High-quality products, well-known brands, and powerful marketing strategies build the ground for a successful business. However, the customer impression still depends on your issue-solving skills. The experience from customer support interactions can increase clients' loyalty to your company or cause them to turn to another vend According to the research, the new top priority that wins over prices and products is the customer experience itself.
The value of customer service pushes companies to search for technical support best practices and offer their customer an exquisite level of service. Simply Contact, an experienced outsourcing customer support company, will gladly share our insights into the customer support area. This article will show the role of technical support in the company and reveal a few secrets on how to make it successful.
Still searching for reliable outsourcing customer support?
Technical support bridges the company and customers after a product or service purchase. It builds a strong brand reputation and trust in the company, smoothes sharp angles after issues, and helps to fix them. After communication with the support team, technical support can change a bad customer’s impression of the situation to a better experience.
Users' tendency to share their thoughts after good or bad moments among friends and on social media could affect the company positively or negatively. As experts in customer support, we aim to leave clients with successful solutions to the issue and a positive attitude toward the company.
Main reasons for technical support to be a vital part of your business
Problem resolution Technical support assists with troubleshooting and resolving issues in short periods to reduce downtime and any effect on the company’s productivity.
Expert guides Expert knowledge helps technical support team members to respond to challenging questions and to guide users through the problem to quick resolution.
Correct use Support representatives can ensure that your customers use the product correctly and safely. Customer support can utilize all your product benefits successfully.
Constant access to feedback Customer support is a stable source of feedback from users. It is a fast and convenient opportunity to collect insights and decide what needs improvements.
Risk detection The support team can promptly detect potential risks and product and system vulnerabilities. It will help companies to work on the situation before any possible escalation.
Cost saving Technical support can save significant money and time by checking and fixing technical problems in products or operations and reducing their impact on the company’s reputation.
Round-the-clock availability AI-powered technical support covers more operations and enables self-service. AI helps customers deal with general issues and search for information, saving time for the human team.
Positive user experience Experienced customer support ensures that even in unpleasant situations, customers can get a good impression and high satisfaction thanks to prompt and efficient help.
Best IT Support Practices
We are happy to assist if your company wants to improve your attrition rate or thinks about making the customer support operation more efficient. Our personal experience allowed us to define time-proven methods to make the operation of customer support teams efficient, positive, and productive. Here, you can find several vital tips on creating the best impression about your company and making the agent's work easier.
Access to Help
The first and most vital factor is ensuring that customers can access customer support without additional difficulties. The contact options need to be put in an easy-to-find place. Make the available communication channels as obvious as possible.
You can put the preferred contact method in several places in your information portal via direct links or where the customer can find related data. Several contact options allow customers to use the one they prefer most, creating additional comfort. Phone numbers with links for calls and email addresses with links to new letters can save time and effort and bring your frustrated customers closer to their problem resolution.
If the agent cannot respond immediately, ensure your system provides customers with oriented expectation time. It will demonstrate you as a reliable product or service provider and show the customers that you value their time. Custom retention relies on quick responses, so ensure your support team receives notification of requests and that customer concerns will be addressed promptly.
Best IT Support Secret: the Knowledge Base
Our experience showed that creating an information-rich knowledge base is the best way to help users and your support team. With 24/7 availability, the base will help customers apply self-services and know more about your product. Such an approach makes clients independent of the support team’s working hours and improves their experience. Also, you can be sure your customers get the correct and actual information.
The knowledge base is a constant source of information for your team members and can increase their expertise and efficiency. Support agents can rely on the database and refer to it for solutions, speeding up the response time. Well-organized information will help customer support members improve their knowledge and raise their expert level via training.
Regularly add simple, informative, and user-friendly articles to your database. Step-by-step instructions are the best user’s and support member’s friends. Give it a convenient and understandable structure: categories and tags can help not to get lost. Remember to add frequently asked questions. Implement effective searching functionality to get relevant information without struggle. Feedback possibility is always a plus.
Omnichannel Support
When you digitize the customer experience, omnichannel is an efficient and very convenient solution for customers to reach technical support. In short words, it is a constant access and seamless customer service experience through multiple channels. The omnichannel support services can be provided via email, phone calls, live chats, social media, or in-person interactions.
Customers may reach support via preferred channels from any place in the world. The great advantage of omnichannel support is the ability of customers and staff to switch between channels without losing the context or repeating any information. Uniform experience increases customer satisfaction and builds deeper trust in your company.
Omnichannel solutions help collect data from various touchpoints, giving customer support representatives a full view of customer interactions and history. As a result, the support members can offer more personalized and customer-focused service.
Engage Social Media
Statistics state that 67% of users consider contacting customer support with the help of social media convenient. Making social media support available for users will increase efficiency, improve access, and help to build a closer community around your brand. You must ensure quick and accurate responses to make the social media approach work for you. Prompt reaction demonstrators that customer concerns are your priority.
You can additionally monitor social media channels for mentions of your company and interact with customers even without directly requesting help or support. It will help to fix issues before they escalate and affect your company. Consider sharing helpful content (FAQs, tutorials, guides) on social media channels to motivate customers to find the answer independently.
Provide Technical Support Team with AI-powered Solutions
Value your team’s and your customers’ time and save it with the help of AI-powered solutions. Automation can streamline routine operations, saving time and effort for more complex tasks and issues. The AI chatbot, for example, is an efficient solution for 24/7 support services, able to respond and help with general queries. Delegating part of the work to AI will help your customer support service react and provide the required help quickly.
