As your company grows, it\u2019s easy to focus on shipping the next great feature or going after the shiniest logos.<\/p>\n
But at these pivotal moments, it\u2019s just as important to prioritize your customer service strategy as it is to plan your product roadmap or your next big marketing campaign.<\/p>\n
After all, whether you\u2019re aiming to drive product-led growth or you\u2019re going with a sales-led strategy, once you\u2019ve brought in those new users, you still need to provide an exceptional customer experience to keep them around long-term.<\/p>\n
And as we know, it\u2019s never been more important to deliver this exceptional service \u2013 or\u00a0more challenging to get it right<\/a>. We recently took a deeper dive into some of the\u00a0major challenges facing support teams<\/a>\u00a0in this new world. But while all support teams have been feeling that crunch, there are also specific factors to consider depending on where your company is on its own journey.<\/p>\n \u201cMake sure that your support team is set up for success from the outset\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Whether your business is preparing for a new phase of growth, or you\u2019re experiencing an increase in customer service volume, you need to make sure that your support team is set up for success from the outset and that you\u2019re creating the right customer service infrastructure to deliver exceptional customer experiences at scale.<\/p>\n With that in mind, here are three questions to ask when you want your customer service to grow to meet your customers\u2019 needs \u2013 and some best practices to ensure it does.<\/p>\n If you\u2019ve been using outdated forms of customer service, like phone or even email, it\u2019s time to reconsider. Phone support and email have a part to play in excellent customer service, but are notoriously difficult to scale: both require a significant labor investment without guaranteeing that high-quality customer experience.<\/p>\n Phone support is a one-to-one medium that requires a lot of waiting around to actually get the help you need. And when you\u2019re finally connected with someone, it demands that both the customer and the support rep give it their full and exclusive attention in real time, which is often frustrating and wasteful for both parties. There\u2019s also no easy way to track, search, and leverage the data from those conversations, so useful information gets lost as soon as the call ends.<\/p>\n Email can be a time-consuming, unproductive customer service channel too. Similar to phone support, your team can only respond to one customer at a time, and getting important qualifying information or routing queries to the right people can add hours (or even days!) to your resolution time.<\/p>\n \u201cTrying to maintain too many legacy support channels will suck up all of your team\u2019s time with very little return on investment\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n These channels are perfectly suited to some queries, but for others, can be completely inefficient and inconvenient for customers. For proof, just look at the customer satisfaction ratings \u2013\u00a0one study<\/a>\u00a0found that only 61% of email users and 44% of phone users were satisfied with their support experience.<\/p>\n It\u2019s clear that when it comes to customer service, you need the right tool for the job. But according to a commissioned study by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Intercom from April 2021,\u00a0Drive Conversational Experiences for a Future-Ready Customer Support Strategy<\/i><\/a>, only 43% of support leaders believe that they can deliver personalized support experiences with their current tech stack. And as you scale, trying to maintain too many of these legacy channels will suck up all of your team\u2019s time with very little return on investment.<\/p>\n So if you\u2019re trying to scale your customer service offering, it\u2019s time to think deeply about which channels your customers\u00a0actually<\/i>\u00a0want, and streamline your support tech stack to work for you.<\/p>\n This is where using a next-generation support tool<\/a> really shines.<\/p>\n For starters,\u00a0messenger-based conversational support<\/a>\u00a0is not only what customers want;\u00a0it\u2019s what they expect<\/a>. According to Forrester\u2019s research, messenger-based support has become the\u00a0second most used support channel<\/a>\u00a0since the beginning of the pandemic. What\u2019s more, they also found that 58% of support leaders and decision-makers believe that customers prefer conversational, messenger-based engagements with brands.<\/p>\n But messengers don\u2019t just give the people what they want \u2013 they also make it so much easier for your team to maintain super-high support standards even as you scale.<\/p>\n With a next-generation support tool fuelling your customer support, you can:<\/p>\n And as you\u2019re choosing a support tool that can scale with you, remember to make sure it can\u00a0integrate with the other tools<\/a>\u00a0you use daily for a more streamlined and efficient workflow.<\/p>\n As you scale, it\u2019s very likely that your conversation volumes are going to scale too. And it\u2019s not just the number of queries that start to ramp up; as you introduce new customers, features, and use cases, the complexity of those queries starts to increase, too.