Not Your Grandma’s Call Center
3/1/2013
Customer Service for the 21st Century
The recent launch of the new Telecharge.com provided our online customers with loads of new features to enhance their Broadway shopping experience. But what happens when a customer doesn’t know how to use a new feature or has a problem logging into their web account? These are challenges faced by every Internet company. Change is never easy, for businesses or their customers.
Supporting customers who are using a new website for the first time can be daunting – new browsers, operating systems, plug ins, etc. – which is why the customer service game is changing rapidly.
For over 30 years, our Customer Service team has excelled at resolving the everyday ticketing issues that arise for our customers. But when we launch new technology, particularly a new website, they must also take on the challenge of helping customers learn a new way of buying tickets – new features, new tools, new user experience.
A Meeting of the Minds
In this age of a seemingly endless variety of browsers, operating systems, mobile devices, and browser plug-ins, how do we provide our customers with the support they not only need, but expect? How can we help them quickly complete their purchase and make sure that any technical problems are corrected quickly – so that no one else experiences them?
We focus on three main initiatives to ensure that our customers have an ideal customer service experience whenever we launch new technology.
Task Number 1: Train Our Customer-Facing Employees
Telecharge’s Customer Service training team participates in a multi-day visit to our software development facility in Hackensack, NJ. They receive hands-on training to help them understand the new Telecharge.com and the systems that support it.
With help from our wily and tech savvy QA (quality assurance) team, the trainers are confronted with issues that our website customers face. From browser issues to password problems, to installing, removing, and reinstalling some of the more common browser plug-ins, our trainers see it all and learn what to do when there is a problem.
Based on what they glean from these sessions, the team goes back to NYC and develops a training program for our customer service representatives, to ensure that they are better able to diagnose and resolve the common customer issues that arise.
Task Number 2: Identify Common Problems, and Create an FAQ for Quick Answers
We are constantly monitoring the type and frequency of website-related calls on our customer service lines. As trends of users’ issues emerge, they are added to the list of Frequently Asked Questions, along with a step-by-step discussion of how to resolve the issue. This information is added to the customer service knowledge base and helps our QA team discover and ultimately resolve any software issues.
Problems happen. It is our responsibility to ensure that once a problem is uncovered, it is resolved quickly.
Task Number 3: Make the Technology Experts Available
There will always be those really tricky problems that need more help than our customer service team can provide. In the past, we have provided more intensive technical support to customers primarily via email. Now we are launching a new initiative where Customer Service will be able to transfer the customer call to a tech support agent.
Our tech support team will be drawn from the Quality Assurance team, as well as some of the folks from the Interactive Services department. These team members bring with them an in-depth understanding of all of the features of our website, as well as the support systems that work with the site. They will be able to help walk the customer through their purchase and determine quickly if a customer issue requires a software change to correct it. If a software change is needed, the tech support team will create an issue in our issue tracking system and follow it through until it is resolved.
We’re pretty sure it was the amazing customer service guru, Ken Blanchard, who said that Customer Service is not a department – it’s everyone’s job. This collaborative, cross-department approach to customer support will enable us to resolve customer issues quickly, efficiently, and provide our customers with the remarkable experience that they deserve.
Customer Service for the 21st Century
The recent launch of the new Telecharge.com provided our online customers with loads of new features to enhance their Broadway shopping experience. But what happens when a customer doesn’t know how to use a new feature or has a problem logging into their web account? These are challenges faced by every Internet company. Change is never easy, for businesses or their customers.
Supporting customers who are using a new website for the first time can be daunting – new browsers, operating systems, plug ins, etc. – which is why the customer service game is changing rapidly.
For over 30 years, our Customer Service team has excelled at resolving the everyday ticketing issues that arise for our customers. But when we launch new technology, particularly a new website, they must also take on the challenge of helping customers learn a new way of buying tickets – new features, new tools, new user experience.
A Meeting of the Minds
In this age of a seemingly endless variety of browsers, operating systems, mobile devices, and browser plug-ins, how do we provide our customers with the support they not only need, but expect? How can we help them quickly complete their purchase and make sure that any technical problems are corrected quickly – so that no one else experiences them?
We focus on three main initiatives to ensure that our customers have an ideal customer service experience whenever we launch new technology.
Task Number 1: Train Our Customer-Facing Employees
Telecharge’s Customer Service training team participates in a multi-day visit to our software development facility in Hackensack, NJ. They receive hands-on training to help them understand the new Telecharge.com and the systems that support it.
With help from our wily and tech savvy QA (quality assurance) team, the trainers are confronted with issues that our website customers face. From browser issues to password problems, to installing, removing, and reinstalling some of the more common browser plug-ins, our trainers see it all and learn what to do when there is a problem.
Based on what they glean from these sessions, the team goes back to NYC and develops a training program for our customer service representatives, to ensure that they are better able to diagnose and resolve the common customer issues that arise.
Task Number 2: Identify Common Problems, and Create an FAQ for Quick Answers
We are constantly monitoring the type and frequency of website-related calls on our customer service lines. As trends of users’ issues emerge, they are added to the list of Frequently Asked Questions, along with a step-by-step discussion of how to resolve the issue. This information is added to the customer service knowledge base and helps our QA team discover and ultimately resolve any software issues.
Problems happen. It is our responsibility to ensure that once a problem is uncovered, it is resolved quickly.
Task Number 3: Make the Technology Experts Available
There will always be those really tricky problems that need more help than our customer service team can provide. In the past, we have provided more intensive technical support to customers primarily via email. Now we are launching a new initiative where Customer Service will be able to transfer the customer call to a tech support agent.
Our tech support team will be drawn from the Quality Assurance team, as well as some of the folks from the Interactive Services department. These team members bring with them an in-depth understanding of all of the features of our website, as well as the support systems that work with the site. They will be able to help walk the customer through their purchase and determine quickly if a customer issue requires a software change to correct it. If a software change is needed, the tech support team will create an issue in our issue tracking system and follow it through until it is resolved.
We’re pretty sure it was the amazing customer service guru, Ken Blanchard, who said that Customer Service is not a department – it’s everyone’s job. This collaborative, cross-department approach to customer support will enable us to resolve customer issues quickly, efficiently, and provide our customers with the remarkable experience that they deserve.