Customer support immediately resolves customer challenges and pain points via phone, email, live chat, work orders, and social media.
When customers tell you they have a problem, they always initiate a customer support interaction. The most important reason to invest in your customer support team is to please your customers. Doing so is critical to the long-term success of your business - when you delight your customers, they are more likely to become loyal, long-term customers, advocate for you and attract new business.
Some other statistics that support the importance of customer support include
50% of people will switch to a competitor after a bad experience.
75% of customers are willing to spend more money to buy from a company that gives them a good customer experience.
78% of consumers will do business with a company again after making a mistake if the company's customer service is excellent.
93% of customers are likely to repurchase from a company that provides excellent customer service.
How customer support interacts with customer service and customer success
Customer support, service and success are all customer-facing teams that are critical to the prosperity and growth of your business - but these teams are often confused and interchanged.
Here's a quick breakdown of their definitions and differences.
Customer Service vs Customer Support
Customer service is more proactive than customer support. It's about saying to the customer, "I have something for you," rather than the customer saying, "I need something from you."
Whereas service representatives typically provide guidance to customers before they know they need help, support is about responding to customers' questions. When you provide both proactive and reactive service and support, you are acting as an advocate for their growth.
Customer Success and Customer Support
Customer success is doing things for customers they may not know they want or need. Customer service and support cannot exist without it because the only way to help customers succeed is to provide passive support and proactively lead them.
For example, a sales representative may up-sell or cross-sell by recommending other products or services to customers to complement what they have already purchased or to help them better meet their business needs and goals.
Customer Support Team Structure
Whether you're improving your existing customer support strategy or building a team from scratch, it's essential to recognize your team's structure.
The structure of your customer support team is essential because it will determine.
. How agile and well-informed your support team is.
. How well they support and delight customers.
. The extent to which your team can quickly scale as your company grows.
For these reasons, it's essential to start with or reassess the foundation of your team, and identifying your company's situation and customer needs is an excellent way to start. Then, you can consider what your customers most often request help with. Technical issues? Onboarding? Refunds and returns?
These factors may vary depending on your industry and the products you sell. Your answers will help you understand how to professionalize the smaller teams you create in your broader customer support organization.
What varies is the individual teams and what they specialize in and manage for your customers. For example, one of your teams could be responsible for onboarding, another could manage presentations, and another could be responsible for training. You can also assign different levels of complexity to each team - one can address general questions, one can answer technical questions, and one can be responsible for the most advanced queries.
How you create and assign these teams depends on you, what your customers need, and the responsibilities you post to your CSR.
Customer Support Responsibilities
Please note that responsibilities may look slightly different depending on your company and customer. Still, the following is a list of the most common activities that customer support representatives perform daily.
Answering customer calls
Responding to email requests and questions
Live chat on your website upon customer request.
Manage, sort, assign and process work orders in the customer support queue
Respond to social media comments, private messages and requests
Write, publish and share guidance, FAQs, blogs and knowledge-base content for customers who want to access your self-help support materials.
Assist customers with onboarding and training on how to use your products or services when they reach out
Manage all types of customer complaints, feedback and praise (and escalate when necessary)
Advise customers on company, product or service information as needed
Understand the inner and outer aspects of a product or service to provide adequate support
Upgrade, change or cancel accounts and subscriptions.
Suggest solutions for customers based on their specific needs and goals as they work to solve challenges
Work with clients until they feel their pain points have been resolved.
Provide long-term solutions to challenges that work (whenever possible)
Always act as a positive representative of your company's brand.
As you can see, your customer support staff handles many different tasks daily. These responsibilities and functions also span multiple channels.
Customer Support Channels
Today, it's essential to use omnichannel support because customers want to have the option to reach out to the channels they like best. The following list includes some of the most common customer support channels available today.
Phone: Every customer support team should be able to provide customers with the help they need through a phone support line managed by your CSR.
Email: Ensure your customer support team has a common email inbox where customers can send inquiries and questions for thoughtful, written responses.
Live Chat: Live chat will help your CSRs manage customer discussions through instant messaging on your website pages.
Social Media: Whether you use Twitter, Instagram, Facebook (or any other social platform), make sure your CSR checks direct messages, comments, and notifications for any inquiries that need a response. This can be simplified with the help of social media software.
Knowledge base and FAQs: If your business has a knowledge base containing FAQs, make sure your CSR updates it frequently, as you want the information to be as accurate, specific and valuable as possible to ensure customers can find answers to the challenges they face themselves.
Community: A customer-led community is where customers can share knowledge and experiences and learn from each other. If customers repeatedly mention specific challenges, have your support representatives look at what is being shared in the community for opportunities to provide support.
Work Orders: Your customers can submit work orders through your website (and your work order software), automatically queue up, and get the support they need from a representative when it's their turn.
When customers tell you they have a problem, they always initiate a customer support interaction. The most important reason to invest in your customer support team is to please your customers. Doing so is critical to the long-term success of your business - when you delight your customers, they are more likely to become loyal, long-term customers, advocate for you and attract new business.
