What is customer support?

Customer support is a reactive approach that solves customers’ specific problems. It’s transactional, problem-focused and initiated and ended by the customers themselves.

If a customer has trouble logging into an account, needs to chase a delivery or has an issue with a product, they’re in need of customer support. The agent who deals with them should take clearly defined steps to troubleshoot the problem and offer a resolution as quickly as possible.

The faster customer support teams take action, the better chance they have of resolving the issue without it escalating. Today’s fast-paced marketplace is all about instant gratification, and the best customer support operatives aim to solve all queries during the first interaction.

Responsibilities of customer support teams

Customer support agents need to have in-depth knowledge of products and services and a confident, assured manner. Proactive elements of customer support include creating FAQ articles, a customer support center, help manuals, use cases and troubleshooting guides and providing plenty of opportunities for feedback online.

More key information about customer support services:

• Technical troubleshooting and problem-solving
• Responding to social media
• Often tech-based
• Focused on functionality and usability
• Requires hard skills and soft skills
• KPIs include CSAT, CES, NPS and churn rate

What is customer service?

Customer service supports every element of your business from first contact to customer retention and is relevant to practically every organization in the world. While customer support requires hard skills, soft skills are the most valuable for customer service representatives. This is because customer service is about making the best possible impression on prospects and card-carrying long-term customers.

It’s a proactive and reactive approach. It’s proactive because you should inject good customer service into every interaction a customer has with your company. It’s reactive because customer experience reps might need to handle an escalated complaint or provide advice following a sale.

Traits of great customer service teams

Excellent people skills lie at the heart of great customer service, so soft skills are everything for team members in this department. Agents should have a good working knowledge of products or services, but the following traits are the most highly valued for individuals working in this field:

• Patience
• Professionalism
• Problem-solving
• Empathy
• Communication skills such as active listening, attentiveness, clarity of speech and the ability to read tone of voice and facial expressions
• Creativity
• Persuasiveness

What is customer success?

Customer success is the most proactive element of delivering an excellent customer experience. The business initiates it, and it includes many aspects like effective marketing campaigns, product development, sales and user experience. Customer success is long-term, non-transactional and relationship-focused; it’s woven into the fabric of a business and ties departments together with a common goal.

As a strategy, the aim of customer success is to add as much value to the customer as possible and ensure they’re aware of it throughout every interaction with your company. Anticipation is at the core of customer success, and developing a map of your customer journey is the best way to form a successful strategy. This involves identifying potential pain points and mitigating them before they become problems in your clients’ eyes.

What sets customer success apart?

Customer success is a cross-departmental, long-term strategy that aims to ensure customers are satisfied with the products/services you sell. Let’s take a look at what sets it apart from customer support and services:

• Spans the entire customer life cycle
• Aims to provide genuine long-term value to customers
• Looks to the root causes of feedback from customer service and support to eliminate them in future and improve overall customer experience
• Fully proactive as opposed to support and service, which are mainly reactive

Why is customer experience so important?

In the past, it was easier for businesses to inspire customer loyalty because competition was less of an issue. In today’s world, where the internet facilitates exponential business growth, attracting and retaining customers is significantly harder. What’s more, with the proliferation of review sites and social media, consumers are more empowered and knowledgeable than ever.

Customer support, service and success combine to ensure your company delivers the best possible customer experience. Shaping customer experience by mapping their journey as they move through your sales funnel is essential to operational success. And it’s beyond important because it’s a key differentiator between you and your competitors.

The fewer barriers prospects face along the way to making a purchase or booking, the more likely they are to use your company again. If you can go further and engage them on a meaningful, emotional level, you’re in the best position to not only attract more clients, but also retain them longer. Consistency and lack of friction are core underlying values of all excellent customer experiences.

Tips for exceptional customer support, service and success

Now that you understand the differences between customer service, support and success, we’ve got some tips to help you maximize all three. Do your best to extensively train your teams on and incorporate the following into your strategy:

• Planning and preparation: The most important element of customer success, service and support is preparation. Teams must be knowledgeable, personable and professional. Having brand guidelines is crucial for helping new and experienced employees deliver consistent, effective responses.
• Active listening:The idea that the customer is always right is outdated, but customers are the most important people when it comes to business success. To avoid churn and maintain a great reputation, all customer-facing employees should possess excellent listening skills.
• Speed and responsiveness:As mentioned previously, consumers have access to a practically unlimited number of products and services at their fingertips. Being fast and responsive demonstrates that you care about each customer.
• Feedback:Asking for feedback can be painful because no one loves to hear criticism. However, by instilling a passion for improvement into company culture and encouraging feedback at every interaction, you can use that feedback to improve your company. Especially once patterns start to emerge, feedback is pretty much a free consultancy service from your customers.
• Personalization: Know thy customer is the first rule of marketing, and it’s critical across all departments. The more you can customize customer experience, the more special and committed to your brand they’ll become. With software automating crucial elements of customer service, it’s easier than ever to ensure every team member remembers clients’ names and preferences and makes them feel like old friends.
• Ownership of mistakes: Everyone is human, which means everyone makes mistakes. For businesses, the way you handle problems is infinitely more important than attempting perfection. And the worst thing a customer-facing team member can do in the face of a problem is to deny or minimize it. Own up to mistakes, apologize and offer a resolution.

Customer Support FAQs

How do you build stronger customer relationships?

Customer service, support and success lie at the heart of an excellent customer experience. In turn, delivering an engaging, meaningful customer experience facilitates strong, long-term relationships with clients. Maintaining detailed customer files, rewarding loyalty and training teams to be affirming and passionate about your brand are great ways to improve customer relations.

What is customer lifetime value?

Customer lifetime value is a crucial KPI for measuring customer service, success and support. It’s the worth of each customer over the period they’ve interacted with your brand. Remember, retaining current clients is significantly cheaper than acquiring new ones, so increasing CLV is an excellent strategy for growth.