HP’s offering is interesting because they don’t limit the classes to HP products exclusively, but instead offer instructor-led classes on a variety of subjects, ranging from digital photography to creating business cards. The instructors are experts in their particular subject areas and the “students” can ask the instructor questions as the classes are going on.

I like what HP has done with these classes. A lot of companies will offer webinars that teach customers about their products specifically, but very few expand the scope beyond that. HP is smart for offering to teach its customers how to get the most out of their PCs and technology in general. If customers know how to get the most out of their PCs, they are going to be a lot more interested in upgrades for their existing PCs or in the mood to buy more powerful PCs (hopefully from HP) when they are looking for a new computer.

There are lots of companies that could benefit from similar views. Web hosting companies could have classes on web design, clothing retailers could have classes on fashion, supermarkets could hold cooking classes, and so on. All of these classes complement the core product or service and still help to improve the company’s brand (assuming the classes are good, of course).

Setting this up for your own company would not be overly complicated. You likely have someone with the expertise (and hopefully, the attitude) to design and run such a class in your support team. After that, it is matter of getting the technology in place and promoting it among your customers. Try it with one or two classes and survey your customers to see how much they like it.

HP has had good luck with their classes to date; 93% of students surveyed responded saying they would take another class and 92% of students surveyed said they would recommend the class to a friend. Hopefully your implementation will have similar (or even better) results.

Track with objective statistics. If you have technical resources that you are making available to your employees, chances are you can use some sort of analytics to track the true usage. Internal web sites can be tracked, computer programs can be tracked, etc. Using technology to obtain the data about the usage of your resources is a great way to understand how they are utilized and if they are being utilized effectively.

Ask (with a survey). Survey your employees and ask how they using the various resources available to them. Ask about what they find helpful, what they don’t use, what they still need, and so on. Ask about the effectiveness of the current resources, their ease of use, and so on. Design your survey to give you actionable data (i. e. if you’re curious about navigation, ask questions that will help you understand how your employees navigate the resources available to them).

Use your data to draw conclusions. If your analytics show that people are clicking to several different pages before they stay on a page for a while (indicating it takes them a while to get somewhere) and they complain about navigation in the survey, something is obviously wrong with the layout of that particular tool or resource. Figure it out, ask employees if that is actually the case, and then take action.

Ask (with an interview). Once you have some initial points collected and to work off of, interview some employees about what resources they utilize and how they utilize them. The interviews should be open ended and pry around for additional information and additional areas to work on. The more you know, the more you can do and the better spent your time and other resources will be.

When you have the information, make use of it. Use it to personalize greetings on your web site, to offer customers promotions on when their birthday is coming up, etc. The information is only valuable when you make use of it. Without actually going out of your way to use the data you collect, it’s worthless. As Glenn pointed out, there is a lot you can do with the data to make customers happier and to make money.

As the Internet has gotten more advanced, personalization on web sites has become commonplace. A web site saying “Welcome John Smith” is no longer a big deal. Even a web site saying “Welcome John Smith, here are some products you might find to be interesting” isn’t anything to write home about. A company that consistently identifies customers and personalizes the customer service experience for them is something unique, though.

If John Smith calls or emails in, and the representative knows who he is and can address him by name and be familiar account history, that will help to improve the customer service. Verifying John’s identity with his email address or phone number is technologically possible and fairly reliable. It’ll also make John feel more appreciated as a customer. Then, when he visits the web site and is also greeted by name, it just adds to the collective (and now positive) experience.

Technology is a great asset to customer service. I don’t think high tech can replace high touch in customer service, but I certainly think they can work well together and one of the many ways they can do so is by personalizing and customizing the customer service experience.

Collaboration with employees. Mailing lists can be used to collaborate with other employees. Work on projects, make other employees aware of particularly tough issues, point out bug fixes, etc. A mailing list can be used not only to keep other employees in the loop, but also allow them to contribute themselves.

Sending service updates. Service updates should be sent to both employees and customers, but that isn’t always possible. Internal mailing lists can be used to keep employees informed about service updates (including those that are upcoming) as well as any information about outages, upgrades, etc.

