When you have a good customer service team on your side, then chances are, your customers are going to continue to come back time and time again However, a bad customer service team will do the opposite and chase customers away, taking their family, friends and co-workers with them and we’re sure this is something you would like to avoid. Plus, good customer service gives you a one up over your competition, right? Regardless of the industry you’re in, in order to be labeled a good customer service, speed should be at the top of your list …

Speed Matters

For quality customer service, the speed should be taken into consideration. Responsiveness has a major impact on customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Obviously, if you want your customers to be satisfied, then a fast response is necessary. Slow responses will only lead to a dissatisfied customer.

So, if you’re looking to improve your customer service, then responsiveness would be a great area to start. There are different types of service speed you can track, like:

Average response time – this is the average time between responses.  If you have an email ticket that has been resolved with a total of 4 responses, and the response times consisted of 10,20, 5 and 7 minutes, then this would mean that your average response time would be 10.5 minutes, which is good.

First response time – this involves how fast a customer has received a response. This doesn’t necessarily mean the problem has been resolved, but it shows the customer that they have been heard.

Problem resolution time – this would be the average time before an issue has been resolved.

The service speed is based on the following:

Employee empowerment – The extent in which the employee is able to make decisions and bend the rules without having to ask for permission.  An employee that isn’t empowered will need to go to the manager to discuss the issue. An empowered employee, however, will be able to make the judgment call on their own, and this reduces costs.

Employee skills – Knowledge is power. The more knowledgeable an employee is, the faster they will be able to respond. On another note, training can also be done in order to boost typing speed.

Contact method – Some communication methods are faster than the others. Email is a slow method. Customers tend to use a phone when they want a response right away, but the waiting line experience has a tendency to shatter these dreams. Live chat is the fastest support channel because the rep is able to chat with a couple of customers at the same time.

Conclusion

You see, if you have a customer service team that offers a fast response rate, then the chances of your customers being happy will increase. However, on the same note, it is important to not only make sure the response rate is fast, but also accurate. Besides being fast, the service should obviously be correct. It may not increase customer satisfaction, but inaccuracy will definitely cause dissatisfaction to say the least.