<\/p>\n But whether you\u2019re replying to 10 customers a day or 1,000, you still want each person to feel like one in a million. So how can you prepare for this increase in volume without sacrificing quality, efficiency, speed, or personalization?<\/p>\n It may seem like an impossible conundrum, but luckily you don\u2019t need to add headcount just to keep up with an expanding inbox. Instead, think about how you can work smarter, not harder \u2013 and how you can leverage the resources you already have.<\/p>\n One key way of doing this is by\u00a0using automation<\/a>\u00a0to take care of simple, repetitive questions, so your team is free to focus on the more complex queries. Using\u00a0customizable bots<\/a>\u00a0to resolve questions and\u00a0offer up relevant help content<\/a>, you can ensure personalized, high-quality, near-instant replies, 24\/7 \u2013 even when your team is offline.<\/p>\n \u201cSupport teams who use chatbots are 60% more likely to report an improvement in resolution times and 30% more likely to report an increase in customer satisfaction\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In fact, our research shows<\/a> that support teams who use chatbots are 60% more likely to report a definite improvement in resolution times, and 30% more likely to report a definite increase in customer satisfaction.<\/p>\n And while many support leaders initially fear that automation can make things less personal, the truth is that it actually empowers support teams of all sizes to deliver personalized, more customer-centric support<\/a>.<\/p>\n Using automation where possible is a form of empathy<\/a>: it shows that you understand your customer\u2019s journey, you know what\u2019s important to them, and you respect their time.<\/p>\n And when you know that a sensitive or difficult issue needs a human touch<\/a>? Your support team will have more time and energy to dedicate to solving it.<\/p>\n Scaling isn\u2019t always about just getting bigger; often, it can mean refining (or redefining) your audience, too. For many businesses, the process of scaling can also include\u00a0moving upmarket<\/a>\u00a0to attract larger enterprise customers, many of whom will expect\u00a0personalized, white-glove service<\/a>\u00a0as standard.<\/p>\n So as you start to expand your customer support strategy, you also need to reassess who your customers are and what they\u2019re looking for. Which high-value, VIP customers need one-to-one human support, and how can you free up your team\u2019s time to provide that without sacrificing the quality of the support experience that you provide to your smaller customers?<\/p>\n When it comes to customer support, there\u2019s no one-size-fits-all approach, and different customers will require different levels of support.<\/p>\n By incorporating self-serve and proactive layers into your support strategy, you can resolve more queries without needing to get a support rep involved at all \u2013 and with\u00a0proactive support<\/a>, you can answer questions your customers didn\u2019t even know they had yet. This means that you can reduce the volume of conversations that reach your inbox in the first place, freeing up more time for your team to focus on delivering that all-important human support where it\u2019s most needed.<\/p>\n \u201cLaying the infrastructure for your self-serve and proactive support now can result in huge savings down the line\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Laying the infrastructure for your self-serve and proactive layers now can result in huge savings of time and money down the line, so it\u2019s worth taking the time to get it right. The first step is to\u00a0look at your customers\u2019 journey<\/a>\u00a0with fresh eyes. Where are the pain points? Then, using\u00a0data-driven insights from your support tool<\/a>, look for gaps or emerging topics that customers are searching for.<\/p>\n With all of this rich context in mind, find ways to proactively address those known pain points: whether that\u2019s writing a new help article that you can serve up at just the right moment, designing a\u00a0product tour<\/a>\u00a0to help users activate a certain feature (so they don\u2019t need to ask how later), or adding a targeted banner to let people know any relevant information upfront.<\/p>\n By creating resources that will help customers to self-serve 24\/7, and proactively providing help before it\u2019s needed, you can provide every customer with tailored, efficient support, while simultaneously freeing up more human resources for those high-impact VIP queries.<\/p>\n1. Are your customer service tools scalable?<\/h2>\n
The answer: A customer service solution that lets you own the conversation<\/h3>\n
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2. How will you maintain your high standards as conversation volumes rise?<\/h2>\n
The answer: Use automation to deliver fast, personalized customer service at scale<\/h3>\n
3. Are you adapting to meet evolving customer needs?<\/h2>\n
The answer: Understand your customers\u2019 journey and get strategic with how you deliver support<\/h3>\n
Scaling without sacrificing satisfaction<\/h2>\n