{"id":26193,"date":"2021-07-28T10:33:56","date_gmt":"2021-07-28T09:33:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/?p=26193"},"modified":"2023-06-26T18:34:13","modified_gmt":"2023-06-26T17:34:13","slug":"proven-ways-to-boost-the-bottom-line-with-self-serve-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/proven-ways-to-boost-the-bottom-line-with-self-serve-support\/","title":{"rendered":"Automation in action: Proven ways to boost the bottom line with self-serve support"},"content":{"rendered":"

Technology plays a critical role in providing customer support at scale. With the right automation underpinning your tech stack, your support team can be empowered to strike the right balance between personalized support and efficiency \u2013 something that\u2019s no longer a \u201cnice-to-have\u201d when customer expectations are at an all-time high<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On top of that, bottom-line business metrics like customer retention and expansion are in focus for support teams now more than ever. Where once the ability to measure the ROI of support eluded many companies, our research shows that 57% of teams are now measuring the impact their support has on revenue<\/a>. But in order to move the dial on support revenue and boost the bottom line, you need to be able to provide customer support at scale \u2013 as well as give customers the personal support experience that they expect. The key to this balancing act? The Conversational Support Funnel<\/a> \u2013 a framework that combines powerful elements of proactive<\/a>, self-serve<\/a>, and human support<\/a> to ensure your support is scalable, personal, and efficient.<\/p>\n

\"Conversational<\/p>\n

Each layer of the funnel serves to empower support leaders to achieve next-level results across every aspect of their support. The self-serve support layer is key to being able to provide personal support at scale, serving as a resource for customers to find answers to their own questions and get quick resolutions through help content<\/a>, bots, and automation<\/a>. This powerful combination of technology and the knowledge and expertise of your team makes it possible to offer what feels like a one-to-one support experience to every customer. Here are some proven ways to leverage self-serve support to boost the bottom line for your business.<\/p>\n

Saving valuable time with automatic answers<\/h2>\n

Support leaders looking to expand their support offering will often seek to answer questions like \u201cHow can I scale my support without increasing headcount or budget?\u201d or \u201cPhone and email support are inefficient and causing my team to get swamped with inbound conversation volume, how can I fix this?\u201d With self-serve support, your team can be empowered to provide support to more customers than ever before \u2013 and still reduce your inbound conversation volume.<\/p>\n

By combining the power of automation and bots, teams using modern conversational support tools<\/a> can answer simple and commonly-asked customer questions automatically, as well as serve up relevant help center documentation to empower customers to help themselves at the precise moment they need it. Not only does this satisfy customers\u2019 expectations of on-demand support and instant answers, it also frees up your support reps to focus on more complex or urgent issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy leveraging Intercom’s Custom Bots, the team at Stuart was able to reduce their support workload by more than 2,500 hours a week\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For last-mile logistics platform Stuart<\/a>, being able to provide efficient support to both their clients and delivery partners is a top priority for the team. Having closely analyzed their existing support journeys and performance metrics, Andrew Baylis, Head of LiveOps and Support, and Marina Alejo, Program Manager, at Stuart, identified an opportunity to boost their efficiency with the help of Intercom\u2019s self-serve support capabilities. <\/span><\/p>\n

By leveraging Intercom\u2019s Custom Bots<\/a>, the team at Stuart was able to reduce their support workload by more than 2,500 hours a week. This huge increase in time saved enabled the team to manage the high number of support queries they were receiving across their global markets, maintain fast response times, and provide customers with quicker resolutions \u2013 all without increasing the team\u2019s headcount. \u201cWe<\/span> wanted to offer the best service to our delivery partners while also reducing the workload for our customer support team,\u201d says Marina.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Stuart<\/p>\n

Boosting customer satisfaction through efficient, personalized support<\/h2>\n

Given that self-serve support offers the opportunity to rapidly scale your support operation to serve more customers \u2013 and faster \u2013 you might ask, \u201cWon\u2019t automation make my support less personal?\u201d Put simply, it\u2019s about striking the right balance<\/a>. Our research shows<\/a> that support teams that use chatbots are 60% more likely to report a definite improvement in resolution times and are 30% more likely to report a definite increase in customer satisfaction.<\/p>\n

