Customer Support Software Featured Articles

Does it really pay to have quality customer support software in place? The return on investment (ROI) question is a common one no matter what a business is considering in a purchase. Every business decision has to be justified, so it makes sense that the purchasing director would want to know. Hopefully, the business already has some idea as to how customer support affects its bottom line. If not, it’s homework time.

For customer support software provider, TeamSupport, the question is a common one. They often address the issue of customer service as a profit center instead of a cost center, as the latter tends to be the norm. Fortunately, this isn’t a concept that the company has to tout alone and solid research helps to support their position. A new paper from Constellation Research shows how investing in customer care boosts the ROI and TeamSupport shares the insights in a recent blog.

Essentially, Constellation suggests that there are key areas where investments in customer care can boost ROI. The first is in reducing customer support costs as first contact resolution is increased. We know that the fewer times a customer has to call the customer support center for questions or help, the fewer resources the center has to invest in that particular customer. If you can instead spend those resources on building new relationships, you get more out of the investment.

With the lowering of the average handle time, agent productivity can also increase. Consider the issue that once took 10 minutes to resolve. If the implementation of customer support software can reduce that time to 8 minutes, efficiency increases by 20 percent. If you do the same across all agents, profitability can increase significantly. At the same time, you can also drive common interactions to self-service channels, leaving agent time open for more complex calls. This can significantly improve customer satisfaction.

The right customer support software can also help to reduce or even eliminate agent training. With internal collaboration and group-based ticket management, new agents learn from their peers while they also address customer issues quickly and efficiently. This same approach helps to improve existing processes or eliminate steps or processes that are unnecessary, controlling spending in a way that is easily measured through bottom line improvements.

The point is there are key areas where customer support software can help significantly improve profitability. To achieve these levels, however, you have to be able to put the solution in place in a way that makes an impact and improves the experience for the customer. Support for the sake of support won’t deliver on expectations. Have a strategy in place and understand what customers expect. Then you’ll be positioned to go to the next level and drive the ROI you need.