Web Hosting Business: Improving The Customer Experience with Comments

As a Billing Manager at Midphase.com there were a lot of calls that needed to be escalated to a manager. When the calls got to me I had the task of getting the same information that the employee next to me already got. Well, you would think technology could solve this issue with some retraining. And it did. To be a better manager and improve the customer experience it can be as simple as one word repeatedly to your employees until they got it. “COMMENTS, COMMENTS, COMMENTS”. You need to instill this policy and consequences into your employees as soon as possible and in a very professional manner. My billing department learned how to talk to a customer,  comment on an account, and resolve their issue if it was billing at the same time. If it was not a billing issue they found a free tech support agent and let them know a call was coming to them directly. This gave the tech time to get ready for the particular call and resolution or research that needed to be done.

Most calls that come into a billing department are really not about billing at all. I made it another policy to listen to the customer even if the issue had nothing to do with billing, comment the account, and transfer the call. When you tell a customer “I am going to transfer you to the technical support department.” The first response from the customer is mostly “NOW I got to repeat this all over again ?” Response: “No [client name], I have commented your account with the new information you have given me. Our tech support person[employee name] is ready to take your call and help you with your issue. My name is [employee name]. Here is your client id [clientid] So that when I transfer you, that is the only information you need to give them for them to pull up your account and be on the same page. If you keep that number every time you call it will help us find your account quickly. Is there anything else I can personally assist you with in the billing department, before I transfer you ?” Now, if that doesn’t put a smile on someones face.