5 Tactics to Improve Customer Service Outcomes
Poor customer service costs businesses a great deal of money. Companies collectively lose billions every year because of slow response times, unresolved tickets, and weak support experiences.
The fix is not complicated. With the right structure and the right tools, support teams can turn customer service from a cost centre into a retention engine.
To pull together the most useful tactics, we hosted a webinar with Ruben, head of the customer service team at Animaker Inc., who shared his on-the-ground experience solving customer problems. Ruben covered customer service tips, team-building advice, and how Vmaker played a pivotal role in improving Animaker's support function.
If video is not your thing, here is a walkthrough of the five core points from the webinar.
Build empathy
Empathy is the number one thing customers expect from a support team.
Why empathy tops the list is obvious. Customers reach out because they have a problem and they need help solving it. The minimum response is to acknowledge that problem and listen.
To raise the empathy bar in your support team:
- Train reps to establish common ground before getting into the issue
- Build a question checklist so the team clearly understands the problem
- Set a clear timeline so the customer knows when to expect the next reply
- Resolve the issue early instead of dragging it to the deadline
Excerpt from the webinar:
"Empathy is very important. You need to first acknowledge the user, whatever the issue may be, big or small. This is to let them know that we're here to help them and solve the problem."
Avoid repeat work
Many customer queries hit the support team are common problems your team has already addressed before. There is no need to create new resources every time. Pull the answer from your database and send it to the customer.
That removes repeat work and shortens turnaround.
Easier said than done. To put a structure in place:
- Build a knowledge base for frequently asked questions
- Tag every answer with relevant keywords so agents can search fast
- Use a screen recording tool like Vmaker to record video answers to common questions. A short Loom-style video walkthrough lands better than a wall of text.
- Consider building reusable tutorial videos for the top 20 queries your team handles. One recording, infinite reuse.
Excerpt from the webinar:
"The best practice we follow at Animaker is having a database of frequently asked questions and tagging them with relevant keywords. So the next time an agent can search relevant keywords and link the answer straight to the user."
Fix response time
Response time is how long the support team takes to reply to a customer query. It is one of the most important factors in whether a customer sticks with your product. Roughly half of customers say they will not continue with a product if response times are slow.
What counts as a good response time depends on your business and the kinds of questions you receive. As a benchmark, here are some commonly cited numbers from large-sample support team studies:
- The average response time across support teams is around 12 hours and 10 minutes (which is very high)
- 88% of customers expect a reply within 60 minutes, and 30% expect a reply within 15 minutes or less
- Around 90% of companies do not even acknowledge that the email has been received
These numbers set the bar. Use them to gauge where your team currently sits and what to fix first.
Questions worth asking your team:
- Are we keeping customers waiting 12 hours before a response?
- What changes can the team make to reply within an hour?
- What procedure can we put in place to acknowledge customer emails immediately, even when we do not have a full answer ready?
For multilingual customer bases, auto-generated subtitles let you serve the same recorded explainer videos in 35+ languages, which cuts response time across regions without needing native-speaking agents for every market.
Excerpt from the webinar:
"We recommend our agents acknowledge the user even when they do not have a solution right at hand. It is important to let the customer know that someone will look into the issue, and to set the right expectations so the customer is not left hanging in the chat."
Measure the outcome
You have set a goal. You know the steps to improve customer service in your business. Now it is time to measure the results.
This step is a reality check on whether the plan is working, and what corrective steps you can take to get it back on track.
Ask for feedback
One of the strongest ways to gauge customer service quality is to ask your customers directly.
Asking is just the start. If you collect feedback only to make customers feel heard, you waste the opportunity. Take an active approach: acknowledge the feedback, send personalised replies, and act on the patterns you see.
One bitter truth: customers are more likely to leave feedback after a negative experience than a positive one. This should not discourage you from asking. Negative feedback is the best window into the gaps in your service. Take it in stride, work on it, and you will end up with a better support team.
A useful tactic for feedback collection: use video emails for follow-ups. A 30-second personal video from your support lead asking for feedback gets dramatically higher response rates than a plain-text "How did we do?" email.
Excerpt from the webinar:
"Negative feedback keeps coming all the time. What matters is how we look at it. At Animaker, we welcome negative feedback because we see it as a learning opportunity."
Top 3 KPIs for measuring customer service outcomes
There are many KPIs you can track. Here are the three that matter most.
1. Response Time
Response time measures how quickly your support team replies to a customer query. It is especially important for B2B support teams, where the customer base is smaller and each customer has more weight.
2. First Time Resolution (FTR)
FTR is the primary efficiency metric for a support team. A high FTR rate means most customer queries get resolved on the first contact. Even when individual call times go up, FTR drops the probability of the same customer calling back about the same problem, which is a strong indicator of a well-trained team.
3. Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)
Every business wants an active group of satisfied customers. Retaining existing customers is significantly cheaper than constantly chasing new ones.
CSAT is the metric that tells you whether you are succeeding at that. It is the true north for any support team. Every other number flattens if CSAT is nosediving.
Excerpt from the webinar:
"There are a lot of KPIs, but the two most important points we consider at Animaker are Response Time and First Time Resolution (FTR)."
Final words on customer service
Your customer service team is the front line. Customer queries, complaints, and feedback land here first. A weak support function is a leak in the business.
To plug that leak, build a strong support team. Train them to listen first and resolve quickly. Build a knowledge base so reps spend the minimum amount of time answering the same FAQs over and over. Use video where it lands better than text. The AI video editor lets your team produce polished response videos in minutes, not hours.
Once those foundations are in place, start measuring. Track response time, FTR, and CSAT. Run a quarterly feedback collection cycle. Take the negative feedback seriously, work on the patterns, and the team will compound over time.
If you enjoyed this customer service webinar, more deep-dive sessions are available on our YouTube channel.
Read more:
How Videos Can Help You Offer Personalised Support and Improve Customer Satisfaction
