Follow-up: How
Okay, so we’ve gone over the who, what, why, where, and when, now to the how. Basically, the how is just a combonation of the rules for each of the details.
- Ensure whoever doing the follow-up is aware of what the issue is and is both patient and friendly.
- The point of a follow-up is to establish contact with a client pro-actively. Don’t waste a follow-up by having no set goals of the call.
- Follow-ups help build brand awareness, improve the customer service experience, resolve issues more quickly, gather feedback from customers, and most importantly, make customers happier.
- Follow-ups should be conducted over the same medium as the original correspondence. If the customer emails you, do the follow-up over email. Be sure to list or mention all ways to contact your company in all follow-ups.
- Never do follow-ups if you think you may be bothering someone. In most cases, contacting the customer at the same time they contacted you is the best time.
- The best golden rule is to use common sense and do your best to make customers happier (all the time).
If your representatives are patient, knowledgeable, and courteous when they do follow-ups, your customers will be happy. Follow-ups should be a key part of your customer service experience and customers will certainly appreciate your efforts.
Since everyone always wants examples, here’s an ideal follow-up for a web host being sent to a customer who recently had issues with his email. (after the more part)
Hi -name-,
I’m just following up with you to see if your issues with you not being able to access your email account with Outlook have been resolved to your satisfaction? You can check the support section of our web site (http://www.support.company.com) and you’ll find some diagnostic tools to see if there are any problems with your email. If anything isn’t working as you think it should, please don’t hesitate to let me know and I’ll do my best to come up with a solution.
If you have any further questions, comments, or concerns please feel free to send us an email at support@company.com or give us a call at 800-HELP-NOW. We’re available 24/7, so please feel free to contact us at your convenience.
We appreciate you being a customer!
Sincerely,
Name
Company
www.website.com
That’s how I’d do a follow-up for that particular issue. Not sure what the next topic will be, but I’ll come up with something. If you have any suggestions, feel free to send them to email [at] serviceuntitled [dot] com.
