Customer Service: Putting Sugar to Work to Create Loyal Customers

We all know what a bad support experience feels like: the humorous, yet entirely too relatable, issues with IVR's that somehow ends with you banging your phone against your forehead. Or when you get transferred to three different people and are asked to repeat your problem three different times.

Yet, what about a good support experience? 

• A good support experience is when you’re not asked to repeat yourself.
• A good support experience is personalized.
• A good support experience is streamlined and fast.
• A good support experience is when your support rep can anticipate why you’re calling or proactively reach out. 
• A good support experience is finding a solution in the manner you prefer. Maybe you’re not a big phone person - I get it. 

The Journey to the Perfect Support Experience

I’ve had decades of experience in support, on both the customer side and the agent side. Taking over as General Manager of Sugar Serve, our flagship customer service solution, was an exciting opportunity for me to apply that knowledge and attempt to perfect creating a tool that could drive those positive experiences again and again. 

How to Pull it Off

If you’re wondering how to put customer service at the top of your to-do list, the first step is finding the tools that will enable your support reps to deliver on your promises.

Don’t take it from me.  Take it from BackCountry, a loyal Sugar customer: “My advice to any company, regardless of size, is to select the tool that will not only meet the foundational and stability elements you need right now, but also allow you to grow beyond that,” says Chris Purkey, Backcountry’s VP of Sales and Customer Service.

How It Comes Full Circle

Remember those descriptors I gave above of what a good customer service experience looks like? Personalized, streamlined, fast, informed, omni-channel, proactive. See how Backcountry does just that using Sugar:

• Informed: “Our tool gives Gearheads a 360-degree view of each customer. We can pull in their size and fit preferences, wish list, order history and activity in our community into the tool. Every indirect or direct action from a customer is a ‘hand raise’ — and we want to know about it. With the alerts we’ve set up in our CRM, if a customer is connected with a Gearhead and they do anything with our brand, the Gearhead is notified," says Purkey.
• Proactive: “Gearheads serve as advocates to not only support their customers’ needs but to anticipate them. “They’ll leave you a voicemail to find out how those shoes worked out. They’ll proactively give you gift recommendations because they remember that it's your significant other's birthday next month. A Gearhead will even just check in to see how your recovery after knee surgery is going,” says Purkey. “Look for authentic touchpoints to follow-up, add value and have a meaningful engagement, not just make a sale,” explains Purkey.
• Personalized: “Gearheads take the time to get to know their customers, uncovering their pursuits and goals. The trick for doing that across the 4,000 customers they have relationships with is that we’ve added in functionality for Gearheads to leave notes and schedule follow-up calls on an account so they can build out reminders based on their conversations to help anticipate needs,” states Purkey.

Results That Warm My Heart

For companies like Backcountry, it might even end in a life-long relationship with your desktop agent - and a wedding invitation. Read more here!

But make no mistake - we drink our own Kool-Aid here at Sugar. As users of our own product, it warms our heart to receive sweet hand-written notes from 7-year loyal customer Corvus Janitorial. 

Corvus Janitorial Systems  provides franchising opportunities in the janitorial services industry and has seen a lot of growth over the past year. They are committed to their mission of Making Lives Better, and Sugar helps them achieve this.  “Without Sugar, we would not have been able to keep up with the new demands in the cleaning industry,” says Valerie Conaway, Sugar administrator for her team. “Support has been critical in helping us help our team, and I wanted to be sure they heard that from us!”

So, what are you waiting for? 

The perfect support experience is possible - all you need is the right tool.