Savannah Carmen Concha

Care QA Handbook Welcome to the first edition of the Care QA Handbook. This handbook aims to provide you with a clear understanding of delivering high-quality support. It also serves as a compass for the QA protocols and procedures to improve overall customer experience. Along with these is an introductory scorecard, or what we call a ‘rubric,’ which the Managed Services Experience Analyst will use to evaluate the performance of a Support Desk Technician. The purpose of this rubric is not only to help you develop and enhance your skills but also for the customers to have an insight into how our team is doing relative to company standard guidelines. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1.0 Quality Assurance in Customer Service 2 1.1 Three Ways Customer Service Quality Assurance Helps Scaling Businesses 3 1.2 Quality Assurance Checklist for Managers and/or QA Specialists 4 Brand Voice and Brand Tone 2.0 What is Brand Voice? 5 2.1 Tone: What is it and how is it different from Brand Voice? 5 2.2 Brand Voice Examples 6 2.3 Care Brand Voice & Tone 8 2.3.1 Brand Voice 8 2.3.2 Tone 9 Rubric 3.0 What is a Rubric? 11 3.1.0 The Basics 11 3.2.0 The Brand Voice 12 3.3.0 Knowledge 13 3.4.0 Diagnosis and Investigation (remote support) 13 3.5.0 Diagnosis and Investigation (on-site support) 14 3.6.0 Miscellaneous 15 1 Introduction If you are an Apple user, you are probably aware of their technical support service, 'The Genius Bar.' A very friendly one, I must say. Many users hailed their program for its personalized customer service. Hundreds of Apple stores later, however, customers couldn’t stop complaining about the distressing service they offer. Scaling customer service quality is hard, even for a giant like Apple. Every exponential growth in a startup’s journey brings new customers and customer service requests, resulting in a decline in support quality: long wait times, impersonal service, and inefficient processes. A quality assurance program ensures your customer service experience doesn’t go from stellar to second-rate level as Apple did in the past. Ultimately, it helps you standardize good customer service practices as you grow from 5 to 100 or even up to 1,000 customer service representatives. 1.0 Quality Assurance in Customer Service Quality assurance (QA) in customer service is the continuous process of reviewing customer service interactions with the goal of delivering high-quality support. Quality customer support could mean different things to different businesses, but in general, it includes: using the right tone and word choice/language, acting in accordance with protocols, and solving customer problems efficiently. Quality assurance ensures these goals are achieved consistently and helps detect any inefficiencies in the process. 2 1.1 Three Ways Customer Service Quality Assurance Helps Scaling Businesses Over time, quality assurance helps you: a. Improve both team and individual performance proactively. Unfriendliness, long wait times, and ill-trained customer service representatives are common causes of poor customer service. Quality assurance helps prevent these by identifying where they occur in customer interactions, helping teams avoid the same mistakes again. b. Deliver great customer service at scale. Delivering consistent, quality support should be a top priority for growing businesses, as it influences customer loyalty. Well-structured quality assurance reviews allow you to benchmark good support practices—the ideal tone representatives should adopt, the most efficient resolution times they can achieve without sacrificing quality, and the tools they should use to be more productive. As you onboard new reps to meet growing support needs, you can use these as guidelines to train them. This ensures your support quality remains uniform and brand-focused. c. Boost employee morale Happy representatives are more likely to feel empowered to solve customers’ issues. They’re also more likely to stay with your organization. Quality assurance is a good way to keep agents motivated. Discussing quality assurance results with agents weekly or monthly helps them see the areas where they need improvement and where they have made progress. 3 Furthermore, when managers conduct quality assurance reviews, they can identify instances of great customer service and reward agents. This improves morale and encourages them to do better. Ultimately, a quality assurance program is good for your team, customers, and, most especially, your business. 1.2 Quality Assurance Checklist for Managers and/or QA Specialists A QA checklist can be a great resource as you try to scale customer service quality. It ensures you don’t leave out critical aspects of quality customer support when creating a questionnaire for your scorecard. There are various support criteria around the pillar framework, which specifies quality customer support comprising: a. soft skills (e.g., grammar, spelling, and brand voice) b. issue resolution (e.g., effectiveness and product knowledge) c. procedure (e.g., productivity and compliance with processes) We will learn more about this as we review the rubric in the succeeding chapter. 4 Brand Voice and Brand Tone Now that we understand the importance of Quality Assurance in customer service, let’s talk about Brand Voice and Brand Tone. These two, including writing style, are the extension of any business. A customer who feels connected to a brand is often loyal to that brand. That can result in repeat sales and word-of-mouth recommendations. This means you’ll need to spend less time and money on acquiring fresh customers—and convincing them to convert. 