Customer Support
Importance of Customer Support for a Growing Business
By Robin Anderson
In this article:
Importance of Customer Service
Customer Support Solutions
Solutions for Self-Service Customer Support
How to Measure Your Performance
Tools to Help with Customer Support
Importance of Customer Service
You may have heard the phrase ‘a stitch in time saves nine’. This idiom means “it's better to spend a little time and effort to deal with a problem right now than to wait until later, when it may get worse and take longer to deal with.”
As you build your product, continuously involving your customers to provide feedback will be one of the best investments you can make. Use these customer interactions to begin building a relationship with them. By doing so, you’ll integrate and improve upon the features that are most important to them, while minimizing those that are not. In addition, this will improve the usability of your product which is KEY as this will improve the user experience and minimize issues which lead to a need for customer support. Customer support takes time + effort = money.
Providing great customer support at a startup is another challenge founders need to conquer. While there are a million things that need to be done, make your customer your number one priority. Giving them the best customer service you can will pay big dividends in loyalty, word of mouth, etc. And for those startups that are trying to disrupt an existing industry, this can become one of your main competitive differentiators. The key to making this work is to make it easy for your customers to reach you. And don’t assume those assigned to the task will know how to respond appropriately. Time will need to be dedicated to replying to customers, and anyone participating will need to be trained to respond appropriately. You never know who will be on the other end of that inquiry.
Customer Support Solutions
Because you can’t be everywhere all the time, it’s important to select the right channels to be available for support, and set expectations as to how soon you can respond to issues. There are a number of solutions you can use to provide support:
Chatbots (automated) - responds upon receiving an inquiry
SMS (Short Message Service such as FB Messenger, WhatsApp, etc.) - respond within the same day
Email - respond within 1 business day
Phone - responds upon receiving an inquiry
Since you are a startup, select the solution that will work best for the type of customer and industry where you have a presence. Invest in the support channels that your target customers prefer (that may be phone).
“The best advertising you can have is a loyal customer spreading the word about how incredible your business is.”
Customer Support via Chatbots
Chatbots are one way you can minimize the time and effort needed for support while still helping your customers. Chatbots are automated and can help with the most common issues, are available 24/7, and can collect customer information. Customers should always have the ability to connect with a company representative for when their problem cannot be easily solved.
Customer Support via Social Media
For those who have active social media accounts and have established a well run community, this may be a great opportunity to reach customers who need help while enlisting your most loyal customers to help provide support. The challenge with providing support on social media is responding within a fairly short period of time up on receiving the request. We recommend you acknowledge the problem then take communications with the customer offline, communicating directly with them should the complexity of the problem or customer turn out to be more than an easy resolution.
Customer Support via Email
For an email inquiry set up an autoresponded email. Include a message such as “Thanks for contacting us - an answer regarding your inquiry will be responded to within 1 business day (within 2 hours…). The point of providing an autoresponder is to help the customer know that you actually received the inquiry. It is essential that you then follow-up establishing direct communication with your customer to resolve their issue. To demonstrate the level of importance of you place on helping your customers, consider responding using the CEO’s email address. Customers will notice and will see that you are taking their problem seriously.
A tip from HelpScout should you become overwhelmed with customer support emails, followup with those that are the newest rather than the other way around. Their reasoning is that by responding to the newer ones, they will feel like you are being responsive - you have created a “wow’ experience by resolving the issue within a couple of minutes. Whereas those that have been waiting for hours, another hour will not impact their waiting time.
Customer Support via Phone
Offering customer support via phone is the most expensive way to provide support. For the convenience of your customers, provide a toll free number. Try to minimize the complexity required to reach an agent by phone (think never-ending phone tree). And to alleviate your team from being available 24/7, look to hiring remote agents. Use this option when no other channel is available or will meet the needs of your customers.
To help ensure the call is a success, be patient when responding to customers. Give them time to fully explain the problem they are experiencing. If necessary, ask them questions with minimal reference to technical jargon. Your goal is to solve the problem. Be empathetic, try not to get frustrated or angry. And always reference self-reference tools, such as a FAQ or knowledge database for future needs.
When providing support, consider other ways you can delight your customers. This may include giving them advance notice of updates, sending swag, or helping them know about other features that could improve their experience overall.
“Focus on solving the problem, not just answering the question. Go the extra mile if you can”
Solutions for Self-Service Customer Support
There are plenty of users who will look for a quick and easy solution. For those individuals, often a FAQ or a knowledge-base will work just fine. Make sure they are thorough and provide the ability to quickly search and get the info they need with sufficient details to solve their problem. Place the most frequently searched questions near the top to make locating the information quick and easy to find.
In addition to a FAQ or knowledge-base consider creating a User Guide (some people love to follow instructions), or providing a customer forum where participants can interact and help each other.
How To Measure Your Performance
Set metrics. As you develop your customer service solution(s), and before your officially launch your product in the marketplace, utilize common customer service KPI’s to track and measure your performance. Set goals. At the minimum, meet them. If you can it’s better to beat them. Key metrics to measure include:
Average response time
Average resolution time
Customer satisfaction rate
Number of calls
Number of interactions per channel
Abandon rate
Tools to Help with Customer Support
Having the right tools enables those who are responsible for customer support to focus their efforts on the customer and resolving their issue in the most time and efficient manner possible. Here are a few examples of customer support tools:
HeyOliver provides 1:1 live-chat tool on your website that enables you to send personalized messages, responding in real-time.
Zendesk is an all-in-one solution - messaging, live chat, social, email or voice. It includes the ability to build a help center and community forum to extend your ability to service customers with help-yourself tools and community support.
Crisp is an all-in-one multichannel messaging app that centralizes all your conversations (live chat, email, Facebook messaging, Twitter, etc) enabling you to chat with your customers online from one central platform.
Intercom helps you provide support automatically through bots for repetitive questions, self-serve tools with help center articles, or help one-on-one through messaging.
A key to customer success that contributes to business success is customer-centric agility - setting up your business to adjust to changing customer expectations quickly. The insights you gain from your customers through your support interaction makes great feedback for your product development team. Share that information with your community. This will help build trust, loyalty and appreciation.
Most of all, when it comes to providing support to your customers, treat them well. Offering an empathic response can go a long way. Your goal, to deliver remarkable support and delight, ensuring a great customer experience.
“Good customer service costs less than bad customer service.”
Fun Fact
The CEO of Delta Airlines recently sent an email to their most loyal passengers. The ever-changing situation with the pandemic has made it tough for airlines to operate. This includes staff shortages, higher than expected passenger levels, flight changes and cancellations, and difficult passengers. In the email, Delta acknowledged the problems and addressed the issues as it related to their passengers' experiences - “you deserve to get to your destination at the time that best suits your travel plans…” This demonstrated their ability to listen and understand, while addressing their efforts to improve the situation. Read the email here.
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