We’ve all been there – you need something fixed urgently and instead of answers you get put on hold by a robot voice and have to listen to annoying elevator style music. Now imagine being put on hold while you watch a sale walk out the door. Not great support at all.
Unfortunately, due to the nature of life and its mysterious ways, things sometimes go wrong. But here at Yoco we asked ourselves – when this happens, how can we ensure that our customer is assisted in the quickest and most effective way possible?
Chief Neo is incredibly passionate about making sure our merchants receive the highest level of service possible (he has been known to drive to Hermanus on a weekend to help fix an issue). We chatted to him to get more insight into what customer support at Yoco is all about. Here’s what he had to say.
Why are we so serious about support?
As a small business owner, you can’t afford to have a day where your card transactions aren’t working. Every sale is crucial and a sale failing should not be something you have to worry about, on top of all your other responsibilities.
At Yoco we have turned around the traditional inbound support model to include us reaching out to our merchants when they are experiencing issues, before they reach out to us. We want to be proactive in ensuring their business runs as smoothly as possible.
Yoco understands that card payments are a big part of me intaking money - a big part of my success. Dealing with a personal service provider that appreciates urgency and immediacy really makes a difference.
While we strive to be proactive, we also make it as easy as possible for merchants to reach us by calling our support line (between 9am and 10pm daily), messaging us from inside the Yoco Point of Sale App, emailing, using our Yoco Help Centre or contacting us on Facebook.
Tools and innovation
Using the following tools have helped us to innovate and be able to reach out to customers as soon as possible when they are experiencing issues. As far as we know, we are the first South African company to use this support model. Here’s how we do it:
Slack – for real time access to information
Using Slack, we can monitor our merchants’ transactions in real time assist them immediately. If your transactions are not processing correctly, we don’t reach out to try and help you a day or two later – it’s right then and there.
Bria – for assisting over the phone
Bria allows us to make calls to customers over wifi, using our laptops or phones. It’s really handy because we can import all contacts from other apps like Intercom, so if we need a phone number we can search by person or business name. The name of the merchant also pops up when they are calling us, so we can give them that personal welcome.
Intercom – for instant communication
Intercom allows us to chat via the Yoco App, email, Facebook or a chat function on our website. Conversations are all stored in a central place so they can be allocated to any team member who may be able to assist with the query or issue.
I was absolutely amazed at the service I got and especially at that time of night. Service like that can really boost someones confidence.
It also stores all previous conversations that anyone in Yoco has had with a specific person, allowing us to get a full communication history at the click of a button.
The Admin Portal – for a deep dive into any business
This is our database of all businesses using Yoco. If a certain merchant has a problem we can easily see their exact issue, and also a history of previous issues, to help us assist them better when we reach out to them.
Integrations – for awesomeness
The beautiful thing is that they all work together. All our tools talk to each other in real time so all information we need is available to us, as and when we need it.
The joy of helping someone’s business succeed
At the end of the day, it’s all about helping people succeed. Chief Neo’s dedication, along with the rest of the operations team, has bred a culture of doing all it takes to solve a problem. He recalls a day where he really felt as though he made a difference:
I flew to Joburg to help set up Danny Myburgh, an artist who sells her creations through her business DarlingArt. She wasn’t the most tech savvy person and while I took her though the product I realised just how simple and easy it is to use the card machine. She actually called me a few days later to say “this has changed my life”.
You might have noticed that we take the success of our customers quite seriously. We all strive every day to create an experience that simplifies the running of your business and makes your life easier – and perhaps even makes your day.
