Deserve Customer Care: An Expert Playbook for Building Support Your Customers Truly Merit

The business case for “deserve-level” customer care

Customers judge brands by how quickly, accurately, and empathetically issues are resolved. In Salesforce’s State of the Connected Customer (2024), 88% of consumers said the experience a company provides is as important as its products or services. That’s why world-class care isn’t a “nice to have”—it’s a primary driver of revenue retention and word-of-mouth growth.

Top-performing support organizations consistently publish their service standards, deliver on them, and quantify outcomes. Benchmarks you can aim for include customer satisfaction (CSAT) above 85%, first contact resolution (FCR) of 70% or higher, and an abandonment rate below 5% for real-time channels. These aren’t arbitrary numbers; they correlate with lower churn, higher expansion revenue, and reduced cost-to-serve over time.

Define “deserve” with measurable SLAs and outcomes

Translate the promise of great service into specific, time-bound service level agreements (SLAs) backed by data. A practical starting point is to set distinct targets per channel, publish them on your Help Center, and instrument them end-to-end in your ticketing/telephony stack. Keep SLAs focused on customer outcomes: speed to first human, time to resolution, and clarity of communication.

Here is a set of battle-tested targets for small-to-midscale teams that need to balance quality with cost. Adapt them by region, tier, and customer value, and revisit quarterly based on observed volume and effort.

• Voice: Answer 80% of calls within 20 seconds (the “80/20” standard), abandon rate under 5%, average handle time (AHT) 4–6 minutes, queue callback enabled after 2 minutes.
• Live chat / messaging: First response under 60 seconds, concurrent chats per agent 2–3 based on complexity, resolution within the same session for 70% of conversations.
• Email / web case: First response under 4 business hours (under 1 hour for premium tiers), resolution in 1 business day for 80% of cases.
• Social care: Triage in under 15 minutes during business hours, route sensitive issues to private channels within 10 minutes, public follow-up within 24 hours.
• Self-service: 30%+ of total demand deflected via a searchable knowledge base, with article helpfulness above 70% and a 90-day review cycle.

Tie SLAs to outcome metrics: CSAT per channel, FCR, customer effort score (CES), and reopened case rate. For example, if phone FCR is below 60%, favor deeper troubleshooting scripts over strict AHT targets; reducing recontacts by 10% typically yields a larger ROI than shaving 30 seconds off handle time.

Publish clear contact options, hours, and an escalation path

Customers deserve unambiguous, up-to-date contact information. Centralize it in one place and keep it consistent everywhere. Use a short memorable URL and include channel availability, time zones, and any eligibility criteria (e.g., premium support). Avoid burying the phone number; instead, explain when a call is the best option (urgent billing holds, account lockouts, safety issues) and when chat or email is faster.

Example contact blueprint you can adapt and publish on your site: Support hub: https://support.example.com. Phone (US/Canada): +1-844-000-1234, 24/7 for Severity 1 incidents; otherwise 08:00–20:00 CT, Mon–Fri. Phone (UK): +44 20 3808 1234, 08:00–18:00 GMT, Mon–Fri. Phone (APAC): +65 3129 1234, 09:00–18:00 SGT, Mon–Fri. Messaging (WhatsApp): +1-555-017-9001, 24/5. Postal address for formal complaints: Customer Care, 123 Customer Way, Suite 200, Austin, TX 78701. These are examples; substitute your real coordinates and make them consistent across emails, invoices, and packaging.

Be precise about response expectations. For instance: “Email replies within 4 business hours” beats “We’ll get back to you soon.” If you offer different tiers, describe them plainly: “Priority support for Enterprise: 24/7 phone and chat, 60-minute response SLA for Sev-2.” Clarity reduces duplicate contacts, which lowers cost-to-serve and frustration simultaneously.

Staffing and forecasting: put math behind empathy

Reliable staffing starts with a forecast by channel and interval (typically 30 minutes). Use historical volume, seasonality, product release calendars, and marketing plans. Then translate forecasted contacts into workload hours: workload = contacts × AHT (in hours). Schedule to a target occupancy of 75–85% to protect quality and agent well-being; include shrinkage (paid time not on queue) of 25–35% for meetings, training, and PTO.

