What is customer support?

Customers are the heart of everything you do and the focus of most of your efforts, but what is customer support specifically? It refers to a subsection of customer service that provides technical support and troubleshooting for your clients. It includes a wide range of services that help your customers overcome issues that keep them from using your products.

Why customer support matters

Customer support helps overcome roadblocks to using your products or services successfully. It makes customers feel supported because your company is still there for them even after you have their money. This can create happier customers who are engaged and stay loyal to your company. Strong customer support can improve your company’s reputation overall, which can attract new clientele.

Your customer support team can also help you improve your products and services. Your technical support specialists can identify recurring issues with your products and record feedback they get directly from users. This provides key data to make beneficial changes to what you offer.

Functions of customer support

Your customer support team can provide a variety of specific functions that help your clients use their products successfully. Some of those tasks include:

• Onboarding services and setup help: New customers often need help setting up products or figuring out how to use them. You can also proactively help new clients by having the customer support team to send out video tutorials, sign-in instructions and other useful information first-time users need.
• Product troubleshooting: Another large function of the customer support department is walking new users through technical issues. This can include customers who are using the product correctly and malfunctions with the product itself.
• Upgrading: Certain products, such as software or electronics, need to be updated regularly. Some of your customers may need support as they navigate these upgrades or other regular maintenance tasks.

Ways to offer customer support

Offering your customers different ways to interact with your support team ensures everyone has the experience they want. A phone call is still a viable option and one that many customers prefer. However, it’s also a good idea to incorporate tech options that make support more flexible.

Consider these options for customer support:

• Phone calls: This traditional option is preferred by many customers because they can get quick support. It can also be easier for customers to explain the problem and understand the response from your agents.
• Chat: A chat option on your website provides customers with a fast response option without having to talk to an agent on the phone.
• Email: Some customers prefer email support. The wait is a little longer for a response, but offering it as an option and having staff available to respond keeps these customers happy.
• Self-service: Creating a robust self-help and FAQs library on your website can help customers troubleshoot issues on their own. This can be convenient for users and also save you money. You might also let customers create accounts so they can handle certain tasks themselves, such as canceling or upgrading your services.
• Social media: It’s common for people to reach out to companies via social media if they have a problem. Collaboration between your social media and customer support teams can help resolve these issues quickly.
• Anticipatory support: You can sometimes anticipate when a customer will need support. For example, many customers need setup support when they get a new product, or they may need support with upgrading a product. You can offer anticipatory support when a customer reaches those points by sending emails with useful content or reaching out via other methods.

Creating a customer support program

If you don’t currently have a customer support department or a plan for support, developing one can improve the customer experience. The following steps can help you establish a customer care program.

Set a vision

Establish a vision or mission statement for your customer support department. Boil down the essence of what you want your customer support team to provide to create the mission statement. An example is, To become a leader in personalized customer support in our field.

Identify customer support needs

Determine the common issues and needs your customers have with your product. It’s a waste of time to offer support that isn’t helpful for the customers who use it. Look at the product from a consumer’s perspective to anticipate possible support needs. Consider past inquiries and issues you’ve handled from customers. Even if you haven’t had a customer support department previously, you’ve likely had calls from customers asking for support. You can also create a survey with questions relating to customer support needs and desires.

Establish specific customer support activities

Decide on the methods you’ll use to offer support to your customers. Having a customer support phone number is a start, but you’ll likely want to have other options as well. Decide how to facilitate those options with software and tools to manage it. Build resources to support those activities. For example, if you plan to have a self-service section on your website, outline the tutorials, FAQs and other resources you’ll add to it.

Create goals

Having clear goals for your customer support department gives you a way to measure your service. Your goals might relate to wait time, completed calls or customer satisfaction ratings. The best customer support goals are the ones that allow you to collect data you can evaluate.

Build a strong team

Hiring employees with strong customer service skills is essential to create your support team. Develop a thorough onboarding process with in-depth training on your customer support goals, priorities and methods.

Evaluate regularly

Your customer support program should be constantly evolving and improving, and you should close attention to how well you’re meeting your customers’ needs. Gathering feedback on the interactions helps you evaluate your success and gives you direction for improving your offerings.

Tips for offering exceptional customer support

These tips can help you improve your customer support services:

• Educate customer support agents: Ensure your customer support team learns as much about your products as possible during training. Create a resource library that they can easily access while helping customers.
• Incorporate robust tools: Provide your employees with robust customer service software and customer relationship management software to provide the best service.
• Improve with data: Survey customers after every customer support interaction to evaluate how you’re doing. Use data and feedback from your agents to identify routine questions or issues they encounter to see if you can streamline the support process.
• Make it personal: Effective customer support is personal and makes each customer feel like they have your company’s full attention. Agents should take enough time with each customer and ensure their specific issues are resolved fully.
• Remember your company values and branding: Interactions your customer support team has should reflect your company values and branding. Consider your overall voice and ensure your customer support agents stick to it. For example, if you’re a very casual, modern company, you don’t want agents who are very formal when interacting with customers.
• Expand coverage: Offering 24/7 customer support is ideal since customers don’t always have issues during regular business hours. Extended customer support hours give your customers more access to your experts, which keeps them happier.
• Collaborate: The primary goal of your team is to support customers, but it’s also a good way to gather feedback. Sharing what your customer support agents learn from customers with other departments can help improve your company’s overall performance.
• Give representatives enough authority: Your customer support representatives can offer better support if they have the authority to handle certain situations on their own. For example, letting them offer a refund or discount without manager approval streamlines the process and empowers your agents. First, set guidelines and parameters. Then, give your agents the freedom to make decisions within those parameters.
• Don’t overuse automation: Chatbots and other automated tools can improve the customer support process, but it can also take away the personalization since your customers aren’t chatting with humans. Offer these automation solutions, but make it easy to reach a human as well.

FAQs about customer support

How is customer support different than customer service?

While the two terms sound similar and many people use them interchangeably, customer support and customer service are slightly different. Think of customer service as the umbrella, which includes all of the interactions your company has with your customers. The goal of customer service is to improve relationships with customers and help them get more out of your products or services. Customer support is one category of customer service and focuses on helping customers with technical issues and troubleshooting.

How is customer support different than customer success?

Customer success is another related term, but it focuses on helping your customers get the outcomes they want with your products or services so they can achieve their goals. It’s a way of building long-term relationships and encouraging customer loyalty to create an ongoing stream of revenue from each client. Support can be a small part of customer success, since overcoming technical issues or troubleshooting the product can help customers use it more successfully.

How do you build a good customer support team?

Start with customer support representatives who are dedicated to being proactive and supportive to your customers. They should have technical skills to anticipate and navigate potential issues with your products, but they should also have emotional intelligenceand strong communication, analytical and other soft skills that help them interact with customers successfully.