\"companies<\/p>\n

Video conferencing platform Livestorm<\/a> invested in Custom Bots and Resolution Bot to help them manage their tiered support system with increased efficiency, provide their customers with faster resolutions, and free up their support team to focus on more complex and urgent issues. And the results speak for themselves \u2013 with the help of self-serve support, the Livestorm team has been able to maintain an impressive 94% customer satisfaction score<\/a>, with one in every four customer queries being automatically resolved by Resolution Bot. \u201cWhen I joined the team, we were using Drift,\u201d says Elif Koral, Head of Customer Experience at Livestorm. \u201cI lobbied to make the switch to Intercom because of its superior UX and automation capabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Livestorm<\/p>\n

Keeping response times low as your business scales<\/h2>\n

When it comes to choosing a support solution, it\u2019s important to pick a tool that\u2019s going to be flexible to meet your customers\u2019 and team\u2019s needs \u2013 as well as one that can expand with you as your business grows. Intercom\u2019s self-serve support capabilities not only enable your team to be efficient in answering complex or challenging customer questions, they also make it easy to manage high conversation volumes as your business continues to grow.<\/p>\n

\u201cSMARTY, a mobile virtual network operator powered by Three UK, is saving 7,000 support team hours a year with the help of Resolution Bot\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

SMARTY<\/a>, a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) powered by Three UK, is saving 7,000 support team hours a year<\/a> with the help of Resolution Bot, which is answering commonly-asked and easy-to-answer questions automatically. This huge efficiency gain also resulted in the team\u2019s median first-response time being reduced by a whopping 99%.<\/p>\n

\"SMARTY<\/p>\n

Speaking to the importance of self-serve support at SMARTY, Gill Fisher, Head of Customer Experience & Delivery, says, \u201cI think chat should just be there for those more complex queries. If there\u2019s something a customer can do really easily, why not utilize the bot, why not utilize the help center?\u201d<\/p>\n

Adding more power to your support \u2013 with less effort<\/h2>\n

When assessing how to scale your support, it\u2019s important to consider every channel you\u2019re using to communicate with your customers. Modern conversational support tools like Intercom enable you to support your customers across multiple channels all from a single Inbox<\/a>, which is crucial if you want to remain efficient and avoid the time lost by using outdated technology.<\/p>\n

\u201cA customer service agent can be on one phone call with one person at a time. With chat, you can handle anywhere up to 10 conversations and help so many more people in the same amount of time it would take to resolve that phone call\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Having made the decision to move towards chat and away from phone support, Gryason Bagwell, Director of Business Development at Rugs.com<\/a>, explains that the team has increased their support efficiency by a whopping 10x<\/a> since implementing Intercom. \u201cA customer service agent can be on one phone call with one person at a time,\u201d he says. \u201cWith chat, you can handle anywhere up to 10 conversations and help so many more people in the same amount of time it would take to resolve that phone call.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Martin Mason, Head of Customer & Employee Experience at tado\u00b0<\/a>, also made the decision to go all in on conversational support, shutting off phone support<\/a> entirely and redirecting the 45,700 calls they were receiving every year to the Intercom Messenger<\/a>. Despite this sudden change in their support infrastructure, Martin and his team managed to reduce their overall first-response time by a whopping 92%<\/a>. \u201cWe felt that phone support was a very inefficient way of working,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd we could get swamped with volume without knowing when it was coming, or what the topic may be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Intercom gives the tado\u00b0 team peace of mind that customers won\u2019t be left indefinitely on hold waiting to get through to the support team, with Resolution Bot offering up instant answers to customer questions and Custom Bots collecting valuable information about their queries to give support reps the context they need to help customers with more urgent or complex queries that require help from the team.<\/p>\n

\"tado<\/p>\n

Building a self-serve support tech stack<\/h2>\n

A robust self-serve support tech stack combines all of the tools your team needs to empower customers to help themselves. Intercom offers a suite of features that enable support teams to leverage and maximize the power of self-serve support to make their support more efficient and scalable and delight customers with speedy responses and resolutions.<\/p>\n