Buffer’s Approach to Customer Support

How can we preserve creating a singular buyer help expertise at the same time as we get an growing variety of messages from clients? This can be a query that’s all the time on my thoughts. 

Delivering distinctive buyer help has all the time been on the core of Buffer’s mission. Over time, we have taken delight in our unwavering dedication to buyer satisfaction and our devoted help crew’s skill to go the additional mile. 

What we now have discovered is that as your quantity and crew dimension scale, it may be trickier to proceed to actually see and listen to every buyer reaching out over e mail, reside chat, or social as the quantity retains constructing. An vital side of buyer help technique on the stage we’re at is to maintain being targeted on our course and the standard bar we’re aiming for. 

I’ve spent numerous time speaking to our CEO, Joel Gascoigne, about our imaginative and prescient for buyer help and what it seems to be prefer to go above and past for our clients. In these conversations and brainstorms with our crew, we take inspiration primarily from hospitality organizations. There’s something magical in regards to the service expertise you will get at an awesome restaurant or in a smaller retail store. That magic is one thing we try to create over emails or social messaging. When taking a look at 75,000 buyer conversations per 12 months and bold response time objectives, it is not all the time straightforward to stability pace with private connection, nevertheless it’s well worth the funding. 

On this weblog publish, I’ll share extra about how we add hospitality to our personal buyer help method at Buffer. 

What’s a hospitality method? 

A hospitality method in customer support implies that we try to create standout, above-and-beyond, and private experiences in each buyer dialog. 

Take into consideration how, at a smaller boutique or five-star lodge, the employees takes a private curiosity of their company. The employees tends to note specific wants somebody may need or dig a bit deeper to see if they will make a visitor’s keep extra memorable. 

Or, take into consideration an awesome expertise you’ve had at a restaurant, the place a waiter or waitress did extra than simply present wonderful service however engaged in dialog, requested you about how your day was going or tried to get you a personalised meals or drink advice. 

For those who’re in help at a tech firm the place clients usually attain out to you about bugs, you may additionally discover drawing inspiration from a standout mechanic useful. This reflection got here from one in all our crew members, Dave Chapman, as we brainstormed methods to higher help our clients. These experiences are sometimes actually memorable when you’ve somebody assembly you with a excessive degree of empathy, listening to your issues, after which going above and past to ensure your automotive will get mounted and even type out a number of different issues as they accomplish that.

Most of these experiences are clear examples of an individual being seen and heard, and these encounters stick out, the place you permit with extra than simply your wants met and have a definite impression of how nice the expertise was.

For us to maintain this method prime of thoughts, we begin by being curious and intentional in each buyer dialog, plus we search for methods to personalize and join throughout every interplay. We don’t merely reply clients’ help questions, however we additionally counsel extra concepts for a way they may, for instance, use Buffer or social media. We try to repair when one thing is damaged, and the place we are able to, we try to join on a private degree. 

Our framework for guaranteeing a hospitality method to buyer help

The inspiration of a hospitality method to buyer help is a crew who’re captivated with serving to others and offering a standout buyer expertise. To supply the extent of service we try for, we must be product consultants, and we have to method each dialog with consciousness, readability, and empowerment. Now we have a framework in place to help this mindset that we additionally use for high quality critiques. 

Our assessment course of goals to judge whether or not a Buyer Advocate has approached the shopper dialog with consciousness (I perceive and see you), readability (I need to be sure to perceive me), and empowerment (I will help you).

Listed below are the three classes, in addition to the analysis metrics:

1. Approaching our clients with consciousness

We’re so grateful our clients are utilizing our product and in addition for taking the time to succeed in out to us. Whereas we need to guarantee we take away any product friction that results in the necessity to attain out, we’re grateful for our clients getting in contact. We wish our gratitude and look after our clients to be mirrored in our communication—each dialog issues. 

We’re intentional about taking the time to take heed to our buyer, and after we reply, it’s clear that we’ve understood all of their questions or that we’re looking for extra info to grasp them higher. Our communication and care exhibits want to indicate a complete grasp of the full image of the shopper’s state of affairs and subsequent steps. 

Taking the time to actually see the shopper allows us to look between the traces for areas of frustration, alternatives to empower our clients additional, or doorways to construct a deeper relationship.

