For most companies, the primary way to improve customer service is to develop a streamlined workflow. You can achieve this with a customer service flowchart. This flowchart is a document that graphically shows your agents' various activities. Here's an example for your inspiration.
A customer support flow chart can benefit existing service processes and those not yet visualized. This tool helps managers identify bottlenecks or inefficiencies within customer service processes.
What Is a Customer Service Flowchart?
Serving customers properly and effectively is one of many tasks and challenges in business operations. The fact is that the competition in the market is increasingly fierce in terms of serving quality, requiring businesses to find ways to make a difference.
Establishing a customer service process is necessary for guiding the team's work in business operations. It is also crucial for providing good service for the customers’ buyer journey.
This flowchart is a visualization tool that conveys the different steps in customer assistance and their execution sequence in a simple way. This usually begins when your company receives the customer's first contact until the problem is solved.
Thanks to the flow chart's design, your agents will act faster and more decisively. They always understand the steps they need to follow. In addition, it helps them deliver information more clearly and reduces the time customers wait for answers, providing them with more positive experience.
Why Do You Need a Customer Service Flowchart?
Dealing with and working with customers is often fast-paced. Thus, having a simple process in place helps stakeholders have a structured approach. A lack of process can lead to unexpected errors, causing frustration or frustration.
A pre-set flow chart design will give your company a specific internal process and ideal solutions, helping employees get things done efficiently. In addition, procedures and company policies that are simplified in the flowchart can help your employees get the job done without any mistakes.
Ensuring customers have a good experience is the primary goal of any company and business. If they do not have a standardized process or key metrics to rely on, they may not approach the issue effectively. It will result in wasted resources while providing delayed responses to some customers.
With customer service processes documented in graphical representations, agents will identify what they need to do in each step. It ensures that your customers will receive a great experience, increasing customer retention.
Benefits of the Customer Service Process
Helping Your Employees Handle Uncommon Situations Easily
In most cases, when something goes wrong, your employees will know what to do because they have been trained to do so. So what if one day they are faced with unusual or uncommon incidents, which they have never had to deal with before? That's when a defined process comes in handy.
The lack of a specific customer service guide can lead to your employees getting confused and not knowing how to solve the problem. Bear in mind that your company can lose customers every minute when the matter is not resolved.
Provide Your Customers With Consistent Experience
Any customer expects efficient service from your company. Today, your customers can interact with your company through plenty of channels, such as live chat software, phone, email. So regardless of which channel they interact with your company, you need to ensure they receive a consistent experience.
Thanks to the defined process, your staff will quickly be aware of the customer’s experience on each channel to interact with them appropriately. In other words, a defined process will allow your business to deliver consistent solutions across all channels.
Improve the Reputation of Your Business
Reputation is something that any business craves. The proof is that many businesses and companies spend tons of money and resources improving their reputation.
You can also improve the reputation of your business from the smallest things, such as satisfying your customers.
For example, you should attempt to respond to customers as quickly as possible when they contact your business. Agents can provide timely feedback or help to your customers through a defined flowchart.
Although customers can't see what's going on behind the screen, they can fully gauge how your business is doing by how you respond to their queries.
Bear in mind that the longer you keep customers waiting, the more frustrated they will be. It leads them to leave your business to look for a competitor. Unfortunately, that means the reputation of your business will be damaged, resulting in a loss in business.
How to Make a Customer Service Process
Step 1: Identify All Touch-points Available
As mentioned above, customers contact your business through various contact forms.
So, this step refers to listing all the available touch-points and contact details in your business, such as:
- Letter
- Telephone
- Website
- Live chat
- Social media.
Step 2: Outline The Process
For each type of interaction or touchpoint, you must list the steps required to resolve and process the request. It is okay to draw the process on paper and put each step in a box.
Suppose a buyer calls your business to make a purchase. The first thing your agent needs to do is ask for basic information about the customer, including name, occupation, address, etc.
Step 3: Arrange The Sequence
Now, you need to rearrange or redraw the steps in sequence. You'll want more symbols, color schemes, color coding, or chart icons if you realize it's necessary to add alternate actions at each step.
For example, if a customer calls your business to place an order, you'll need to show alternative actions if out of stock.
Step 4: Remove Potential Problems
Through customers’ feedback, you can identify steps in the process where potential problems can occur. Then it's essential to build alternate steps, which allow your staff to troubleshoot, into your creative flow chart layout.
Suppose a buyer calls your business with technical questions. In this case, it is difficult for call center agents to give an accurate answer right away. In this case, you should allow your agents to contact customers after consulting with technical experts.
Step 5: Finish Your Flowchart
Review your draft version with your employees to ensure that your flowchart is proper and workable. After that, utilize a specialist flowchart application to complete your flowchart.
In the official version, you should add common symbols, such as:
- Arrow shapes to indicate sequence
- A variety of shapes and boxes to show steps
- Diamonds or conical shapes for alternative actions
- Ovals to indicate the start & finish points
- Bold colors for noting
Step 6: Distribute The Information
Last but not least, you need to distribute copies for different departments, such as:
- Supervisors
- Customer service employees
- Training staff
- Managers
Don't forget to update your flowchart via customer operational experience.
Bottom Lines
When it comes to customer support, it's essential to stay focused on the customer experience. As a customer support leader, you need to ensure that your customers have a happy and consistent experience at every touchpoint. That's why you need to have a defined process.
There is no denying that a good customer service flowchart will be sufficient to ensure customer satisfaction. It will help your employees reduce problem-solving time and provide customers with the experience they need.
