As technology continues to change the way businesses communicate with their clientele, the traditional phone support seems to be counting its last days. On top of everything else, customer service is now more important than ever – if poor, it can cost you around 82% of all those who contact your helpdesk in order to file a complaint. This calls for a serious upgrade in software and services, the one that small businesses cannot always afford.
That’s why we bring to you a selection of 5 widely-used, provenly effective and inexpensive customer support tools that any business can make good use of.
1. Telephony: Grasshopper
Though a great number of companies have stopped offering phone support, this customer service practice is still far from being obsolete. It’s true that a majority of modern customers prefer online communication, primarily social media and email, but that certainly doesn’t mean that businesses shouldn’t cater to the needs of those who would rather dial a number than type in a message.
Despite everything, these customers are the reason plenty of companies still choose to invest in traditional phone systems. Grasshopper is considered as one of the best. Not only does it offer a reliable tool for resolving customer problems and complaints but it also empowers customer service reps with cutting-edge functionalities, all developed to make the entire process smoother.
Despite all that, Grasshopper is still fairly simple; just pick a number, record your custom main greeting, add departments and employees, and you’ll be able to receive calls and voicemails anywhere you are. Call screening and forwarding are available as well, along with iPhone and Android apps. Instead of paying for an entirely new number, you can keep your old one with an improved call quality and no additional installations.
2. Live Chat: ProProfs
Streamlining an old phone system will definitely help you please your customers, but you’ll have to employ new means of communication as well. According to Forrester Research, live chat is the most advantageous among modern-day customer support tools, with around 44% of online customers choosing the immediacy and convenience of this solution over other channels of support.
Customer service chat isn’t only one of the greatest differentiating points that a modern business can obtain – it’s also a refreshingly cost-effective solution that reduces overall customer service expenses and promises a guaranteed ROI. There’s no phone bills or waiting queues, just one-on-one chat sessions that save the representative’s time and deliver resolutions in a few clicks.
We at ProProfs offer a Live Chat Software that allows you to reap all the amazing benefits of this solution, including a few truly advantageous ones. You can use it on any device, monitor visitors on key pages, and analyze their behavior, initiate a proactive chat session whenever you detect the customer needs you to, customize chat windows for a branded experience, and collect post-chat feedback.
3. Remote Support System: ScreenConnect
While some businesses need no customer support tool other than live chat, there are those that are required not only to hear what the customer has to say, but also to see what the customer is doing. This is the case with every provider of technological products that need regular IT support and technical maintenance – instead having to send a technician over, customer service reps should be able to guide the customer through the process on their own.
“With ScreenConnect, I can connect to a client’s machine before they’ve finished explaining their problem”, says Jonathan M. Rosen, one of many users of this tool for remote support. It allows your customer service reps to access any device, resolving problems and fixing issues without clients being present at all. The only thing needed on both sides is a reliable internet connection.
Besides being a simple video chat tool, ScreenConnect supports multiple sessions as well, thus enabling technicians to collaborate on a single session or to work on more than one problem at the same time. And, in case the customer can’t be there, they’ll be updated on the progress automatically. ScreenConnect comes with a database that provides a centralized platform for collecting, storing and managing all technical knowledge.
4. Multichannel Support: Freshdesk
In order to provide exceptional customer support, a company should be available at all times and across multiple channels. This would include a powerful ticketing system and a self-service portal as well, but what a customer-centered business cannot possibly do without is multichannel support.
Currently, there’s no better provider of this functionality than Freshdesk. This tool allows you to manage all of your client interactions from a single platform, be that an email route, telephony system, or social media messenger.
Let’s take Facebook for instance. Freshdesk’s multichannel support enables your customer service reps to receive Facebook messages directly to their helpdesk, without having to leave the system and log into the social network. Moreover, every message and wall post is automatically converted into a ticket for easier management and faster response rate.
5. B2B Support: TeamSupport
In case your clients are more than occasional buyers, and you care more about nurturing your B2B relationships than generating new customers at any cost, you’ll need a powerful customer support tool for answering each of their specific demands.
Even though B2B businesses can mostly do so with any other helpdesk solution, choosing a tool that specializes in this model always has a couple of advantages of its own. TeamSupport is just one of many customer service tools that offer exclusive features for B2B client support, but their key differentiating point is truly outstanding.
Apart from CRM and ticket management systems, TeamSupport comes with a powerful Products & Inventory functionality that allows you to integrate a product database for easy tracking, see what products or versions of products customer have, associate products with customer data, and thus track customer issues not only by tickets, but also by the specific products they use.
Conclusion
In all saturated markets, fast and resourceful customer support is gradually becoming the number one method for obtaining a competitive edge. It’s what makes customers happy and satisfied 24/7 and across all channels, but only as long as your helpdesk reps are equipped with the right set of tools. Choose wisely and your customers will stay with you for a long time.
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