Illustrative calculation: Suppose you handle 10,000 contacts/month split across email 50% (AHT 8 min), chat 30% (AHT 6 min), phone 20% (AHT 8 min). That’s 5,000×8 = 40,000 minutes, 3,000×6 = 18,000 minutes, 2,000×8 = 16,000 minutes, totaling 74,000 minutes, or 1,233 workload hours/month. At 85% occupancy and 30% shrinkage, required scheduled hours = 1,233 / 0.85 / (1 – 0.30) ≈ 2,065 hours. With an 8-hour shift, you need about 258 agent shifts per month. Spread across 22 business days, that’s roughly 12 FTE on average, with extra coverage for peaks (often 1.4× daily average in B2C).

For real-time channels, use Erlang C or your WFM tool to size peak-interval staffing to hit the 80/20 target with abandonment under 5%. As a quick heuristic, if your peak hour sees 60 calls with 6-minute AHT (6 hours of workload), and you want answer times under 20 seconds with 85% occupancy, you’ll likely schedule 9–10 phone agents for that hour. Validate with your telephony analytics and adjust weekly.

Incident severity and guaranteed response/resolution times

Define severity levels based on customer impact and risk, then set response and resolution targets that reflect that impact. Train agents to classify consistently, and make it easy for customers to signal urgency on the intake form. Publish the policy so expectations are aligned before issues arise.

Use a crisp, four-tier model for most organizations. Include an on-call rotation for Sev-1 and a clear management escalation chain with named roles, not just departments. Add proactive status updates with specific cadences to reduce repeat contacts during incidents.

• Severity 1 (Critical, service down or safety risk): Initial human response within 15 minutes, updates every 30 minutes, mitigation within 4 hours, root cause analysis (RCA) in 5 business days. 24/7 coverage; phone escalation bridge available. Example on-call hotline: +1-555-013-0001.
• Severity 2 (High, major feature degraded or financial impact): Initial response within 1 hour, updates every 2 hours, resolution within 1 business day.
• Severity 3 (Medium, workarounds available): Initial response within 4 business hours, updates daily, resolution within 3 business days.
• Severity 4 (Low, informational or cosmetic): Initial response within 1 business day, resolution in 5–10 business days or included in the next planned release.

Tools, integrations, and realistic cost ranges

Choose a platform that unifies ticketing, telephony, and messaging; add quality assurance (QA), workforce management (WFM), and knowledge management (KM). Typical all-in software costs range from $30–$120 per agent per month for core ticketing/messaging, plus telephony usage ($0.008–$0.03 per minute in the US), SMS ($0.007–$0.02 per message), and AI add-ons ($0.001–$0.01 per assisted reply or classification). Budget $500–$1,500 per agent for initial enablement (training, shadowing, playbook creation) and ongoing QA at 5–10 graded contacts per agent per month.

Quantify ROI with simple math. If a live call costs $6–$12 and you deflect 1,000 contacts per month to self-service with a verified 70% success rate, you reduce live contacts by 700, saving roughly $4,200–$8,400 monthly. If your chatbot and KM stack cost $1,400 in licenses and usage that month, net savings are $2,800–$7,000, plus softer gains in CSAT and agent morale.

Continuous improvement and transparent reporting

Run a weekly operating cadence with a single dashboard: volume by channel and interval, SLA attainment, CSAT/CES, FCR, reopen rate, QA scores, top 10 contact drivers, and cost per contact. Set control limits and alert when metrics drift (e.g., chat first response above 90 seconds for three consecutive intervals). Pair quantitative trends with qualitative insights from conversation analysis and frontline feedback.

Close the loop with customers. Publish release notes that show which common issues have been fixed, update articles within 48 hours of a new FAQ emerging, and email impacted customers when a systemic problem is resolved. A small “We heard you” program—two outreach messages per month tied to specific fixes—can lift CSAT by 3–5 points and reduce repeat contacts by 8–12% within a quarter.

How do I contact care credit card customer service?

(866) 893-7864
CareCredit Cardholders: Call (866) 893-7864
from 8:00am – 12:00 midnight (EST).

Does Mastercard have 24-7 customer service?

We’re ready to help.
Call us 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and we’ll connect you with a representative who speaks your language, and can help with: Lost or stolen cards. Emergency replacement cards. Emergency cash advances.

Is deserve credit card legit?

The Deserve® EDU Mastercard for Students is a good first-time credit card because it is available to people with limited credit and it offers rewards, giving 1% cash back. The card’s annual fee is $0. Responsible use also builds credit, as the Deserve EDU Card reports account info to the major credit bureaus monthly.

Who is the CEO of deserve credit card?

Kalpesh Kapadia
I couldn’t be more excited to bring our technology to Intuit, a global leader in financial solutions, where we will have a significant impact on consumers and businesses,” said Kalpesh Kapadia, Co-Founder and CEO of Deserve.