Human customer support augmented with artificial intelligence can offer better productivity and enhanced results. Artificial intelligence can simplify search procedures for customer support teams. It can help to analyze large amounts of data, provide a history of previous operations, and enable multilingual support during the conversations. AI integration with CRM and ticketing systems can ensure that you are provided with all relevant data.
Value Customer Data and Apply It Efficiently
Nobody wants to spare hours to solve a problem, so the faster the issue is fixed, the more positive your customer's reaction will be to your customer support and company. Your team needs to learn how to get most of the advantage from your customer information: history of interactions, preferences, previous issues, and contact information. For example, addressing by name makes conversations more personalized and adds value to a client.
Keep relevant information in the file and ensure that if your customer needs to be transferred to another channel or team member, they will not have to repeat any information. It will reduce the amount of possible questions and save time for your team and nerves for your customer.
Best IT Support: the Prepared Team
According to research, 68% of customers prefer to pay more for products and services from a company with a better customer service reputation. The statistics demonstrate the importance of the customer support role in the company, so the investment in your team is the investment in your future success. You can hire the outsourcing support team or train your own.
Technical support best practices of improvement:
Constant education Regular training sessions on new products and customer service techniques will equip your team with the required knowledge base. Encourage your staff to share experiences within the team and foster a learning culture. Offer online courses, webinars, and conferences to enhance skills and improve knowledge.
Develop soft skills One of the IT support best practices is simulations of real-life customer interactions so the team can train their problem-solving skills. Teach your customer support team how to deal with angry customers. During further customer assistance, prepare them to remain calm and accurate for various stressful situations.
Equip the team with advanced technology tools Support equipment can boost productivity and heavily speed up procedures. Invest in CRM and ticketing systems. Consider AI assistance for routine operations to simplify and enhance their work experience. Pay attention to collaboration tools for communication within the team, as well as performance analytics solutions.
Clear expectations Ensure your team understands what kind of experience your customers should get during the interactions. Implement constructive feedback so that your staff understands their strong and weak sides. Clearly explain the team's responsibilities to avoid misunderstandings and develop accountability.
The support team is your company's public face, so you must ensure it is trained, equipped, and prepared to provide positive outcomes to any customer. The best practice IT support method is to find the solution within the first contact without transferring to several representatives or to stay with the customer until the right person can help with the problem. Remember that a supported and valued team is more motivated with the work.
Are you interested in efficient, highly motivated customer support? We will help to create an outstanding experience for your customers.
On your way to development, from simple customer support to the best technical support, we advise you to pay significant attention to evaluation metrics.. Each interaction with customers can uncover the areas for improvement, so set your performance indicators to reveal them effectively. Let’s look at the most valuable metrics for customer support performance evaluation.
First reply time
FRT measures the time your customer support team needs for the first reaction to a customer request. It is not about instant solving but about letting the customer know that the request is accepted and is being processed.
Time to resolution
TTR measures how fast, on average, your customer support solves the issues. These metrics demonstrate the team’s productivity. However, you should keep in mind that the time heavily depends on the complexity of the task.
First-contact resolution
FCR measures the percentage of requests processed by a single interaction without additional follow-up. The stats should be in the middle to ensure the team doesn't get requests that FAQ can solve.
Customer effort score
CES focuses on the customer effort required to solve the problem. In general, it measures the simplicity of interaction. You need to make the process for them as effortless as possible to get happy customers.
Average response time ART measures the time your team needs to respond to customers. Quick reaction is the key to a satisfied customer however, you need to understand that a long reply can be not only a sign of low performance but also a sign of task complexity.
Number of support tickets The high amount of support tickets can be a sign of system imperfection. It can be caused by a design that is too complicated or ineffective documentation. Check the numbers and their meaning to detect and fix the problem.
Customer satisfaction Satisfaction level demonstrates how positive your customers are about your products or your customer support services. The higher it is, the more effective the customer support team processes the requests.
Net promoter score This score shows the customer loyalty to your company and their readiness to recommend you to their friends or the people they know. Good impression and willingness to share will likely bring your company new customers.
Further Evaluation and Adjustments
Once you have collected the metrics, you can see where your customer support branch is successful and where there are drawbacks. You need to study and analyze the reports carefully to find out the reasons for low or not high enough measurements. The reasons can be the most variable: inefficient management, dubious resource quality, lack of knowledge, technical issues, poor equipment, etc.
How to provide technical support on a high-quality level in this case? When you know the reasons, you can arrange the necessary training or invest in an advanced tech stack to reach better results. Regular checks will help maintain a high performance level and more satisfied customers. Some upgrades, like automated systems, may also save time and cost.
Conclusions
When the customer faces issues with your product or service, customer support can change the unpleasant situation to increase loyalty and trust in your company and brand. Technical support best practices combine expert knowledge of products and services, outstanding soft skills, and advanced technologies. An experienced, well-trained team can become the source of your customer’s positive experience and fast problem-solving solutions.
Develop an informative knowledge base, provide support via various channels, including social media, and implement AI solutions to upgrade your customer support segment. Educate and train your team, motivating and evaluating their performance to achieve customer satisfaction.
Business Tips
Was this article helpful for you? Share it with your friends.
