How To Set Up A Stellar Customer Service Strategy Before A New Product Launch
Product launches can be an exciting business. A new offering means another opportunity to win more clients and make more money. Most of all, it means another shot at leaving your personal imprint in your industry.
You spend hours of energy into brainstorming, planning and executing within every segment of your business, from marketing to manufacturing. Before you know it, it’s time to pull the cover and reveal your latest and greatest creation.
But before you do that, you have to take care of another important deliverable. Setting up your customer service strategy. Without the details of this strategy ironed out before you reveal your product, you’ll be missing out on a key part of the equation for product launch success.
Reality is that your customer service strategy (or a lack thereof) can make or break a new product. Putting a solid one together can take a little time and effort, but it’s well worth every ounce of it all.
Why Customer Service Strategy Should be Front and Center
Launching a new product is kind of like piecing together a great big puzzle—except you have to do it with the help and cooperation of several others.
Marketing, manufacturing, operations, technical support, even your communications team, need to pull together to make your product launch possible. Without your customer service team, however, you can consider the efforts of the rest a lost cause.
That’s because the most important aspect of your business is your clients. And without the right support, they’ll be running out of your door straight to your competitor’s.
Add to that the fact that, according to Clayton Christensen, a Harvard Business School professor, about 95% of products launched by companies fail every year and you can see why you wouldn’t want a logical thing like customer service to stand in the way of your success.
With statistics like that, it’s even more important that you’re focused on customer service pre-launch. And focused hard.
Think about it, and it makes sense. When customers are testing out something new and have a question or concern about it, one of their first reactions will be to contact you.
This means your customer service reps are your first line of defense against a subpar or bad customer experience. Because by the time they contact you, the customer might already feel frustrated, confused, or upset.
Have a team of reps who are unprepared, confused or frustrated themselves, and you’ve got yourself the perfect mix for disaster. Not to mention bad reviews.
By that point, you’ve not only jeopardized your product success, but also your company reputation and credibility.
If that’s not enough to make you think twice about customer care, consider this: a happy customer is more likely to be a repeat customer.
That means you get more bang for every advertising buck spent to lure that client through your doors. Not only are they giving you business once, but they’re more likely to come back and do it again in the future.
Plus, old customers are a lot less expensive to maintain than new ones.
Various sources estimate that it’s anywhere from 3 to 30 times as expensive to attract a new customer than it is to keep a current one. That’s why you want to make sure your buyers have a good experience the very first time they do business with you.
Consider these facts collectively, and it’s a no brainer. Prepping your customer service team pre-launch is an absolute non-negotiable if you want your product to see the light of success.
Using some simple pre-launch tips, you could be well on your way to that path in no time at all. Here are a few to get you started.
Tip #1: Study History (of Previous Product Launches)
We’ve all heard that history has a nasty habit of repeating itself if we don’t study it. But where product launches are concerned, history can actually play in your favor. Particularly when it comes to customer service.
Reviewing patterns from previous launches can be a good indication of what you can realistically expect to happen in future ones. When you’re analyzing these past launches, ask yourself a few questions.
– What volume of calls were received post-launch?
– What volume of customers used other methods to reach you (email, chat box, etc.)?
– Was there a particular area or call center that received the heaviest volume?
– During what times did most people contact customer service reps?
– What were the most common gripes/concerns?
– How many calls were escalated to a superior?
You can use the answers to these questions to draw guesses for the future and make improvements pre-launch of your next product. For instance, if out of every ten calls, seven were transferred to a manager, that might mean you need to better train your customer service staff. These kinds of questions can give you an idea into how you can better anticipate for hurdles in the current launch.
They can also clue you in about where or how you can make improvements this time around. You might amp up customer support in specific channels, draw down wait times, or develop more effective ways to answer questions. For instance, if you received the most questions via phone, you might design better, more comprehensive call scripts.
If email was popular, you might craft several email templates for faster response times and more effective answers.
Tip #2: Leverage Technology
According to eMarketer, the most frustrating way for customers to communicate with customer service representative is by phone. Most can probably relate to that statement. How many times have you been caught in an endless loop of hold music? Or been transferred several times only to get disconnected? No one likes spending endless time on hold, especially for a simple question.
Customers’ shared dislike for the phone can actually work in your favor. Fewer customers on the phone can mean less staff needed at your call center, meaning fewer employees to pay. All you need to do is divert those customers to another more effective way of getting their questions and concerns addressed. Achieving that is quite simple—through technology.
