Are you at risk of losing a third of your clients? If your customer service isn’t up to snuff, you might be. According to PWC research, 32% of clients will cut ties with a beloved brand after one bad customer experience.
Firms may no longer rely on their brand strength to ensure customer loyalty. They must instead invest in improving the customer experience. Offering the best customer support options is a good way to start the process.
In this post, we’ll look at what those options are and smart decisions you may make to capitalize on them.
Customer Support Options for Online Business Owners
Customer support options for online business owners fall into three categories:
- Direct Support: The client deals with a consultant via telephone, email, online forms customer support, online chat rooms support, or instant chat
- Self-Service: The client signs into customer support portals and tries to find the answers they need.
- Indirect Support: The client uses social media customer support or forums to get their questions answered.
What are the Best Customer Support Options?
The answer depends on the type of business and its target market. Savvy companies ask their clients for feedback first. They then provide a range of support alternatives. Let’s see how each of these may operate.
A Helpline
Providing a helpline used to be quite an undertaking. You used to need a team of trained personnel waiting for phone calls that might never come. It was a costly and inefficient use of resources.
Today, with premier outsourcing solutions such as SupportYourApp, you get all the benefits and none of the headaches. The call center answers live calls and deals with queries via instant chat and email.
Remote technology means that your call center can be anywhere in the world, allowing you to outsource it at the best possible rates.
Having a helpline is essential as it gives your company more credibility. It also provides clients with a simple way to resolve queries quickly.
Social Media Customer Support
Monitoring your social media accounts is essential today. Many consumers ask questions and raise concerns via social media. It’s not pleasant to have a client lambaste your company on Facebook, but it may be a good PR opportunity. Handle it correctly, and you’ll win over the client and improve your brand image at the same time.
You can’t monitor your social media 24/7, so enable auto-reply features where possible. It might also be worthwhile to enable the moderation of comments. Not so that you can hide the negative ones, but rather so that you have time to respond to them.
Online Forms Customer Support
Online forms are losing favor because they don’t provide instant answers. Still, they’re worth including on your website. They’re simple to set up and work well for clients who aren’t in a rush.
The upside is that the customer must provide their contact details. You’ll be able to build your database.
Customer Support Portals
Most medium to large businesses normally provide client support portals. These offer clients a convenient option to view account statements, check balances, and update their details. Many companies today provide self-service options through an app.
Messengers Customer Support
Messengers customer support is a more recent innovation. It harnesses the power of instant messaging through channels such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. I
It provides clients with instant answers on a convenient medium. You may integrate a chatbot app to handle basic queries here.
Online Chat Rooms Support
Forums fall under this category. The forums are generally community-driven and allow clients to ask other users for advice. Firms should monitor these forums carefully.
Much of the advice given will be accurate. As with any online channel, there’s also a chance for misinformation to spread. Firms should appoint a moderator to check the information given out and to respond to queries.
Wrapping it All Up
Companies should offer clients omnichannel support solutions. Before adding new channels, however, firms should ensure that they can manage them properly.
It’s better to have two or three effectively-managed channels than five or six neglected ones. Companies should speak to their clients about what platforms they’d prefer to use. Firms may then select the most convenient options for their clients.
