Customer support is an important medium to provide satisfaction and build an impression with customers. A company can manage its goodwill by implementing effective and receptive customer support systems. A company’s website is an integral part of business as it is the main means through which customers can contact the company to raise any issues they may be facing. It is necessary to ensure that the website has enough options for customers to contact the company. Phone numbers, e-mail address, contact us forms, and online chats are few of the common options that can be present on a website. Besides, to handle repeated customer queries and cost of customer support, it is advised companies to build comprehensive self-serve customer support systems.
Comprehensive self-serve customer support systems consist of a bunch of frequent asked questions (FAQs) along with queries, which the customers can use to get their basic queries answered without contacting a company representative. Institutional videos, manuals, and discussion forums can also be provided on these systems where customers can discuss among themselves and help each other. In situations where they need specialized help they can approach company representatives. The web interfaces of these systems can be designed in such a way that customers can contact the company after exhausting all the self-serve options.
When customer's query or complaint is asked online, a number of auto-generated answers can be suggested. If a customer gets their answers from the list of suggested answers, they need not contact the company or its representatives. If a customer contacts the company directly, it is necessary to provide satisfying answers or resolutions promptly. Failure to give appropriate response can result in customer's dissatisfaction and they may spread negative reviews about the company which ultimately mars the company’s image.
A company should convey the expected turnaround time on resolving various types of issues to the customers on its website. For instance, if there is "contact us" option on website, the company should mention the timeline within which the customers can expect a response. Moreover, companies should train employees who are engaged in customer support. They should interact with the customers politely, listen to them patiently, and handle their queries properly. In addition to that, depending on the query classification, the queries submitted by the customers should be routed to appropriate teams without making the customers wait for long. Hence, the company should ensure that the customer support systems are well organized and functioning properly to provide better satisfaction to customers.