2. Speaking with readability

To create that hospitality feeling in written communication, we must be bullish about our writing. Our communication is our solely medium to indicate our persona and guarantee our buyer is sorted. 

Our writing displays a playful professionalism, able to having enjoyable with out sounding sloppy. We keep away from jargon, insider language, or utilizing ideas which might be acquainted to us however could also be unfamiliar to the shopper. 

We offer the clearest path towards a decision doable, specializing in how we are able to make it easy for patrons to get to a solution. We make motion steps and requests clear so clients don’t miss any required subsequent steps.

We make each effort to ensure our replies transfer the dialog ahead and get the shopper nearer to a decision with out pointless back-and-forth.

3. Our crew is knowledgeable and empowered to assist our clients 

We need to lead our customer support expertise with a excessive degree of enablement, each from the Advocate themselves and to allow our clients. For our crew to succeed in this degree of empowerment, all of us should be extremely knowledgeable. We intention to be consultants, not solely as customer support professionals but in addition as consultants at our product and the way our clients can efficiently use our product.

We’ll go above and past to search out info for our clients to supply the absolute best expertise, and we use the instruments we now have out there. We all the time keep away from asking the shopper for info that we are able to discover, and we’re all the time seeking to enhance buyer insights by way of our tooling. We’re neither afraid to ask for assist nor lean on one another to supply an above-and-beyond expertise. We are able to higher serve our clients by leaning into our expertise as an expert and as a crew. When uncertainty creeps in, we gained’t be capable of present the extent of service we intention for. Now we have discovered confidence and enablement to be foundational features of delivering an awesome expertise, and we should proceed to foster an setting of studying and training.

After we assessment our buyer conversations, we’re on the lookout for Buyer Advocates to ship on all three of the above classes, and we’ll merely rating out of three. Every crew member receives a month-to-month rating and extra teaching notes from their supervisor. That is a method we continue to grow and bettering Buffer’s customer support and expertise.

Here is a screenshot of what a Buyer Advocate will see of their month-to-month scores. IQS stands for Inner High quality Rating and is the results of dialog critiques.

The questions we ask to help this framework

We not too long ago launched extra particular steering when it comes to how we method conversations with a hospitality method within the type of questions. 

These are questions that any Advocate ought to have prime of mine when they’re participating with clients. 

• With what feelings has the shopper reached out to us? 

Did the shopper use any language to precise emotion (frustration, pleasure, pleasure, anger, disappointment, and so on.)? If that’s the case, might we attempt to meet them there and ensure our reply acknowledges the place they’re coming from?

Once more consider that have as you stroll right into a lodge, are you pressured or simply excited to be at your vacation spot? You’ll usually discover that the employees sees you, responds instantly to your cues, and initiates the expertise you search. Confused – let’s be environment friendly, Delighted – I’m so excited you’re right here, Overwhelmed – how can we enhance your state of affairs right this moment.

• Did the shopper give us any details about what kind of enterprise they’re working or what firm they work for? 

Is there something we might assist the shopper with based mostly on that info? For instance, in the event that they’re working for a non-profit, we are able to look into their work and encourage them!

• Is there something within the buyer’s message we are able to relate to personally? 

Generally, sharing a small anecdote or temporary story to narrate to one thing on a private degree can go away a giant impression. We frequently discover that there’s something in virtually each dialog we are able to join about. We glance out for these nuggets!

• Are there any features of the shopper’s message which might be “past Buffer” the place we might go the additional mile to assist them out? 

Our crew has numerous data about Buffer, and that’s nice, however we’re additionally fairly educated about different matters the shopper could also be inquisitive about. Or, on the very least, may be capable of level them in the appropriate course. We name this “sure, and..”. We enable the shopper to have interaction additional the place we don’t merely reply their query, we intention to supply extra info that might assist them use Buffer and social media to it’s full capabilities.

That is the possibility to make somebody’s day 

Having the chance to replicate on a hospitality method, I feel the crew agrees that it has opened up much more alternatives for private reference to our clients. Now we have the possibility to make somebody’s day particular.

We’re nonetheless within the first section of what a hospitality method to customer support and expertise can seem like for us and we’re all the time on the lookout for alternatives to construct on our reference to our product crew to additional improve our clients’ expertise. 

We’d love to listen to from you. What’s nice service to you? The place do you discover it?