Happy customers are key to a successful business. They are also your biggest marketing strategy and greatest promoter. But at the same time, if a dissatisfied customer vents about your company to other people, it will have a huge negative impact on your business.
With customer support constantly evolving, choosing the right type of customer service for your business might seem challenging. In this blog, you can find the answers to all your questions on how to choose the right type of customer service for your business.
Understanding your customer’s needs
Before diving into the different types of customer service, you should first understand the needs of your customers.
Customer needs can be categorized into product needs and service needs. Whether your customer is looking for a product or a service, there are certain criteria they consider.
Product Needs
The product must be a convenient solution to the customer’s functional needs.
The product should fit the unique budget and pricing needs of the customer.
The product should be compatible with the other products they use.
The design of the product should be intuitive and easy to use.
The product should be as reliable as advertised to be.
Service Needs
Customers are always on the lookout for information right from searching the product to months after purchase.
Your customer support and customer success teams should be easily accessible to the customer.
Understanding the customer’s issue and empathizing with them can increase customer satisfaction.
Customers love different options being offered to them in terms of purchase, payment, subscriptions, etc.
Customers love it when there is transparency in the company they are associating with.
What are the different types of customer service?
This is not going to be just another list of all the different types of customer service options available. Along with the common types of customer service, we have also added a bunch of newer options that you might not be familiar with.
Functional Support
All the basic and traditional support options which most businesses incorporate in their customer service strategies can be clubbed under the umbrella of functional support. Let’s dive into the details of each type of customer service that falls under functional support.
1. “Hello, How can I help you today?” – Phone Support
Phone support is still one of the popular support options that are available right now. What still makes phone support the most versatile option is that everyone knows how to use it and everyone has access to a phone. So, customers find it convenient to get their issues sorted via telephonic conversation.
The advantage of offering assistance over the phone is that you get to hear your customer’s voice and tone, and this helps you understand your customer’s emotions better and lets you assess the problem accordingly. Plus, it saves you the time spent on typing out the solution, unlike email or chat.
You can have a dedicated call center or hire a few customer service representatives for call support. We recommend a cloud-based phone support software that can be accessed from anywhere and also be set up with ease. All your conversations are backed up, which helps in streamlining your support workflow. You can also implement an Interactive Voice Response (IVR), and gather more information about the customer’s issue beforehand by asking the customers to enter a series of numbers and route the call to the right agent or team. These AI-powered IVRs are also capable of addressing common queries like order status, refund status, and more.
Industry experts also agree that cloud support options are the future especially for call centers or contact centers. Phone support is here to stay and cloud-based phone support is your ticket to the future of phone support.
2. “Thank you for reaching out to us” – Email Support
With over 269 billion emails being exchanged every day, email is still one of the most reliable modes of customer service. With email support, the customer can also reach out to you even after business hours and you can respond accordingly in your business hours. But always remember that you should send out a reply within 24 hours.
A good email reply creates a lasting impression. While it is important to maintain professionalism when it comes to sending customer emails, it is okay to occasionally sprinkle your message with some humor or wit as long as it is related to the issue at hand. But never fall into 62% of the companies which ignore or never bother responding to customer service emails.
3. “Please check your DM” – Social Media Support
Everybody is on social media and if you aren’t then it is about time that your business marks its presence on it. Anything that is extremely good or bad with customer support ends up on social media. If it is good, you might see an increase in your customer base. But what if it is bad? Your business is at the risk of losing one or more potential customers. Handling social media doesn’t mean just one channel but keeping track of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Linkedin accounts. Having a dedicated social media support team will help you handle all your social media interactions and tickets.
With the popularity of social media, many businesses are rising out of social media channels. One such popular medium is Instagram. If you are a small business, having an active Instagram handle and two or three agents for Instagram support will help you acquire more customers. Tiffany & Co, GoPro, Glossier are a few examples of brands that grew out of social media.
4. “Greetings. We’ll get that solved right away” – Live Chat
Did you know that 41% of the customers choose live chat over other support channels? And that the satisfaction rate achieved through live chat is a whopping 92%?
The reason why live chat is now evolving to be an important customer support channel is that it offers immediate support to customers. Embedding a chat widget on your website or mobile app can help your customers reach out to you easily.
With live chat, you can also proactively reach out to customers. You can set up a popup and send a warm greeting to your customers whenever they enter your website. You can also set up triggers that offer assistance with a simple message saying “Hi, I am [name]. If you are having trouble finding a product, I’ll be happy to help” when your customers are displaying signs of frustration such as rage-clicks or dead-clicks.
5. FAQs for the win – Customer Self Service
Having different self-service options will be beneficial for your agents and also your customers. Customers can easily find answers to the common queries without having to reach out to customer support every single time (67% of the customers prefer self-service than having to interact with a customer service agent). This, in turn, reduces the number of incoming support tickets. If there is a reduction in the number of common queries you receive, it means your knowledge base is doing a good job.
An exhaustive knowledge base also helps agents get the information they need from a single place rather than having to search everywhere for it. This will better inform the agents and help them deliver quality customer support.
Another way to provide self-service support is through community forums using which customers can easily search for an issue, find solutions based on the previous conversations, and interact with one another.