2.0 What is Brand Voice? Brand Voice is how a brand/company presents itself to the world. It must be unique and consistent through all its communications, including social media, email, website, customer support, etc. This usually creates “irrational loyalty” when done right. Just like the personality of a close friend or acquaintance, a compelling brand voice feels as unique as the business it belongs to. Irrational Loyalty: a condition where people are so bonded to your brand/business that they feel like they are cheating on you should they go with something or someone else. 2.1 Tone: What is it and how is it different from Brand Voice? That’s simple. Brand Voice: It is our company’s personality. It is consistent across all channels and doesn’t change. 5 Brand Tone: It is the emotional response of our brand voice. We align it with the situation we are communicating or writing about. It shows that we understand our client is feelings and can empathize appropriately. 2.2 Brand Voice Examples Ford Proud and exclusive. Expensive products or services with a long history of development and rich heritage, like Ford, for example, can afford to use a tone of voice that speaks of their exclusivity and pride for themselves. ​ Nike A positive, friendly, inspiring, motivating, and leadership tone is the choice of Nike, as well as the millions of customers of this brand who share its values. 6 2.3 Care Brand Voice & Tone Enough with the other brands. What about OUR brand? Hitplay Technologies Inc. has been in the AV industry for years, but many companies are doing what we are doing. That said, how are we any different from them? Honestly, service and product-wise, it’s not a big difference. However, one thing is for sure, we are one of the crowd’s favorites at dinner parties. We like to turn one simple moment into a memorable one and one unfamiliar guest into a friend. In other words, we speak like experienced and compassionate business partners we wish we’d had way back when. 2.3.1 Brand Voice Simple Many brands lead customers down confusing purchase paths, but here at hitplay, we simplify and personalize the route. Smart We are driven and committed to everything we do, including setting targets and objectives that will make progress much smoother. Customer-focused Polished and professional, that’s what we are. One of our goals is to achieve high standards in everything we do and every interaction with our clients. It is less about WHAT we do and more about HOW we do it. 7 2.3.2 Tone As mentioned, we use the same voice all the time, but our tone changes, depending on the emotional state of the person we are talking to. We might use one tone when we’re out to dinner with our friends and a different tone when we're in a meeting with our boss at work. You wouldn’t want to use the same tone of voice with someone who’s scared or upset as you would with someone who is laughing. Confident Our team is the hitplay’s frontline warriors. Therefore, we want our clients to put their full trust in us. To achieve that, we must be confident in everything we do as this affects our communication. Think of it as though you’re arming yourself before a battle. Cordial The digital landscape today is overcrowded. No matter how great our products are, if we don’t treat our clients as real human beings, we won’t be able to establish a long-term relationship with them. No client forgets customer support that made them smile despite having a not-so-good day. Analytical We may be the frontline warriors, but we can only know so much on the basis of visual representation. This is why it’s very important to be analytical. We must be able to collect, visualize, and analyze information in great detail. 8 Empathetic When we are empathetic, we can better understand what our clients are actually saying (and not saying) and be in a better position to help solve their issues. Also, remember that feeling understood is one of the basic human needs. We won’t be able to build strong client relationships without actually connecting with them. 9 Rubric 3.0 What is a Rubric? A rubric, also known as a scorecard, is a scoring guide that is used to evaluate customer support performance. This also gives clients a better sense of how our team is doing relative to company standard guidelines. 3.1.0 The Basics 3.1.1 Did the agent use proper salutations? ● We always want the client to feel that we are happy to help them. Appreciating the fact that they took the time to reach out to us seems small, but it says a lot. ● Don’t forget to address the client by their first name. Introduce yourself properly, only if necessary. It makes the interaction more personalized and is another step in being relatable. 3.1.2 Did the agent use proper sentence formation, correct spelling, and correct grammar? ​ ● Incorrect Formatted Sentences and Paragraphs ● Missing/incorrect placement of punctuations that may cause confusion/miscommunication ● Misspelled words ● Run-on sentences ● Incorrect tenses of verbs 10 3.1.3 Did the agent attach the relevant document to the email successfully (if necessary)? ● Double-check the file you’re attaching to your email. That’s something the client needs to review as soon as possible. 