The facility management industry is unique. You’ve got customers with all different types of buildings and a wide array of needs and demands. This means there’s isn’t a “blueprint” for how to deal with customer issues as they arise.

There’s an old saying – “the squeaky wheel gets the grease” – that sometimes rings all too true for customer support teams. When prioritizing support inquiries, there’s a hierarchy of channels. Email sits at the bottom, with response times ranging into hours or even days. Chat is somewhere in the middle, with customers expecting a response in a few minutes. Phone support sits at the very top. It’s common for customers to call in and expect to speak with a real person right away. If they’re left on hold, it’s a frustrating experience that contributes to driving customers away from a business.

A company website is important to any business. It’s your face and first impression to all different types of people – prospects, investors, researchers, and more – and putting the right content in front of the right role makes a difference.

“Whoever closes the most tickets by 5PM gets a $50 gift card!”

“5 extra gold stars if you’re able to close 20 tickets today!”

“Every ticket you close is another entry into our iPad drawing on Friday!”

If you’ve ever worked in or been a part of the customer support industry, you’ve likely seen or directly experienced “contests” or “games” like the scenarios listed above. The more formal definition – gamification – is essentially a tactic used by the customer support industry to incentivize agents to reach specific (yet often arbitrary) goals put in place by leadership.

It seems like all areas of a business now rely on software in some way. There is payroll software for Accounting, lead nurturing and CRM for Sales, and customer service for the support team to resolve customer issues. All these systems are great, but in this modern era of business how do companies communicate internally with so many different technologies?

Feedback matters in the customer-centric era of business we work in. Whether it’s a customer telling your CEO that an agent did a great job or giving them a “negative” face after a chat session, there are many ways companies can receive feedback about their business.

Customer service is a concept that can mean many things to different businesses. At the heart of it all however, serving the customer is what keeps a business running. It’s crucial for the longevity of any company.

Great customer service agents are invaluable in any business. Not only can they make your customers happy in an instant, but they can completely change the perception of your company.

We’ve all worked with customers that have seemingly unrealistic expectations. You give them an inch and they expect a mile!