How to Respond to Customer Support Emails Faster and More Efficiently
The short answer: The best way to reduce the amount of time you spend responding to emails is with a text expander app like aBreevy8.
The long answer: Look, if you're in the customer support business like I am, you know all too well how often it seems like three quarters of the time, you're really just answering some variation of the same dozen or so questions over and over again, right? Which, of course, results in you having to type out some variation of the same exact answers to those same exact questions... over and over again.
Is it the worst thing in the world? Of course not! It's our job to help people out. It may be monotonous at times, but we're in a position to help people, and we do it every day, and I think customer support agents are highly underappreciated.
But sometimes it sure feels like it's more work responding to those emails than it needs to be, doesn't it? Especially if you're dealing with, say, more than just a handful of emails a day, or the questions and inquiries that you respond to require a verbosity that's on the higher end than average. Even more so if you're juggling several responsibilities at once! (For example, I'm both a software developer as well as the primary customer support agent for my company.)
So the question then becomes: how can we make this process more efficient? Who doesn't enjoy being more efficient, right? Time saved is money earned. (Or I think the saying goes something like that.)
One option is to keep a list of common responses in a text file, find what you're looking for, and then copy and paste it into the body of your email as necessary.
But, let's face it, that only gets you so far. What happens when your list gets larger than a few common responses? And even if the list is small, it still takes you out of your workflow. You need to minimize the app you're typing in, look for the file, open it, scroll to where you need to be, highlight the correct section... you get the idea. There's gotta be something better.
Obviously, typing faster is another option. I mean, duh. But that only gets you so far. Sorry, even the fastest typers (is that a word? typists? I'm not sure, ha) in the world aren't typing out paragraphs in under a second. It's just not happening! And if they were, I'd be worried about their fingers and wrists! We've all heard about carpal tunnel, RSI / repetitive strain injuries, which can be exacerbated by typing on computer keyboards unfortunately.
There is one other option though: what if instead of typing out entire emails, you could just type a few letters, and POP! - an entire email response gets typed out for you automatically in the blink of an eye? Impossible, right?
Wrong! Ever heard of AutoCorrect in Microsoft Word? Well guess what, you can now use that feature in any app with the help of our text replacement app, aBreevy8!
Here's how it works: say, for example, one of your most asked questions is:
Hey, I'm having trouble logging into my account, can you help me?
So in aBreevy8, all you'd have to do is:
Click New aBreevy8tion.
Enter whatever you'd like to type instead of that long, detailed response. For this example, how about .log?
Enter the Replacement Text and fill it with your typical response when someone has an issue logging in. The length can be however long you need it to be - a sentence, a paragraph, heck, even an essay!
As an example, you could put: Hey, sure, so sorry you're having issues, I'm sure we can get this resolved very quickly for you! There are a few ways we can go about solving this, but first I'll need some more information to know exactly what's going on and what you've tried so far. Are you receiving any error messages? Have you tried resetting your password, or using our "Forgot Username/Password" link? Please try that first, then let me know how it goes!
Here's how that would look in aBreevy8's interface:
Click Save, and now, guess what? Any time someone asks a question related to login issues, all you need to do is type .log (in any app, by the way) and aBreevy8 will instantly and automatically replace it with your canned response.
Sound too good to be true? It's not. And, of course, you're not limited to shortening responses about login issues. You can aBreevy8 anything you like. As I always like to tell people: if you type it more than once in your lifetime, you can aBreevy8 it, and save a ton of time in the process! (There's literally no learning curve - if you can type and move a mouse, you can figure out aBreevy8 in seconds.)
Anyway, that's all for now. I hope this post results in your workflow instantly becoming that much more productive and makes your life easier. Have questions, comments, or just want to say hello? Send us an email and we'll do our best to respond within a couple of hours (sometimes within minutes), or at the very latest within one business day.
Take care,
Patrick