3.1.4 Did the agent avoid informal speech, phrases, and jargon? ● We are lucky that we get to connect with the IT/tech department of our clients, which makes our communication multiple times easier. However, half the time, clients also like to connect with us directly. Therefore, we want to make sure to use language that is easy to understand for non-tech people/audiences. ● We must remain polished and professional always. Steer away from using interjections such as “OMG” or “Yup!” 3.2.0 The Brand Voice 3.2.1 Did the agent maintain a positive reflection of the brand/product/company? ● We don’t want to strain any relationships we have built with our clients. If you think you’re having a difficult conversation with the client, never hesitate to ask for advice from your manager. ● Whenever you find yourself struggling with a particular ticket or client, always think about how you would want to be addressed if you were in their shoes. ● We may be in the tech industry, but that doesn’t mean we don’t value human connections. 3.2.2 Did the agent create a personalized customer response that was applicable to the customer’s inquiry? ● We tend to brush off the little things our clients include in their emails. We’re not robots, so go and respond to them/give them good-day wishes. 11 3.2.3 Did the agent use the correct tone and apply proper empathy? ● Read carefully. Doing this will ensure that you understand the client clearly and avoid miscommunication. You’ll also be able to pick up helpful clues about how they’re feeling about our company’s service through their tone of voice and word choice. ● No matter how frustrating the situation can be, steer clear of judgment and remember that we all know what it feels like to be on the other side. ● Remember that clients who contact us have probably tried everything else themselves already. As customer support, you are their last hope before they give up—maybe on their problem, and maybe on your company—which is why it is extremely important that your customers feel cared for. Follow up with them if needed. 3.3.0 Knowledge 3.3.1 Did the agent exhibit the proper knowledge to solve the client’s inquiry? ● This includes a. You were able to establish the root of the issue and keep the issue from progressing any further. (remote support) b. You were able to get to the bottom of the issue and then educate the client about the next steps. (on-site support) 3.3.2 Did the agent set proper expectations for the client? ​ ● If we are to dispatch a technician, make sure to give the client their estimated time of arrival. ● If you need to check something on your end, make sure to inform the customer when they should expect an update from you. For example, “I’ll send the quote within the day.” ● If there’s anything in the quote that you think the client would be confused about, educate them proactively. ● Above all else, make sure to NOT over-promise. Align your expectations with reality. When their perceptions stay in accordance with the expectations that they actually have, we stand a good chance to meet and exceed their set expectations. 12 3.4.0 Diagnosis and Investigation (remote support) 3.4.1 Did the agent demonstrate effective question-asking and discovery to fully diagnose and understand the issue? ​ ● This means you fully understood the issue of the customer’s concern and how to properly solve it. ● We can guide them by exploring the internet, and say, the issue is not that critical. If not, make sure to gather as much information as possible about the symptoms. This will guide you in deciding what next step to take. 3.4.2 Did the agent propose a resolution aligned to the issue and eventually eliminate the root cause that may progress the issue further? ● We can provide some troubleshooting steps like rebooting the device, checking all the physical connections, and trying to collect as much information as possible. 3.5.0 Diagnosis and Investigation (on-site support) 3.5.1 Did the agent demonstrate effective question-asking and discovery to fully diagnose and understand the issue? ​ ● The investigation process is just the same as how we investigate things remotely. However, for Ad-hoc clients, we need to make a quick judgment call about the nature of the issue. Most of the time, we do send any available technician on-site as there is still a tendency for such clients to pay for physical visits easily rather than helping them on a call. 3.5.2 Did the agent take the standard steps in scheduling a technician to address the problem on-site? ● Create a quote and have the client review it. Once approved, we will explore a resolution, depending on the symptoms. Sometimes, the issue can be solved by our stock knowledge about the AV system, and we do not need to explore the internet. 13 ● Once we have deployed the system, the first step will be finding out the system documents we have, like AVIT sheets, system line diagrams, architectural drawings, etc. Then, verify the UX document or final commissioning document if we have written some specific notes for the particular space. 3.6.0 Miscellaneous 3.6.1 Internal Notes: Let’s make sure to leave thorough summary reports, including resolution deatails. 3.6.2 Handling Time: This depends on the SLA we have on the client care contracts. 3.6.2.1 Service Workflow - Issue Reported by a client (based on Priority Level 1 Platinum SLA) 14 3.6.2.2 Service Workflow - Issue Reported by a client (based on Priority Level 2 Gold SLA) 3.6.2.3 Service Workflow - Issue Reported by a client (Basic - Priority L4) 3.6.3 Ticket Status: Don’t forget to fill out the necessary field on the ticket. 15