Reminders and tips. Some companies send out a useful “hint of the day” about a new system or how to help customers. These are great to send over mailing lists and can help employees do their job better. Tips of the day via email aren’t typically sent over mailing lists, but assuming the tips are actually helpful, employees will actually appreciate them.

A lot of these uses seem obvious, but when each team or group gets its on mailing list, it can really help make communication easier and more unified than just CC’ing people randomly. Be sure to give each team (or any group that asks for it) their own mailing list. Make sure archives of the mailing lists are kept so people can easily refer back to them and ensure that the archives are searchable. That will allow you to get the most out of them and let people who weren’t on the list originally get caught up.

The rule of thumb is dead simple: let people know how long you expect them to be on hold. If you only need to look into the customer’s account information, ask if they’d mind holding one or two minutes. If you have to get up and find your supervisor and ask a question, ask if the customers minds holding five to six minutes. Be realistic and be consistent. Always let the customer know how long they’ll be holding.

Some (generally lazy) representatives complain about this and say they can’t be sure how long the customer will hold. This is a good point, but I think most customers would rather have a ballpark idea about how long something will take than no idea at all. They don’t expect you as a representative to give them a scientifically accurate timeline, but they do expect for your estimate to be in the ballpark. As always, if something changes, you should let the customer know and if necessary, change your estimate and communicate that to the customer.

The customer service experience is about the customer. They should know how long it is going to take and what is going on. Never hesitate to tell the customer either of those things. They’ll certainly appreciate it and in the long run, it’ll make the customer service experience much less frustrating for both the customer and the representative.

When you put a coming soon page, notice, or graphic on your web site, try to be more specific. Include a specific date, a general timeline, or some sort of information in addition to “coming soon.” Customers want to know when to come back and what to expect. If “coming soon” seems like a lifetime to them and you don’t tell them otherwise, they won’t bother to come back.

The best way to get customers to come back is to get them to signup for an email notification of the launch. Use positive wording like “we’ll let you know as soon as this feature launches” and still go a step further by including a general timeline. This way, customers know they aren’t putting their email address into the abyss.

The main idea is simple: give customers more information. If you aren’t ready to publish some sort of timeline or make a commitment to notifying potential or existing customers of a launch, then you shouldn’t even consider putting a coming soon page up.

Contact them through different mediums. Most companies have announcements sections of their web sites, but the unfortunate truth is, a majority of customers don’t keep up with these sections. Try to contact customers via email, by posting an announcement on their control panel, by text messaging them, etc. The key is to be creative and to understand how customers prefer to be contacted.

Be clear and honest with timelines. If something is going to take two hours, say so. Don’t say it will take an hour and a half - be on the safe side. Tell customers how likely something is to be delayed, how routine the change is, etc. Being honest with customers will save you problems and upset customers in the long run.

Communicate what is being done and why. If you tell a customer that their account is being upgraded to a new software version, that doesn’t mean much to them. Explain exactly what is being done and why it is going to help the customer. If you say that the software upgrade will make their service more reliable or easier to use, the customer will be much receptive.

Be prepared to answer questions. Communication almost always results in questions. Being clear and concise is extremely important, but you should always be prepared for customers to ask questions. Questions are fine. Answer them honestly, quickly, and with a smile. Doing so will help ease the customer’s mind and assure them that you have the situation under control.

This doesn’t work for every company and can certainly be abused by persistent customers, but in general, it makes customers feel better. If customers can talk to or write to someone they feel confident in, they tend to feel better about having to contact customer service. In my experience, the representatives that do this most successfully tell customers to go through the normal support procedures first and email them personally if someone goes wrong. Surprisingly, most customers do honor this.

For the customers that don’t honor that simple agreement, the best thing for the representative to do is gently nudge them towards the standard support mediums. They submit a ticket for the customer or forward their request to support and send the customer a quick note explaining what they did. If the representative does this consistently and only helps when things don’t go well, then it reinforces the relationship of helping when things don’t go well.

Some companies choose only to give out personal email addresses if the customer is a particularly important customer or if the customer has had a lot of problems in the past. This is fine, too. The point is to give customers extra attention if they need it and to prevent relatively minor issues from escalating into big issues.