When was the last time you phoned customer support and had a really good experience? For many people, they tend to remember the really good interactions they’ve had with companies. This is because the standard for customer support is incredibly low. Most people expect to sit in a phone queue for a long time before they’re put through to someone that can’t help with their issue. In fact, many people ignore customer support and take matters into their own hands because they’re so used to receiving little to no help.
This is why it’s important for companies to start raising the bar when it comes to customer support. Whenever people have positive interactions with a company, it creates a sense of trust which builds loyalty. These experiences are eventually shared with other consumers, and it creates a positive vibe for your business.
But how can a company start offering great customer support? In this post, we’ll be covering a few of the most important things to consider when trying to improve your interactions with customers.
Think about how you want to be treated as a customer
Perhaps the easiest way to start improving your customer support is to think about how you want to be treated as a customer. Imagine that you’ve just bought an electronic device and it stopped working after a few days. How would you want the interactions with the company to go? In some cases, it’s about offering a convenient online service so that you can contact the company without needing to get on the phone. A simple online chat or contact form is usually enough for most people. However, others would like to speak to a real person instead of waiting for a reply or being responded to by an automated system.
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Of course, we all know that it’s not always possible to add multiple forms of support like this. Perhaps you’re a fairly small business and you can’t afford to have several support staff ready and waiting to respond to calls. Or maybe you’re a huge company that is finding it difficult to restructure your entire support system. Whatever the case is, it’s vital that you try to meet the needs of your customers while staying within your budget. Some things just aren’t possible or financially viable, and that’s perfectly fine. However, you should always have a standard in your mind for how you want to be treated as a customer so that you can replicate this with your own company. Set the standard that you want to see and the rest will follow.
Using data to improve your customer support
One of the best ways to see where you should put your customer support efforts is to simply look at the data presented to you. For instance, consider looking at how many emails you get and decide if you need to increase the number of staff working on those customer support questions. Check your social media interactions as well to see if you could benefit from hiring a social media manager for support purposes. You can even look at feedback from customers, especially if they mention your customer support experience and where they have problems, if any.
Looking at customer feedback and data is a great way to make more informed decisions regarding customer support. It’s not always going to give accurate information, but it’s a good place to get started.
Adding new website features to improve your customer support
Customer support can be provided in a number of different ways. We’ve already mentioned possibilities such as a contact form, email, and social media, but there are plenty of ways for your customers to get in touch.
One of the best ways to add these is through your website. The features you add will really depend on the type of business you run and the type of features that you want to provide, but here are a couple of suggestions to get you started.
Live support chat
A really convenient customer support feature is to add live support chat. These are usually small text boxes at the bottom of the page where customers can send questions directly to you. These can then be picked up by a member of your support staff, and then your customers will engage in a real-time message conversation to solve their issues.
A simple search on how to add live chat will give you plenty of different options on how to add it. Some companies provide a range of tools for you that can be added with a single click, while other platforms and services might offer more settings and features for you to use. This can include linking the chat support system to your customer relationships management systems, or even connect it to your email or phone systems for automated redirections.
Online knowledge base
A knowledge base is one of the simplest forms of customer support that you can provide–and it doesn’t require anyone to manage it in real-time! A knowledge base is essentially just a bunch of information that you can provide your customers on your website. It usually consists of frequently asked questions which can be taken from common support queries.
An online knowledge base needs to be updated on a regular basis, but it can provide a lot of helpful information to all of your customers and doesn’t require a member of staff to actively monitor. However, we do recommend linking your knowledge base with a contact form or live support chat. This can help in the event that the knowledge base doesn’t provide enough information for your customers, so you can immediately direct them to your contact details so they can discuss the problem further. Many support systems will also forward the customer’s journey through your knowledge base to give your support staff an idea of what the problem is.
Support videos
Depending on the type of products you serve (and also the common support questions you get) it might be helpful to create support videos. These can be used to help customers with basic queries. It’s commonly used for things like showing how to set up a device, or it can be used to show how something is built or used. Support videos can take a bit of time to film (especially if you don’t have the tools to do so) but can be extremely useful for helping customers with their products.
Support videos are also extremely helpful for demonstrating the features on your website or a service you provide. For example, if you offer some kind of cloud-based software service, then you can record videos of the product in use and show how to use certain features. This is a great addition to your online knowledge base that can provide instant assistance to customers.
Community message boards
If your customer base is large enough then you might benefit from creating a community message board. This is one of the better options if you’ve created an active community around your products. It’s usually the case for any DIY-esque products, and can also be great for entertainment products such as video games.
A community message board (or forum) is a place for people to discuss your products and post questions. You can have active support staff answering questions, but you can also nominate members of the community as head community members that also provide advice and support. This can create a wonderful relationship between you and your customers, but again, it only really works if you’ve got a large audience.
Should you use AI tools for customer support?
There are a number of fantastic AI tools that can be used to provide customer support, but it’s not something that has been widely adopted yet. This is because AI tools can only go so far in providing support, and it relies on a large set of data in order to provide correct responses based on your company’s own recommendations and interactions with customers.
On a basic level, a chat bot can be considered an AI tool. This will usually make suggestions to the customer in a live chat setting, such as linking them to your knowledge base and giving them self-help suggestions. After a while, the chatbot can direct them to your contact pages so they can get in touch with a real person.
However, more advanced AI support tools can be used to create fully-fledged support systems. This is something that can work in a number of situations, especially if you’re a large business that has a long history of customer interactions that can be used to generate an AI model. Unfortunately, this is advanced stuff that isn’t affordable or worth the time for most smaller businesses. So if you’re a fairly small company, we suggest sticking with tried and tested methods of providing support.
Conclusion
Giving your customers outstanding support should be a priority, especially if it’s common for your business to receive emails and phone calls about its products and services. The more you help your customers, the more they’ll trust you as a reliable business that has their back.
