There’s a New Top Driver of Customer Satisfaction for Global Software

Knowledge is King of Software Tech Support.

2023 is off to a fast start. To make sure you don’t fall behind, let’s talk about the satisfaction driver that every tech support leader needs to have on their radar now: Knowledge of the Representative.

What Does “Knowledge of the Representative” Mean, and Why Should it Be Your Focus?

“Knowledge of the Representative” refers to the customer’s perception of the representative’s ability to understand any particular issue fully, apply insights to solve that issue fully and explain the solution fully. When it comes to tech support calls for B2B software companies, users are demanding that the representative be knowledgeable and deliver the right solution to solve the customer’s problems.

The reason this satisfaction driver is critical to focus on now, is that it has taken a sizable leap in importance for customers when it comes to software tech support calls. Pre-pandemic, this driver sat in the #4 spot, but current research shows a 32% increase in importance of “Knowledge of the Representative,” a larger gain than any other driver, moving it into the #1 spot for customers:

What’s Behind This Surge in Importance?

When we see large swings in importance weights like we have here, it indicates that there is a big difference emerging in the marketplace around the performance of organizations in this area, and we have to ask why some are doing well and some are doing poorly.

Our assessment is that the pandemic, the move to work-from-anywhere, the great resignation and subsequent cost-containment moves made more recently have combined to increase rep attrition and lower the net-effectiveness of many tech support resources working for organizations who didn’t invest appropriately.

What Should You Do About It?

In 2023, there are two broad areas to focus on: agent retention and effective use of “agent-assist technology.”  Leaders should prioritize hiring the right talent through top-performer modeling and achieve higher representative retention rates by focusing on developing the supervisor skill-set to improve the meaningfulness of the representative’s work life, which is the best way to improve retention. Combining longer-tenured reps with the utilization of agent-assist technology to help reps identify the problem, effectively research the problem, effectively solve the problem, and effectively explain the solution will yield an advantage for service providers over competitors who either can’t or won’t. 

About the Author: Mark Miller is the Customer Service Advisory Practice Leader at J.D. Power, and helps organizations improve customer satisfaction in less time and at lower costs.

If you’re not sure how you’re performing against the performance drivers most important to your customers, or if you want an insider’s look at the best practices high performing tech support organizations are using to excel, contact our team today >

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