Ways To Optimize Customer Service Workflow For Speed

Let’s say your support center is getting hammered with repeat calls about a new product feature. Historically, the team would escalate, create a task force, and maybe update a knowledge base weeks later. With the tech available today, you should be able to unify signals from tickets, chat logs, and social mentions instead. This helps you quickly interpret the root cause. Perhaps in this case it's a confusing update screen that’s triggering the same questions. Instead of just sharing the feedback with the task force that'll take weeks to deliver something, galvanize leaders and use your tech stack to orchestrate a fix in real time. Don't have orchestration in that stack? Start looking into this asap. An orchestration engine canauto-suggest a targeted in-app message for affected users, trigger a proactive email campaign with step-by-step guidance, and update your chatbot’s responses that same day. Reps get nudges on how to resolve the issue faster, and managers can watch repeat contacts drop by a measurable percentage in real time. But the impact isn’t limited to operations. You energize the business by sharing these results in a company-wide standup and spotlighting how different teams contributed to the OUTCOME. Marketing sees reduced churn, operations sees lower cost-to-serve, and leadership sees a team aligned around outcomes instead of activities. If you want your AI investments to move the needle, focus on unified signals, real-time orchestration, and getting the whole business excited about customer outcomes....not just actions. Remember: Outcomes > Actions #customerexperience #ai #cxleaders #outcomesoveraction

Handle time is costly for contact centers. How do you cut it without crushing customer service? Here are 5 ways: 1. Fix your knowledge base Agents at one contact center couldn't answer 14% of customer questions. The knowledge base was outdated. Agents spent had to put customers on hold and search for information. Searching for answers = wasted time. 2. Prevent escalations One team identified the top 10 reasons calls were escalated from Tier 1 to Tier 2 support. Five of those call drivers were prevented by sharing more information with Tier 1 agents. Escalated calls = wasted time. 3. Eliminate survey reminders Call center agents ended each call by asking customers to take a survey. It was awkward and time consuming. Removing the prompt saved 10 seconds per call. Survey prompting = wasted time. 4. Upgrade listening skills Active listening helps agents quickly understand customers' needs and how they want to be served. Help your agents develop their listening skills so they can serve customers faster. Poor listening = wasted time. 5. Reframe handle time Most contact centers measure time per call. A more accurate measure is time per issue. If a customer has to call back about the same problem, the handle time for THAT call should really count on top of the original one. One contact center leader found that adding 1 minute per call to solve the problem on the first try reduced their overall time per issue by 5 minutes. Second calls = wasted time. Bottom line: Use these tips to cut handle time without hurting customer service. ✍️ What else would you add to the list?

Yesterday I posted a case study on how we reduced a client's time to contract and invoice by 30% and saved them 5-7 hours per week. Here's exactly how: After posting this yesterday, I'm receiving a lot of messages asking how we did it. I thought I'd make a post about this. Here's exactly how we did it: First, we mapped out the process. Before working with us, the company relied on a fragmented and unreliable system. Their order-taking, contracting, and invoicing processes lacked automation, leading to delays, errors, and a poor experience for both their team and clients. Then we optimized it. We designed a fully integrated workflow that begins with a Typeform order form, which feeds directly into Monday and Airtable to manage requests, generate contracts, and track invoices with a Softr interface for easy access to order updates and relevant documents. Then we implemented. The new system helped the sales team save approximately 5-7 hours per week by streamlining client intake and ensuring name cohesion across tools. It also reduced the time it took to send invoices and contracts by about 30%. Finally, we optimized again after implementation. Key features include automated contract and invoice generation, real-time order tracking, and a client-facing portal built with Softr. All of which improved efficiency, accuracy, and the overall client experience. The result? A centralized, user-friendly experience that eliminated manual steps and improved operational efficiency. The takeaway: Don't just automate. Optimize first, then implement, then optimize again based on real usage. Follow me Luke Pierce for more automation case studies like this.