Customer Support Software Featured Articles

Knowing your customer is one of the main pillars in business success these days. With the rise of online services and diversifying communication technologies, customers have more options than ever before—both in terms of the services they buy and how they access them. Markets are flooded with vendors vying for their patronage, so how do customers differentiate? Oftentimes, the most convenient option will win at first, but if the price doesn’t match the perceived quality of the service, it’s all too easy for customers to take their business elsewhere.

Customer retention, therefore, becomes the real secret ingredient to good business in today’s saturated market. And the secret to customer retention is an exceptional customer experience.  This requires collaboration within the customer support team.

When a customer reaches out to a help desk—whether by landline or mobile phone, online or through text—there are a number of items that agent should have on hand to provide support and show that the business really knows its customers. Bits of information that can help resolve current issues quickly and effectively include agent awareness of any other issues the customer has had recently, who else has been contacted about it, and what products the customer currently has. With TeamSupport, all of that data is in the system and accessible with a click while the customer is on the line.

Supporting customers is about more than just answering tickets. It’s about understanding their needs and issues and being able to solve them through teamwork, using collaborative customer support software.

If an agent doesn’t have the answer to a customer’s question, customer support software such as TeamSupport’s help desk will allow the agent to find an expert in the company who does know the answer and ask the question directly. The agent can then respond back to the customer without having to transfer them one or multiple times.  This type of efficient collaboration effectively cuts through the usual chain of call handovers that can turn a customer call sour.

To fully address customer concerns, teams should be able to work together in ad-hoc conversations, rather than keeping customer interactions as isolated events between individual agents. Agents who collaborate can get a better understanding of the “big picture” of their clientele and start to develop a working knowledge of their needs.

But there’s more to a team than just the agents. Product developers and the sales team should be kept in the loop about customer issues as well, and be able to join the conversation when it makes sense. Not only that, but customers themselves are valuable resources for feedback. Giving them a way to join the conversation will not only help a business improve its services, but it will also communicate to customers that their opinions are valued and—more importantly—heard.

Collaborative customer support software provides teams with these tools and more to help them work as a cohesive unit to get the job done. With the internal team and external customers working together, a business can provide a better support experience that truly raises the bar on the customer experience.