When you run an events platform, you will undoubtedly face a ton of support load. Since you’re the mediator, you will have to provide support for both the event Organizers and the Attendees. In this article, we will discuss how you can give the best customer support on your events platform.
What are the Common Customer Issues on Event Platform?
Providing customer support for an events platform can be a painful task, especially if you are selling tickets.
Common Issues on Tickets and Bookings
Issues mainly arise when there are conditions and restrictions like,
- Limitations on Bulk Bookings – limit to maximum number tickets that can be booked
- Ticket Cancellation may not be available
- There could be Cut-Off Time for booking tickets
- Age Restrictions on adult events – attendees may need to bring IDs to be permitted
- When Additional Charges may be applied
- People may not understand your Refund Policy
- When the ticket isn’t available
People who are interested in buying the tickets to the event will have doubts before buying the tickets. Only when their doubts are clarified, they will be able to book the tickets.
Common Issues with Organizers
When a new event organizer visits your platform for the first time, they could have many questions such as,
- How to post an event on your platform?
- What information should be included on the event page?
- What to do when an event is cancelled?
- Event will be directly published on the front end or admin will approve it?
Making sure that your customers get the answers to these questions is critical for the success of your events platform.
Why Support Critical for an Event Platform?
Provide the best support for both parties, the event organizers and the attendees is a must if you want to run a smooth business.
When you provide excellent support for the organizers, you will earn their loyalty and also attract more organizers to post more events on your events platform. If the number of events listed on your website does not increase, you cannot expect more people to come to your platform.
When you provide quality support for the attendees, it improves customer satisfaction, which will get the word out. You would gain more public attention towards your site and will grow in popularity.
How to Provide the Best Customer Support on an Event Platform?
You can do various things to give quality support to your customers. The most important thing to do is to simply and optimize your events platform. In this way you are eliminating the need for the customers to contact support.
And then you can organize how support queries are handled, so that customers get quick replies. Let’s see the steps,
1) Streamlining the Process on your Platform
The best way to customer support is to reduce the chances of customers having to contact support. When you have a streamlined process for events listing and management, it will automatically reduce the customer support queries that you have to deal with.
Every step of the process has to be streamlined, taking into account the different kinds of users who will use your events platform. To do this, you need to use the best tool to create an events platform.
WP Event Manager is the best tool for creating a WordPress event management website. This plugin makes it easy to streamline the whole events listing and ticket booking process.
2) Creating an Effective FAQ page
When we say an FAQ page, it might sound very simple, but it is very significant. The FAQ page is the second most visited page on a website after the Home / Services page. An effective FAQ page should have precise answers to the customers most nagging questions. It should be in a simple language so that the customers get a clear cut idea of your business operation.
For example, let’s say that tickets cannot be cancelled on your events platform. If you mention it clearly on your FAQ page, it will stop doubtful customers from booking the tickets. Later, you will not have to deal with an angry customer who wants a refund.
Helpie FAQ plugin is the best WordPress FAQ plugin to create effective FAQ pages which help you to answer your customer’s most nagging questions.
3) Providing Self-Help Articles
A customer knowledge base with well-written help articles is critical for an events platform. Customers will have so many questions like the questions we mentioned earlier. They will first search for answers themselves before calling or emailing for support. They will contact you for help only when they can’t find the answers themselves.
Note that some may leave your platform even without contacting the support. Most of the times, customers questions are repetitive or similar. You would be repeating the same answers many times.
So when you create a knowledge base portal for answering all of your customer’s common questions (both organizers and attendees), it will greatly help your customers. Also, your support load will be greatly reduced. Helpie Knowledge Base plugin is the best WordPress knowledge base plugin for creating a customer self-help portal.
You can also link the relevant help-articles on the FAQs, so that customers can read the elaborate answers.
4) Creating Separate Support Channels
If you handle all the queries on a single email, it will be tough to manage. I’m sure you will not be able to give the best support. You could even end up messing the full support process.
The final part but a vital part of customer support for an events platform is that you need to have separate support channels for different departments.
Notably, support for financial transactions like unsuccessful transactions, refunds, etc., has to be handled separately with more care.
The other queries, like general questions, event cancellation, etc., should be handled on another channel. So it is essential to categorize the support queries and manage them on different channels.
You could also have separate support emails for organizers and attendees.
5) Create an emotional connection with your customers
You’ve heard the phrase “it’s not what you say; it’s how you say it”?
Well, the best customer experiences are achieved when a member of your team creates an emotional connection with a customer.
Customers become loyal when they are emotionally attached and they remember how they feel when they use a product or service. A business that optimizes for an emotional connection outperforms competitors by 85% in sales growth.
6) Listen
Listening is one of the simplest secrets of customer service. It means hearing what your customers are saying out loud, as well as what they are communicating non-verbally. Watch for signs that they are displeased, while listening to what they say to you directly.
If you follow these steps, I’m sure you will be able to give the best customer support for your events website. When your audience is happy with your service, your business will be a success.
