Your customers are the focal point of your business – it is important to keep them satisfied with your products/services. However, according to a customer service study, 62% of companies do not pay heed to customer emails which eventually turns opposite for them. 

Customers are impatient when it comes to query resolution, Not responding to complaints is a clear sign that you do not care. Why will a customer stick around then? Further, it’s known that companies that do respond take around an average response time of 12 hours and the slowest response time adds up to 8 hours. 

Do you know the customer expectations? They expect a reply within 60 minutes. Perhaps, there is something wrong with the traditional system and you need an upgrade to a helpdesk system. Let’s know why. 

Average First Response Time

Also known as FRT, Average First Response Time is one of the customer service reports used to determine your performance. It analyzes the average response time your department takes to answer a query. Reducing this time is important for the growth of your business.

 

How to Reduce Customer Response Time?

 

 

• Implement a Help Desk Software

Are you using any of the help desk solutions yet? If not, the time is now. 

A help desk system or customer service software is equipped with the right tools to make your task easier. You can even look back at your previous-solved queries to identify details related to a product and understand better.

• Utilize Email Autoresponders

Sometimes, a customer needs to know that their email has been received. An ignored email can bring concerns for your business and affect your long-term relationships with your customers.

The best way to let your customers know that their query has reached is by using email auto responder. This age-old strategy still works and your customers feel relieved.

• Use Time Based Email Alerts

Although companies try to respond to every email yet a lot of emails are still left behind. To avoid this situation, you can set a time-based email alert on your system.

If you are using a shared mailbox, you can do it in handy but if you are using a customer support software, you can select this feature automatically and tag new emails with a timer. Set a time frame for your responses and the notification will just alert you in the given time. It will avoid losing emails and response time will also net get too delayed. This way you can ensure that you have sufficient time to read and respond to your customer’s emails within average response time. 

• Use Templates and Shortcuts

Of course, not every customer query can be answered using templates. but, if you have a regular set or pattern of customer queries, you can create a template to make your job easier. A customized reply template or shortcut will save your time and also make your communication instant. 

You can also assign shortcuts to commonly used words or phrases to reduce your keyboard strokes. 

Additionally, make sure that your website must have documents that can reflect the answers to common customer questions. You can supply them to the customers in your response, it will make your job easier and also help you to satisfy your customer in one go.  

• Categorize and Prioritize Your Emails

Categorizing and prioritizing emails is one of the best ways to reduce customer support response time.

When your system receives a new email, it should be triaged- just like how the order of treatment of patients gets decided in a hospital- the patient with an emergency case or life-threatening injury is shifted to the emergency room. 

Your customer support staff should handle an email based on its subject and then assign a tag to it accordingly. Different tags represent different levels of priority. This priority is decided based on certain criteria such as the response time needed, the complexity of the problem, and value for both the customer and business.

For instance, you should give priority to potential leads such as a request for a demo or free trial over other general inquiries. Why? Well, because according to a research, within an hour 90% of leads get cold. Thus it is important to prioritize the sales lead and move them to the top of the queue. 

Conclusion

Reducing your customer support time is important to keep your customers happy and build a long-term relationship with them. However, managing hundreds of emails a day can be a little hectic. Hence, you need the best help desk software to make your task easier.

Speaking of the best, Wowdesk is one of the top-rated helpdesk software that features easy to use tools along with brilliant features that reduce your response time as well as create a streamlined process for your customer service team. Get to know more here.