Do you want to offer high-quality customer support to your customers and keep costs in check? If so, you are not alone. Many businesses need help to resolve the same issue, i.e., balancing the cost and quality of customer support service.
If customers encounter any issue with a product or a service, they expect a prompt response from the business. Customer support provides that response and resolution for the case.
The customer care team needs the right skills and tools, which may impact business revenues. This tells us customer support personnel should have the appropriate knowledge and skillsets to help retain and grow a business.
There are ways to reduce the costs without compromising on quality. Human factors such as training opportunities, workshops, stand-ups, and idea generation to specific pain points are some of the examples that can help a business save a lot of money.
And technological advances like opting for AI tools, chatbots, natural language processing (NLP), request routing and prioritizing, sentiment analysis, and more may support cost-reducing efforts.
This article will discuss four ways to save money on customer support.
Automation
Automated customer support processes reduce or eliminate human intervention. These tools range from AI and machine learning-based assistants and platforms to low-code, no-code, and CRM (customer relationship management) suits.
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Chatbots and Intelligent Bots
Chatbots respond to questions by picking up keywords from the customer query. They can respond to frequently asked questions (FAQs) or redirect to specific knowledge-based URLs or a human.
AI and RPA-powered bots, or intelligent bots, can converse with customers. For example, an RPA (robotic process automation) based remote customer service coordinator can automate manual and repetitive processes using intelligent bots and analytics.
These RPA-based intelligent bots can review incoming queries via email or web portal, resolve issues by making smart decisions, and handle exceptions with human-in-the-loop capability.
These bots have machine learning capabilities, so the processes evolve and become more effective with more data.
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Self-Service Options
A business needs to be smart enough to offer self-service options for its customers. These services don’t require a person for basic and recurring questions or issues.
So, customers can refer to FAQs, knowledge bases, forums, and mobile apps to resolve issues independently.
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FAQs
Frequently asked questions (FAQs) refer to the most common questions asked by new users. Relevant queries like premium options, shipping and delivery (where applicable), and issues are collected and compiled as FAQs.
These can be incorporated into articles, online forums, and your site, ensuring easy access.
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Knowledge-Base
A knowledge base contains information about products, services, or topics in the form of a self-service library. Customers looking for specific information on a particular product navigate to the desired option and can refer to it. A benefit of a knowledge base is that power users of the product can add and expand the knowledge base.
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Forums
Forum is an online place where customers can exchange ideas, provide resolution to issues, and how-to guides for new customers. This can help your business by increasing awareness of product and service offerings and increasing customer engagement. The result is less load on customer support channels and reduced costs.
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Mobile App
A mobile app can help automate service requests, modifications, and subscriptions. Customers can also track the status of products and services, lessening the call volume to customer support services.
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Training and Empowering Employees
Providing training opportunities to customer support personnel related to products and services, procedures and policies, and soft skills. This will enable employees to offer every customer a professional, accurate, and personalized service. They will know best practices, products and services, and issues well.
Workshops, seminars, and feedback sessions will boost the confidence of customer support personnel. They will learn about their area of opportunities and work on them.
This will ensure employees have the right skills to provide adequate customer support services. So, practical customer support will ensure reduced session times and costs and satisfy customers and consumers.
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Analytics and Reporting Tools
Analytics and reporting tools provide insight into the performance and sentiment of your customers and the services provided. These tools can help collect, analyze, visualize, and present data and information related to customer service operations, such as:
- Active, pending, and resolved service tickets
- Time, quality, and cost of customer service interactions
- Satisfaction and feedback level of the customers
- Engagement, productivity, and performance of customer support personnel
A few examples of Analytics and reporting tools are:
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Interactive Dashboards
Interactive dashboards display data and information, such as critical metrics or indicators, in a format that is easy to understand and allows user interaction. These dashboards are customizable, flexible, and easy to share. This data can be over a specific period or in real-time.
Information can be shared via interactive dashboards about performance stats, lag and delays, and progress on goals and objectives. Relevant stakeholders can review information such as average query handling time, customer reaction, feedback, and satisfaction levels, or how well customer support service employees are performing,
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Charts
Charts represent data or information representing different categories’ relationships, comparisons, or relevance. For example, charts can identify peak and off-peak hours based on week, month, or quarter ticket volumes.
Insights in such trends can help a business tweak its customer support services and improve it. A strong customer support services department will have less processing time for a ticket, allowing a company to save extra costs.
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Graphs
Graphs represent information in a visualized format, displaying the correlation or causation of different factors. These factors can help a business find pain points or bottlenecks and work on them to improve customer support services.
For example, a chart can correlate with complaint resolution time and customer satisfaction level. Or how a customer’s sentiment can impact the customer’s loyalty and retention.
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Reports
Reports provide insights, conclusions, and recommendations based on the analysis of customer support. This information can be shared with the relevant stakeholders so that appropriate action can be taken against a specific situation.
A report may include steps to improve resolution times, positive sentiment analysis, and recommendations on continuing or further improving processes.
Analytics and reporting can help reduce costs by reducing errors, duplicates, delays, and wastes and providing high-quality customer support. This will improve employee productivity, efficiency, and quality, creating customer value.
Conclusion
We discussed four ways to save money on customer support. By following these, you can reduce customer support costs and improve the quality of the service.
Remember that customer service is not a cost center but a profit center. These centers help you retain your customers and better reviews, leading to increased revenue and business growth.