How long did the customer wait for a replacement product? How quickly the customer was able to contact the right support agent? How effectively did the support agent explain a process to the customer? Every interaction that customers have with you and your customer support team determines their satisfaction and loyalty. And ultimately, that determines your business growth. 

Did you know, 

• 96% of customers across the globe say that customer service is an important factor in their choice of loyalty.
• Customers will pay 17% more to do business with firms with great reputations when it comes to customer service.
• And, 77% of consumers view brands more favourably if they proactively invite and accept customer feedback

Customer Service is becoming increasingly important and in this article, we will be sharing ways to collect Customer Service Feedback. But before we dive deep into how you can collect Customer Service Feedback, let us first understand Customer Service and its touchpoints. 

What is Customer Service?

Every interaction of customers with your brand representatives that is ideally meant to reduce customers’ effort in doing business with you is called customer service. A customer, throughout their journey with your business, may have several touchpoints with the brand. The key customer service touchpoints include:

• Customer support calls
• Customer support emails
• Live chat
• Helpdesk interactions
• In-store staff interaction

The quality of customer service across these customer touchpoints is measured on certain parameters, such as knowledge, swift process, first call resolution, willingness to help, communication, etc. And if you are able to achieve excellent standards of customer service, you can also ensure complete customer satisfaction.

Benefits of Customer Service Feedback

Great customer service can increase customer satisfaction, spread positive word-of-mouth, and help brands grow. But these are the two key benefits of customer service that make way for countless other benefits.

1. Customer Loyalty

As we established above, a majority of customers say that customer service is a determining factor in their loyalty to a brand. In fact, 48% of consumers expect specialized treatment for being a good customer. So, even if you have tons of competitors in the market, you can always stand out and earn customer loyalty if you can create remarkable customer service experiences.

2. Increased Revenue

Over 40% of customers would pay more for greater convenience and a welcoming experience. This would not only increase your revenue but will also generate a positive brand image, which, in turn, would attract more customers and sales since 88% of consumers are influenced by online customer service reviews when making a buying decision.

Metrics to Measure Customer Service

Without measuring and understanding how customers perceive your service standards, you cannot expect to get tangible results. So, use these metrics to measure customer service in your business:

1. CES (Customer Effort Score)

Customer Effort Score is one of the most important metrics to measure Customer Service and has gained a lot of popularity in the last few years. Customer Effort Score or CES indicates the effort customers require to put in to do business with you. It is based on the factor that the lower the effort of customers in dealing with your business, getting an answer, getting a query resolved, the more likely they are to be satisfied and to recommend your business to others. 

You can measure CES using a simple CES survey which prompts customers to rate their effort in making a purchase, getting an issue resolved, or accomplishing any other goal with your brand. In addition to asking customers to rate their effort, you can also ask them to support their answer with a reason so that you can dig deeper into what went wrong and how it can be improved.

Ideally, you can send CES surveys after an interaction with one of your agents or after a ticket is closed or after a chat or after a customer reads any knowledge-based article. Your CES Survey Software can be integrated with other tools to automate sending surveys via Email, SMS, Chat or even displaying them on your website. 

2. NPS (Net Promoter Score)

Net Promoter Score or NPS is the indicator of customers’ loyalty to a brand and is measured on a scale of 0-10. It is calculated using customers’ responses to an NPS survey that asks customers if they would be willing to recommend your brand among others. Based on the survey scores, you can identify the customers who would speak positively about your brand and would do business with you again.

NPS is used to understand to measure your customer service after customer service interactions since several customers would become loyal to brands only after receiving excellent services. You can also add a follow-up question to your NPS survey for customers to share their concerns and challenges regarding customer service in their own words.

3. CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score)

Customer Satisfaction Score can be used to reflect customers’ satisfaction with your customer service. A Customer Satisfaction Survey may be sent right after ticket resolution or a support communication to check how satisfied the customer was with the resolution, the answer, the promptness of support, etc. And just like the other two survey metrics, you can also add a follow-up question to a CSAT survey to allow customers to share feedback on customer service in their own words.

4. Time Taken to Close the Support Ticket

83% of customers agree that they are more loyal to brands that respond to and resolve tickets quickly. So, the average ticket resolution time can be a great indicator of your service standards. A little research can help you highlight areas of improvement, such as the correct assignment of tickets, prioritizing tickets, identifying complaint trends, etc.

5. Analysis of Reviews and Support Calls

A review as simple as “Loved the product but it took too long to locate it in the store,” can help you understand if you need more in-store representatives or need to retrain the existing representatives to better assist customers. Similarly, you can recover unsolicited feedback while analysing customer support calls. For example, when a customer gets on a support call and immediately requests the support agent to not have them repeat their concern, it may mean that customers usually require sharing their concerns with different support agents before getting the hold of the right one who can provide resolution. Therefore, always look out for any information hidden in such interactions of customers with your brand even if they were not meant to collect feedback.

