Educate Your Customers for a Lifetime

Thursday, 05. 21. 2009  –  Category: T2 Communications

We’ve heard the expression, “Feed a man a fish, and he eats for a day.  Teach a man to fish, and he eats for a lifetime.”  This saying is particularly handy in the world of customer service.  The benefits of educating your customers are rewarding to you and to them; first, you educate the customer and give them a sense of ownership over the product or service.  Second, you reduce the number of support calls you receive because the customer has some knowledge to utilize and possibly fix the issue, especially if it is one of those “common problems”.  Third, you reduce the amount of time spent on the phone with customers when they still need your help.  Customer service is all about assisting the customer, and giving the customer a handful of useful tips is the best assistance you can provide.

Educating the Customer
When you take the time to explain the how’s and why’s of a particular issue to a customer, it gives them a sense of understanding about the product or service they are purchasing from you.  Let them know when an issue is common and give them some advice on how to troubleshoot and possibly fix the issue, and do so in layman’s terms.  They will appreciate you for giving the facts and spending the extra time to answer their questions.  Be honest.  If a problem is unavoidable and just a nature of the beast, then tell them that.  Give the best solution and the odds of that solution resolving the issue before they have to pick up the phone to call you.  The customer will now feel empowered and have a sense of ownership over his product.  The frustration level will be lowered and they will be less angered when the problem arises again because they will not feel helpless.

Reduce the Number of Support Calls
Now that the customer has the tools to use and the knowledge to understand the issue at hand, they will be more likely to take the initiative to perform a quick fix rather than take the time for you to walk them through it over the phone.  The customer really doesn’t want to waste their time talking to you whenever they have a small glitch.  The glitch itself may already be considered a waste of their time, so knowing how to quickly resolve it will prevent them from needing your assistance.  Of course there will be those times when the customer doesn’t understand the advice or reasoning you have provided and they will need to call you anyway; or when the “quick fix” didn’t work and they need further assistance.  But nine times out of ten, they will use your tips and the issue will be resolved.  This is obviously beneficial to you because it will reduce the number of support calls you receive, but it is also beneficial to the customer because they save themselves time.

Save Everybody Some Time
The customer values time more than the service or product you provide.  In the cases where the customer needs further assistance, you can ask them if they have already tried the initial trouble shooting tips that you gave.  If they have, it will save you time and save the customer time, too.  You will be able to immediately move on to the more complicated troubleshooting techniques that require your assistance over the phone because the issue is most likely more serious than the normal glitches that can happen with any product.  Since the customer has some information to contribute right away, the information that you helped them figure out with your customer training, they will feel as if you both are working together to resolve this issue.  This feeling can defuse an otherwise angry or frustrated customer and help them realize that you are on the same team and that you want to get this resolved as quickly as possible.

Katie Petre works for T² Communications, a CornerWorld company.

Tags: article, customer service, education, Katie Petre, subscribers