Unleashing the Support Squad: Enhancing Customer Experience with Specialized Teams
One year ago, in the thrilling world of Customer Support, where ringing phones and frantic emails reign supreme, our company embarked on a transformative journey. Recognizing the challenges posed by a complex product and a growing product line, we knew that it was about time to specialize our support agents.
So we began equipping them with the specific knowledge and skills needed to tackle customer inquiries, with one clearly-defined area of our product expertise per person. We wanted to make sure that we would still be able to satisfy all of our customer’s needs in the future, despite higher complexity and larger scale, with precision, speed, and a touch of charm.
The breadth and depth of the features of our HR management core product alone necessitated a deeper level of expertise to effectively address customer inquiries. And the speed at which we were launching new Personio apps made this only more urgent. Relying solely on generalist agents, armed with surface-level knowledge, was no longer sufficient. By specializing our support teams, we ensured that customers would be connected with agents who possessed the necessary knowledge to actually answer requests at that first touchpoint.
Implementing Expertise
The implementation of specialized support teams involved a meticulous approach. Our existing agents had the chance to focus on just one topic moving forward, and we put the teams together based on a combination of their existing knowledge and their individual interests. For all new joiners, we put together targeted onboarding and training programs to help them excel in their designated areas. The training encompassed in-depth product understanding, problem-solving techniques, and effective communication skills.
The Challenges of Specialization
While the specialization of support teams brings numerous benefits, it also presents its own set of challenges. As customer inquiries vary in nature and complexity, ensuring that contacts are routed correctly can be a complex task. A robust system needs to be in place to accurately identify the specific support needs of customers and direct them to the specialized team or agent best equipped to address their concerns.
For this, we created our support interface “Find Answers.” It’s part of the product itself and provides access to self-service content, like the help center and customer community, but it’s also the entry gate to our support agents and the routing engine. With every ticket and callback request, we are asking for the specific question or issue of the customer upfront to enable an informed routing decision.
Implementing an effective routing system like this requires continuous monitoring and fine-tuning. It involves analyzing contact patterns, transfer rates, and customer feedback. It’s this feedback that is driving a whole set of improvements that we are developing at the moment to make the support experience even better for our customers.
Benefits and Improvements
Customers benefit from streamlined and personalized interactions, as their inquiries are handled by agents who possess a deep understanding of the relevant products. With specialization, we have been able to keep customer satisfaction on a continuously high level despite increasing complexity — and, at the same time, improve our first contact resolution rates step-by-step.
Moving forward, we will continue to refine our specialized support approach. As mentioned this is especially true for our user interface “Find Answers” which we are focusing on these days. Through specialization, we remain committed to providing exceptional support, and staying a trusted partner for our customers.
Does this sound like the type of project you’d be interested in working on? We’re hiring for multiple open positions with our Customer Experience team — check them out on the Careers page today!