Fortunately, most people favor technological solutions anyway thanks to speed and convenience. Such out-of-the-box technological solutions could include online chats, email and social media forums that allow customers to quickly get the answers or help they need.
Tip #3: Educate, Educate, Educate
Many products launch seamlessly. Until customers start calling with random queries that customer reps have little to no knowledge about. That’s probably because someone somewhere forgot to loop them in and give those reps the proper preparation and training. That’s definitely an error you should avoid making.
Your customer care reps must be kept in the know at all times and be confident about all aspects of your product. Be sure to engage them in several calls so they can remain informed about important product details and launch information. On group calls involving several departments, don’t forget to address them and encourage questions.
A good way to train them and test their product knowledge is by designing comprehensive online trainings and assessments. Post call, have resources customer service reps can refer to in case they need a refresher or have more questions.
(It’s also a good idea to design speedy tip-of-the-finger tools they can use to search for answers to questions while they’re on the phone with clients.)
If they’re not able to find an answer, make sure they know who to contact for help, whether that’s a subject matter expert or someone else. If you can afford it, it also helps to have a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. CRM allows you to track customer interactions, including the channel of communication, questions, and resolution status.
The data collected through this system can be invaluable to you. CRM ensures you’re following up with clients but also helps you decipher important information like resolution rate and the most common reasons for customer contact. This information can then be used to improve and anticipate future launches.
On a related note, if a customer rep needs to follow up with a client about a question or concern, make sure they understand company standards. For example, following up with the client within 24 business hours or providing a resolution with X amount of time, etc.
As you can see, educating your customer service reps is an important key to the process. By doing so, you’ll be well armed to avoid a bad customer service experience, which is something you want to do at all costs. According to How Stuff Works, an unhappy customer will gripe to at least 8-10 others about their experience. This can damage your reputation and future sales pipeline.
Tip #4: Create Self-help Resources for Customers
The best way to relieve your customer service reps from a litany of calls while still delivering customers an extraordinary experience is by giving them access to information fast through what they like best: self-help materials.
The truth is, customers don’t want to get on the phone with a customer service rep any more than you want them to. Engaged phone lines mean greater hold time, more irritated and impatient clients, and exhausted and frustrated customer service reps.
In fact, 40% of customers now prefer self-help information over human contact.
Consider these tools to get customers the help they need without you having to fund a tremendous amount of extra employees or resources:
Product FAQ page: create a frequently asked questions page where they can quickly and conveniently access product information.
Customized blog posts on your site: if your site has a blog space, create product-specific posts that help customers learn about your product.
Customer forums: allowing customers to talk, ask questions or request help in a forum is a good way to engage them and let them interact with a community of other users.
At the end of the day, whichever option you choose, remember that speed is key: the faster the customer can get an answer, the happier they’ll be.
Tip #5: Plan Ahead to Debrief and Improve
Customer care simply isn’t customer care if you forget to put care in the process. Taking the time to listen to your customers, practice empathy, consider their concerns or questions and use that information to make improvements is key to keeping your customers happy.
Before launch, schedule some time to debrief with key staff. This includes customer service, so they can give everyone a sense of the temperature. During the session(s), work to uncover answers to important questions:
–What was the majority customer temperament?
–What were the biggest concerns?
–What were common reasons for customer contact?
Sure, customer service is there to answer questions and be a guiding light for clients through product launches. But they’re also a tremendous resource for other things if you use them right.
They’re the ones who can help you understand your customers and brainstorm preventive measures to keep customers from even having to trouble themselves to reach out to you in the first place.
For instance, are customers simply wanting to know how to care for their product? If so, you could use that information to create a post or other materials they can quickly access at their convenience instead of having to waste several minutes getting in contact with a rep.
Pre-scheduling touch base or debrief calls also sets the expectation that feedback is expected from call center reps. And that other business partners should be prepared for it and be ready for action.
Bringing It All Together
Planning and prepping for a launch can at times feel overwhelming. But with enough attention and care reserved for the people who matter the most—your customers—you’ll be set to win at least half the battle.
Pre-launch strategies for customer service not only prepare you well to handle all aspects of customer care, but they also create a positive customer impression of your company. With a robust customer service strategy and an army of empowered and prepared customer advocates by your side, you can help boost your product success quotients.
Nowadays, you can see the results of that success in the form of great reviews, positive YouTube videos, free promotions on social media, and fewer dollars spent on self-advertising.
Overall, a strong customer service strategy pre-launch can mean stellar results post-launch…really, what more could you ask for?
