanced AI bots. They’re far from perfect, but their growing capabilities can come in handy when your employees are overwhelmed.

AI can be exceptionally useful for enabling live chat on your platform, allowing customers to get immediate assistance. Combined with a strong knowledge base for self-service, AI chatbots can make all the difference in your support efforts.

AI-driven bots are also great at collecting and analysing customer data to help speed up and improve the entire customer journey moving forward. These tools can collect feedback on the use of your website, and allow you to use better UX design principles to optimise your site and deliver a better experience across the board. 

Developing better customer relationships by using AI can ultimately help you enhance customer satisfaction thanks to such a diverse range of support options.

If you're still hesitant about AI software and want your customer service to feel more personal, consider hiring a remote executive assistant. Trained in a varied set of skills, a virtual assistant can help build a sense of trust and loyalty in your customers. Along with individually tailored customer care, remote assistants can take care of other behind the scenes tasks like management, coordination and administration.

How to turn negative experiences into success stories

Even if you invest your time and funds in expanding and improving customer experience and support options, negative experiences are bound to happen. What allows the most successful service providers to remain industry leaders is how they approach those situations.

For example, when rolling out new tech and features, companies often ignore negative feedback and focus strictly on the positives, causing them to miss out on crucial improvement opportunities. 

When handled properly, negative feedback can become a pivotal driving force for innovation in your business. In fact, on many occasions, you can even turn the situation around in your favour. You can create a timeline of your efforts and showcase your success stories online, which will boost your brand’s reputation and positive user sentiment.

Listening to negative feedback is the first step. Here’s what you can do next:

• Own up to your imperfections, if the customers have correctly identified a problem. However, don’t stop there; address the issue and take the opportunity to reach out to the customer to let them know that their feedback has been essential in making your business even better. They’ll appreciate being heard and feel as if they’re part of your brand’s creative process
• Don’t wait too long to respond. Be sure to acknowledge their comments and embrace responsibility sooner rather than later
• Offer a long-term solution. If there are recurring customer complaints regarding a single aspect of your service, go back to the drawing board and remedy the situation
• Expressing empathy can go a long way with a disgruntled customer whose trust you’ve lost. Be honest in how you communicate and of course, be proactive in resolving issues

Despite your best efforts, negative experiences will occur. It’s how you address them that will make an impact on your customer relationships and their overall satisfaction.

Over to you

Customer satisfaction is a fluctuating performance indicator that you can track and measure on multiple fronts. In the end, however, your openness to change and innovation will define how successfully you can grow your customers’ positive experiences, inspire trust, and increase their satisfaction. 

With various tech tools and advanced helpdesk solutions you can focus on developing customer bonds and making them happy. Have you ever used a tool to help you track and manage your IT helpdesk? Feel free to share your experiences in the comments below and your own best practices in elevating customer satisfaction.

About the author:

Nikola Sekulic is a seasoned brand developer, writer, and storyteller. Over the last decade, he’s worked on various marketing, branding, and copywriting projects – crafting plans and strategies, writing creative online and offline content, and making ideas happen. When he is not working for clients around the world, he is exploring new topics and developing fresh ideas to turn into engaging stories for the online community.