When and where to Collect Customer Service Feedback?

There are multiple customer interactions throughout customer journeys. You can decide what all touchpoints can give you the most insightful data. Here are the main events or touchpoints that you can collect customer service feedback at:

1. Post Sales or Post Delivery 

After a customer completes a transaction with your brand, they form a genuine opinion of your brand based on their experience. Factors like the willingness and proactiveness of staff to help can contribute immensely to the overall experience of your customers. So, when measuring customer satisfaction after purchase, make to include CES survey questions in your survey. Instead of just making the feedback all about the product or your offering, ask customers survey questions that may highlight customer service issues. Here are some customer service-related questions you can ask after purchases:

• On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate our customer service support in completing your order?
• To what extent do you agree with this statement - the delivery partner completed my order on time without any delivery issues? (Answer on a scale of Completely Agree to Completely Disagree)
• Based on the support provided to complete your order, how likely are you to recommend our brand to a friend or colleague?
• Was our staff friendly and helpful?
• Was our staff knowledgeable and helped you make the right choice?
• Did you have to wait longer in line than expected to get your products billed?
• Did our customer support staff explain the pricing details clearly?
• Did you face any challenges in navigating through our website and making a purchase?
• Questions like these will help you spot challenges that customers may experience while making a transaction with your brand.

2. Post Support or Ticket Resolution

CES surveys help in gauging the effectiveness of your support staff. So, make sure to send a CES survey to customers who seek support. Here are a few questions to gauge the performance of your support staff:

• How would you rate the support and resolution on your ticket on a scale of 1 to 10? 
• Based on our customer service support, how likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague? 
• To what extent do you agree with this statement - the customer support agent made it easy for me to do business with the brand? (Answer on a scale of Completely Agree to Completely Disagree)
• Did our support agent patiently listen to and address your problem?
• How effectively did our customer support agent resolve your issues?
• How would you rate the willingness of our staff to resolve your challenges?
• How long did you have to wait for your issues to be resolved?
• Did you get adequate support from our support staff to resolve your challenges with us?

3. In Every Email

It is a general practice to collect feedback on customer service after a ticket or challenge is resolved. But you can get more detailed feedback at every step between a customer and support agent interaction. You can send an In-Signature Survey with every email so as to allow customers to rate the recent response they received from the service agent. This can not only help you improve customer service but individual agent performance as well.

4. In Chat

You can send surveys to measure customer service in customer support chats with a simple integration of a survey tool and your customer support software. For example, brands using Intercom to chat with customers on the website can integrate with Zonka Feedback and send surveys directly in the chat window. The customers can also share feedback right within the chat, making feedback sharing so much easier.

This enables brands to improve their service efforts and reduce customer efforts even before the support interaction ends. And this can most often ensure that customers leave your website with an overall positive experience despite certain challenges.

5. On the Site

You cannot possibly survey every customer or visitor in your store since you would not have the contact information of people who left your business site without making a purchase or transaction. Moreover, an existing customer may also choose to switch to your competitor because of service challenges, such as long billing queues, lack of assistance while shopping, unprofessional behavior of staff, etc. 

Therefore, it is extremely necessary to measure feedback on the physical site while the visitors and customers are still on the premises. To do that, you can use:

Mobile & Tablet Surveys: CES survey on a mounted mobile or tablet device in the store.

Kiosk Surveys: CES survey on a touchscreen kiosk. 

QR Code Surveys: A survey links embedded in a QR code available at different points on your site so customers can scan the code and share feedback. 

6. In the App or Website

Website or in-app surveys are a great way to find out what customers feel about your service since it keeps the door open for feedback without pushing customers to take the survey. Using an AI-based survey tool, you can set Customer Satisfaction and Customer Effort Surveys to be triggered automatically after a customer makes a transaction or seeks support.

For example, when a customer requests for an address change in the app of a food delivery brand, they can see a survey right after the address is updated to rate how they liked the support. An app would also allow you to send push notifications to remind the customers to rate the service with a simple click.

Similarly, customer service feedback can be collected in different industries with the use of in-app and website surveys.

Conclusion

An omnichannel service feedback strategy will ensure that you don’t miss out on any critical feedback that can make or break your brand. Moreover, it will give support agents and customer service representatives more control over their own performance.

Start with capturing real-time feedback by using CES surveys and analyzing customer support conversations. You can then gradually leverage social listening and even identify customer service trends from online focus groups or communities. Just remember that no amount of customer data can prove to be useful if you don’t act on customer feedback and act quickly. Have a clear customer service goal in sight before creating a service feedback strategy.