Use customer support software which contains an efficient knowledge base, ticketing system and Live chat. Minimal cost to enhance customer experience.| BClinked
Rapid deployment, simple enough but effective customer support system
Some other statistics that support the importance of customer support include
50% of people will switch to a competitor after a bad experience.
75% of customers are willing to spend more money to buy from a company that gives them a good customer experience.
78% of consumers will do business with a company again after making a mistake if the company's customer service is excellent.
93% of customers are likely to repurchase from a company that provides excellent customer service.
How customer support interacts with customer service and customer success
Customer support, service and success are all customer-facing teams that are critical to the prosperity and growth of your business - but these teams are often confused and interchanged.
Here's a quick breakdown of their definitions and differences.
Customer Service vs Customer Support
Customer service is more proactive than customer support. It's about saying to the customer, "I have something for you," rather than the customer saying, "I need something from you."
Whereas service representatives typically provide guidance to customers before they know they need help, support is about responding to customers' questions. When you provide both proactive and reactive service and support, you are acting as an advocate for their growth.
Customer Success and Customer Support
Customer success is doing things for customers they may not know they want or need. Customer service and support cannot exist without it because the only way to help customers succeed is to provide passive support and proactively lead them.
For example, a sales representative may up-sell or cross-sell by recommending other products or services to customers to complement what they have already purchased or to help them better meet their business needs and goals.
Customer Support Team Structure
Whether you're improving your existing customer support strategy or building a team from scratch, it's essential to recognize your team's structure.
The structure of your customer support team is essential because it will determine.
. How agile and well-informed your support team is.
. How well they support and delight customers.
. The extent to which your team can quickly scale as your company grows.
For these reasons, it's essential to start with or reassess the foundation of your team, and identifying your company's situation and customer needs is an excellent way to start. Then, you can consider what your customers most often request help with. Technical issues? Onboarding? Refunds and returns?
These factors may vary depending on your industry and the products you sell. Your answers will help you understand how to professionalize the smaller teams you create in your broader customer support organization.
What varies is the individual teams and what they specialize in and manage for your customers. For example, one of your teams could be responsible for onboarding, another could manage presentations, and another could be responsible for training. You can also assign different levels of complexity to each team - one can address general questions, one can answer technical questions, and one can be responsible for the most advanced queries.
How you create and assign these teams depends on you, what your customers need, and the responsibilities you post to your CSR.
Customer Support Responsibilities
Please note that responsibilities may look slightly different depending on your company and customer. Still, the following is a list of the most common activities that customer support representatives perform daily.
Answering customer calls
Responding to email requests and questions
Live chat on your website upon customer request.
Manage, sort, assign and process work orders in the customer support queue
Respond to social media comments, private messages and requests
Write, publish and share guidance, FAQs, blogs and knowledge-base content for customers who want to access your self-help support materials.
Assist customers with onboarding and training on how to use your products or services when they reach out
Manage all types of customer complaints, feedback and praise (and escalate when necessary)
Advise customers on company, product or service information as needed
Understand the inner and outer aspects of a product or service to provide adequate support
Upgrade, change or cancel accounts and subscriptions.
Suggest solutions for customers based on their specific needs and goals as they work to solve challenges
Work with clients until they feel their pain points have been resolved.
Provide long-term solutions to challenges that work (whenever possible)
Always act as a positive representative of your company's brand.
As you can see, your customer support staff handles many different tasks daily. These responsibilities and functions also span multiple channels.
Customer Support Channels
Today, it's essential to use omnichannel support because customers want to have the option to reach out to the channels they like best. The following list includes some of the most common customer support channels available today.
Phone: Every customer support team should be able to provide customers with the help they need through a phone support line managed by your CSR.
Email: Ensure your customer support team has a common email inbox where customers can send inquiries and questions for thoughtful, written responses.
Live Chat: Live chat will help your CSRs manage customer discussions through instant messaging on your website pages.
Social Media: Whether you use Twitter, Instagram, Facebook (or any other social platform), make sure your CSR checks direct messages, comments, and notifications for any inquiries that need a response. This can be simplified with the help of social media software.
Knowledge base and FAQs: If your business has a knowledge base containing FAQs, make sure your CSR updates it frequently, as you want the information to be as accurate, specific and valuable as possible to ensure customers can find answers to the challenges they face themselves.
Community: A customer-led community is where customers can share knowledge and experiences and learn from each other. If customers repeatedly mention specific challenges, have your support representatives look at what is being shared in the community for opportunities to provide support.
Work Orders: Your customers can submit work orders through your website (and your work order software), automatically queue up, and get the support they need from a representative when it's their turn.
Use customer support software which contains an efficient knowledge base, ticketing system and Live chat. Minimal cost to enhance customer experience.| BClinked
Rapid deployment, simple enough but effective customer support system