How To Improve Technical Customer Service

The development of high-tech sales is characterised by three factors. These consist of a shorter product life cycle, more complex products, and a differentiated product offer. Technical customer care must lend support to the field sales department in the pre-sales phase, take care of customers in the after-sales phase, and help with any technical problems which arise later on. In spite of the best sales training, you cannot expect the sales department to be able to control all technologies and uses of a high-tech product perfectly. Technical customer care has therefore become a type of "background sales representative", which takes on at least as many sales activities as technical activities. This double function, however, can create problems in practice:

Salespeople feel that they are not receiving enough support from the client care department.

Orders are lost as a result of a lack of sales training of the technical client care department.

According to several studies on the subject, these points of friction usually arise from the following causes:

a comparatively high staff turnover in the technical client care department,

the fact that experienced client care employees are looking to change to another position within the company,

the low level of job satisfaction felt by many employees in the client care department and

the poor level of qualifications of employees in the client care department as a result of the high staff turnover rate.

This means that the field sales department is unable to sell complex products aggressively enough, because of the lack of support from the client care department and a sense of insecurity. It is usually these products (complex products) which are the most profitable, however.

The following five points will help to improve your technical client care:

1. Improve the sales training given to your technical client care team

Concentrate on the expectations the field sales department has of the technical client care department.

Spell out to the employees of the client care department what concrete contributions they can make to ensure client satisfaction and thereby the company's success.

Motivate the employees into keeping the promises they have made to clients and into being punctual.

2. Give more responsibility to the technical client care department

Shorten the deadlines given to prepare technical offer documents.

Place the employees under an obligation to support the field sales department.

Make the improvement of your technical client care a priority, in order to emphasize its importance.

Shorten the time it takes your technical client care department to react to client demands.

Obligate your technical client care department to keep you constantly informed of technical changes and problems.

Give the technical client care department more time to inform and train the field sales department.

3. When recruiting client care employees, bear social skills in mind

The most able technician is worth nothing if they are unfriendly to clients.

Only technicians with good social skills will get on well with your salespeople on a long-term basis.

4. Give your client care employees more responsibility

Draw up clear guidelines regarding which decisions can be taken on the spot when visiting the client.

Motivate your qualified employees by asking for suggested improvements and by allowing the employees to implement these themselves.

Incorporate client care managers into your client care and staff planning.

5. Enhance the status of your technical client care department

Offer prizes for particularly successful client care employees, as you do for your own salespeople.

Include client care employees in your sales commission scheme if they are involved in supporting the field sales department.

Give your technical client care department more prestige within the company by emphasizing the contribution it makes to sales success.

Offer more attractive career opportunities within the technical client care department, such as positions abroad.

In summary, the quality of technical client care is becoming increasingly important for a company's success. Some enlightened companies recognize this and are starting to send their technical client care staff on the same sales training programmes as their sales department colleagues.