Customer support is vital to many businesses, and one of the key considerations for providing excellent customer care is having a clear hierarchy of escalation protocols. Escalation protocols are techniques used to ensure customer problems are quickly solved, and in a manner that is both efficient and satisfactory for the customer.
What are Escalation Protocols?
Escalation protocols are defined pathways for reaching an individual or team that can respond appropriately to a given customer service concern. The protocols are usually tailored to the product or service being provided and can be used to quickly escalate customer issues and prioritize customer requests.
How are they used?
Escalation protocols typically lay out multiple tiers for dealing with customer support tickets, chats and conversations. They can cover customer queries from basic inquiries to complex technical problems and can include different levels of customer service personnel, from service representatives to managers and supervisors. The various tiers are ranked in order of importance, with customer service representatives being the first available point of contact. The customer service representatives can then take customer questions, answer customer queries and troubleshoot basic issues. If these issues can’t be resolved, the customer service representatives can then escalate the issue up to the next tiers.
Why are they useful?
Escalation protocols are useful because they provide a structured approach to prioritizing customer service requests and ensure they are answered in an efficient and timely manner. Without an escalation protocol in place, customer service requests can quickly become backlogged due to limited resources or complex queries.
Examples and Use Cases
An example of an escalation protocol is a five-tier system. The five tiers could be service representatives, customer support managers, customer support lead, chief customer service officer and executive customer service manager. This system ensures that customer issues can be quickly escalated to the appropriate tier, depending on the severity and complexity of the issue.
A use case could be a customer that has an issue with an online purchase order. The customer service representative tries to troubleshoot the issue, but is unable to resolve it. The customer service representative then escalates the issue to the customer support manager, who may then escalate it further up to the customer support lead, who then contacts the chief customer service officer to resolve the problem. This structured approach to customer service ensures the customer’s query is answered in an efficient and satisfactory manner.
In conclusion, escalation protocols are key for providing efficient and effective customer care. The protocols allow customer queries to be converted quickly, ensuring customer satisfaction and fostering customer loyalty.