This is very true. Even if your teams are mostly busy, quick acknowledgements to customer enquiries presents a speedy response experience to the customer.

But don’t just acknowledge quickly, use the acknowledgement message as a means to set an expectation.

For example, thank you for your message, we will definitely be reaching out to you before the end of the day.

You can save a lot of team and customer time by making available materials and content that provides answers to customer questions.

Even right there on your contact us page, you can show the customer a list of Frequently asked Questions they can get quick answers without needing to fall into your customer support helpline.

A lot of tools will help you setup your workflow and automate your processes so you can save time.

Handling customer enquiries is one of the benefits that a business tool/system such as MyCo will give you.

You will be able to setup a landing page to capture customer enquiries, track them until resolution and automate post-support tasks such as collecting customer feedback.

If you are still yet to engage technology in your business properly, you need to check out MyCo.

There’s a reason you receive an email from Amazon reminding you there are items in your basket. They don’t want you to forget, as it is a sale opportunity for them.

The lesson here is anticipating customer needs, providing support proactively, reminding them if need. This helps you secure the sale opportunity while it is available (as you may lose it if you engage too late).

This is why you should consider tracking customer activity (within the boundaries of regulations) so you can address issues on time.

It is not enough for you to desire speedy responses. Your teams must be onboard and understand why it is important.

Educate your teams and all 3rd party that may be involved in handling customers such as your offshore outsourced support teams.

Let them know why it is important, what is expected of them, and measure productivity always.

If you’re serving customers globally, you have a time-difference challenge in your hands.

Think about your geographical customer personas and setup systems/processes that can cater across different time zones.

Set expectations accordingly so there is no confusion with your opening, closing and response times.

Employ local teams if need be to cater for varying timezones.

The last point is really about promises and expectations.

When you’ve defined a response time for your customer, please ensure you adhere to the timelines.

Don’t break the trust by not meeting the expectations you’ve promised. Don’t disappoint the customer.