{"id":26150,"date":"2021-07-19T09:47:17","date_gmt":"2021-07-19T08:47:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/?p=26150"},"modified":"2024-07-18T11:25:52","modified_gmt":"2024-07-18T10:25:52","slug":"how-every-team-can-benefit-from-conversational-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/how-every-team-can-benefit-from-conversational-support\/","title":{"rendered":"Sparking conversations: How every team can benefit from conversational support"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s clearer than ever that customers (and businesses) prefer conversational support<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s quick, efficient, and personal, meaning that customers can get the answers they need, where and when they need them. And for your support team, using the right customer support tool and framework allows them to maximize their resources, so they can focus on solving complex queries and building long-term customer relationships.<\/p>\n

But conversational support doesn\u2019t just benefit your support team. By capturing more data, enabling you to spot trends and opportunities, and improving the customer \u2013 and agent \u2013 experience, conversational support can be a game changer for every facet of your business.<\/p>\n

Ready to turn your support function into an engine for growth for your entire business? Here\u2019s how conversational support can impact every team.<\/p>\n

What we talk about when we talk about conversational support<\/h2>\n

First of all, let\u2019s cover the basics. Sure, you might have seen us talking about what \u201cconversational\u201d means<\/a>, or how your next wave of growth will come from conversational relationships<\/a>. But you may still be wondering: what exactly is<\/em> conversational support?<\/p>\n

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What is conversational support?<\/strong>
\nConversational support is the modern way to resolve customer questions through a digital-first, messaging-based engagement. This means that customers and agents can be connected in real time or asynchronously, and customers can stop and restart the conversation when it\u2019s convenient \u2013 without ever losing context.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Conversational support is a digital-first, messenger-based approach to resolving customer queries. Because it\u2019s messenger-based, it can be instantaneous \u2013 allowing for fast, efficient, in-the-moment answers \u2013 but it can also be asynchronous, meaning that it can be stopped and resumed at any time.<\/p>\n

Not only does this allow both customers and agents to multitask instead of demanding all of their attention as they wait in painfully long queues, but it also means that every conversation becomes part of a larger customer history, allowing you to build stronger, more personalized, context-rich customer relationships.<\/p>\n

\u201cConversational support combines the best of phone support with the best of email support to deliver something better than both\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In this way, it combines the best of phone support (real-time answers \u2013 if you ever get taken off hold) with the best of email support (written records, asynchronous communication) to deliver something that\u2019s better than both.<\/p>\n

With the addition of custom chatbots and automation to make your support workflow even more efficient and productive, conversational support allows you to supercharge your support and find the perfect balance between team efficiency and a great customer experience<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And with customer expectations at an all-time high<\/a>, providing this kind of seamless, scalable support is essential to retaining customers and driving business growth.<\/p>\n

How conversational support delivers value across your entire organization<\/h2>\n

In fact, when we engaged Forrester Consulting, an independent research firm, in April 2021 to explore how channel preferences are changing, they found that preference for messaging-based support<\/a> has significantly grown since the beginning of the pandemic. Previously, it was ranked fifth for channel usage; now, it\u2019s the second most used channel.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, Forrester\u2019s study, Drive Conversational Experiences For A Future-Ready Customer Support Strategy<\/em><\/a>, revealed how conversational support can fuel customer retention and business growth across the entire business. When asked about the key business benefits they\u2019ve experienced from being able to scale conversational support across their organization, support leaders and decision makers reported:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Improved customer retention (60%)<\/strong><\/li>\n
  2. Increased business efficiency (58%)<\/strong><\/li>\n
  3. Enhanced customer satisfaction (58%)<\/strong><\/li>\n
  4. Improved customer acquisition (54%)<\/strong><\/li>\n
  5. Increased ROI (54%)<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Other listed benefits? Increased market share (42%)<\/strong>, increased differentiation or advantage relative to competitors (32%)<\/strong>, and better informed business and R&D decisions (29%)<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

    With all these benefits, it\u2019s clear that conversational support can transform so much more than just your support team. And as customer support becomes a critical strategic investment<\/a>, the role of your customer support team becomes ever more central to your business.<\/p>\n

    5 cross-functional benefits of conversational support (and how to measure them)<\/h2>\n

    1. Conversational support allows you to effortlessly capture important customer information up front<\/h3>\n

    Teams that benefit:<\/strong> Sales, marketing.<\/p>\n

    With messenger-based conversational support, you can use customizable bots<\/a> and automation to seamlessly capture and learn qualifying information about your customer\u2019s query upfront, before your support team even gets involved.<\/p>\n

    Why does this matter? In addition to saving your customer support team precious time by removing the need for manual admin, it also means that you can use this information to get a deeper understanding of your customers \u2013 and create a better experience for them.<\/p>\n

    This context allows your team to provide tailored, personalized responses, taking unique factors like their company size, plan type, and use case into consideration.<\/p>\n

    And not only does this additional insight mean that you can provide more helpful, relevant support, but it also enables you to serve up targeted, relevant messages<\/a>, for more impactful sales and marketing outreach. Using the data you\u2019ve already captured, you can use outbound messages to onboard and activate customers at pivotal moments in their journey, and even pinpoint the right time to upsell customers to higher-tier plans or expand their product usage.<\/p>\n

    2. Conversational support helps you to identify trends for better business decisions<\/h3>\n

    Teams that benefit:<\/strong> Product, research and development, product education, customer success, sales, marketing.<\/p>\n

    Because it\u2019s messenger-based, the right customer support tool becomes a powerful, searchable database. And with clever machine learning and AI, you can leverage this to quickly and effortlessly surface topics that customers have questions about or are experiencing confusion around.<\/p>\n

    \"Use<\/p>\n

    This means you can not only see any surges in particular topics \u2013 giving you a deeper understanding of how frequently they appear, and in what contexts \u2013 but, thanks to powerful machine-learning analysis, you can also see auto-generated suggested topics to explore. This means you can proactively address<\/a> emerging topics and spot opportunities to improve the customer experience.<\/p>\n

    This has positive implications for a number of teams:<\/p>\n