Rarely is a role one-note, and a customer support agent is no exception. Customer support agents don’t only provide support. This role is nuanced with various duties and functions that an agent is responsible for. From providing support to cross-selling to providing valuable feedback, the support agent wears many hats.
Awesome support agents are crucial to providing your customers with an excellent customer experience. Below are five jobs a customer support agent is typically responsible for.
1. RESOLVING ISSUES
First and foremost, a customer support agent is responsible for resolving issues. That is what the bulk of the role will entail. Agents are reactive in that they respond when customers reach out for help, as opposed to the proactive nature of customer success agents.
When customers are reaching out, it’s because they have a problem or issue that need to be resolved. It’s not uncommon for agents to deal with irate customers, so resolving issues require customer support agents to use tact and exercise patience.
On top of providing efficient and effective support, agents have to be fast. Customers these days expect fast service and will give their money to the companies that can provide that speed.
2. CROSS-SELLING
While support agents are not a part of the sales department, there are a plethora of sales opportunities that fall under the domain of a customer support agent.
Cross-selling is the practice of encouraging customers to purchase related or complementary products or services.
Because agents are perfectly positioned to know what customers want and more importantly, need, they have a prime opportunity to suggest other products or services that a customer may benefit from.
But it has to be done right so that the customer doesn’t feel that you’re trying to squeeze more money from them. By getting to know the customers’ pain points, your agents will be able to organically but strategically make product recommendations that provide the most value and deepen relationships with customers.
3. EDUCATING CUSTOMERS
Support agents not only resolve issues, but they also have to educate customers on what happened, why it happened, and how to prevent it.
This includes distilling complex technical information into digestible, clear instructions that help customers resolve their issues quickly. This can also mean crafting comprehensive, well-structured knowledge base articles to cater to customers who prefer self-service support.
4. PROVIDING FEEDBACK
Your support agents are on the front lines every day. This means that they have a direct line of sight into what customers are struggling with.
This means that they can provide invaluable insight. Customer support agents can flag bugs, identify gaps in both internal workflows, and external procedures, and recommend solutions on how to improve the product or service.
5. RETAINING CUSTOMERS
Finally, support agents also actively prevent customer churn.
When support agents interact with customers, it’s because customer have a problem or issue that needs resolving. Sometimes, customers can get frustrated enough that they consider cancelling their services.
So it’s up to customer support agents to not only resolve the issue but to do so in a way that turns the bad experience into one that will make the customer reconsider leaving.
This takes an intricate mix of fast response time, active listening, empathy, exceeding customer expectations, and efficient resolution.
It’s a such a crucial job to ensure that customers have a memorable support experience because it’s not only what will retain customers in danger of leaving but also turn them into brand advocates.
Customer support agents do a lot. They are professional multi-taskers, often juggling many cases and roles at once. Their jobs are extremely dynamic, and as always, it boils down to how agents can provide customers with the best possible experience.
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