Having strong customer support is one of the keys that can help propel your startup business to grow significantly. But it can also be one of the more challenging aspects of your business. After all, you might ask, how do you deliver excellent customer support?
For that, you need to break down the idea of good customer service into its core elements. Understanding these elements gives you a clearer picture of how everything works together. That will guide you in developing a more effective support strategy for your business.
Customer Support Element No. 1: Speediness Of Your Startup Business
When people reach out to your customer support desk for help with something, they expect that help to be delivered fast. After all, they don’t have time to wait for you to. Thus, the first element you need to consider is the speed and responsiveness of your support team.
Several factors determine how fast your current customer support system can serve people. Working on these will help you refine your process and boost response time.
Contact Channels
Not all channels are the same in terms of response speed. Asynchronous channels like email can be very slow and take days for responses. Meanwhile, live chat and social media messaging channels offer a near-real-time response. Interestingly, the phone can be both fast and slow. This is because they can leave customers in limbo due to wait times.
Agent Capabilities
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Your agents’ capabilities also influence how fast they can resolve support inquiries. Beyond product knowledge, independent thinking also plays a large role here. Agents must be able to quickly make decisions without consulting higher-ups first. That requires a significant amount of training on their part to get right.
Tools
There are a multitude of tools your customer support team can use to improve customer service speed. Automation, in particular, can help streamline the whole support process by handling repetitive tasks. Meanwhile, on-demand knowledge tools can help your team find solutions and deliver them quickly to customers.
Customer Support Element No. 2: Clarity And Accuracy
But what use would a fast customer support system be if people have difficulty using the solution you provide? That is where accuracy and clarity become crucial. The first one ensures that the information you provide customers is correct. Meanwhile, the second one will guarantee they understand how to use the information you provide.
Ensuring Accuracy In Your Startup Business
Being able to determine and effectively provide accurate information all the time should be an integral part of your customer support training. Your goal is to encourage a culture of constant verification to ensure that every bit of support information is accurate before being sent out. With that, your support team becomes more conscious of the quality of service they provide.
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But they also need to know how to use that information effectively. That includes integrating it into the right spots in the customer journey. Doing that will help them guide customers toward the right solution more effectively. You should also develop a system for delegating issues to the right people.
Ensuring Clarity
One aspect your startup business will likely have difficulty dealing with is how to make complex solutions clear. The first key here is being able to simplify these solutions. You need to understand what type of language your customers best respond to. Use this to present your information in an easy-to-digest manner.
Your customer support team also needs to structure its support messages carefully. The idea here is to break down everything into more manageable chunks. One approach you can follow is this simple communication tool devised by educator Matt Abrahams.
- What?: You state the situation or concern that is happening.
- So what?: You explain why it is vital.
- Now what?: You present the solution that you and the customer needs to do.
Through these three steps, customers can readily follow the information you provide. From there, they can also quickly determine what actions they need to take. With that, you and they can quickly move through the support process while ensuring they get the solution they want.
Customer Support Element No. 3: Accessibility Of Your Startup Business
Nowadays, customers rely on various touchpoints to connect with your startup business. For instance, mobile devices have become popular for those on the go. Meanwhile, social media has allowed them to get even closer to brands.
With that, your customer support should also be available on all of these channels. But it isn’t just about having a team assigned to each channel. You should also ensure customers can engage with you on those channels without much effort. Here are some of the things that you should consider for this element.
User-Friendliness
Think about how customers use your business channels. For instance, how do they go around your website? Or you could think about how they engage your social media pages. Build your customer experience around these habits to better cater to their needs.
Contact Channels
Another thing that you should consider is the interconnectedness of your various support channels. Customers may sometimes need to move from one channel to another When engaging. Make it easier for them by providing clear pathways to these other channels.
Availability
With the ease of access technology brings in, customers expect your startup business to be more available. That means providing 24/7 support for them. Virtua Solutions can help you quickly establish that support network and run it around the clock.
Customer Support Element No. 4: Empowerment For Your Startup Business Customers
One last thing you need to understand is that getting support is not a passive experience for customers. They want to feel in control when getting the solutions they need. Hence, you should deliver a good level of empowerment to help them. There are three things you need to provide for this.
Self-Service
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Most customers would want to deal with a problem by themselves before contacting support. As such, you should be ready to step back and provide them with the resources they need. A comprehensive knowledge base would be a good starting point. You can also provide regular training resources.
Flexibility
Another essential component of providing empowerment to your customers is being more flexible. Here, be willing to accommodate customer requests. That is a simple way to show compassion towards customers and tell them that you have their back.
Feedback
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Geting feedback from customers isn’t just about gathering information. It also shows that you care about what they think. And if they see that you are willing to listen, customers are ready to provide more. This mutual exchange is a great way to hone your customer support to better match people’s needs.
Tap Into These Customer Support Elements To Boost Your Startup Business
Effectively tapping into these elements will require a large amount of effort on your part. We at Virtua Solutions are always ready to help your startup business. You can count on us to provide extensive customer support services that will help extend your capabilities. Contact us today and start delivering quality service.