Technical support, a key driver of customer satisfaction
What is technical support in customer relations and how can it significantly increase user satisfaction?
Why do customer support solutions need to put collaboration at the heart of their business in order to reap the many benefits, such as the creation of engaged communities and shared knowledge?
Customer support and technical support in particular make it possible to achieve customer satisfaction objectives while benefiting the vendor. Let's see how.
Technical support: definition
Technical support covers all the methods, tools and processes used to ensure that users get the best possible use out of the service they have purchased.
Technical support must therefore enable :
- rapid diagnosis and resolution of faults,
- effective management of the support team's knowledge,
- guidance on user usage.
In addition to customer service (external relations), technical support solutions can be used internally, by an IT department for example.
Why set up technical support?
Most companies that install technical support software do so for several reasons:
- They are selling a service that requires support;
- they want to control the number of calls they receive from customers (freeing up call centres);
- they need to create a link with their customers.
However, there is a real commercial interest in implementing this type of software. This interest, often misunderstood by users, relates to the company's competitiveness, whether in terms of :
- saving time spent processing requests,
- renewing customer subscriptions
- or increasing the perceived value of its services,
there are plenty of arguments for taking the plunge.
We also know that since 2010 the trend has been towards automated customer relations and collaborative working.
Support solutions have clearly improved in this respect, making it much easier and more affordable than ever before to set them up and build up knowledge.
Technical support issues and tools
Customer relations and technical support tools are evolving very rapidly in terms of both functionality and usage. Here are the main challenges, illustrated by concrete examples.
1) Contextualise and centralise omnichannel conversations
Managing emails is time-consuming for technical teams because they are out of context when they arrive. The technical agent must therefore systematically gather the information relating to a request before taking action.
To increase efficiency, you need to use dedicated software.
💡 A few examples:
- 👉 From the easiware platform, all the information known about a customer automatically goes back into a 360° customer file. This includes their contact details, latest orders, loyalty profile and even their history of conversations with your brand, whatever contact channel they've used (email, web form, chat, WhatsApp, social networks...).
This way, your support teams have the necessary context for a personalised exchange. They save time when dealing with requests and can concentrate on providing a solution quickly. In this way, you can guarantee an optimal customer experience, both in terms of the quality of the exchange and the speed of processing. - 👉 FreshDesk offers a single view of all your exchanges for better monitoring and easier collaboration with your teammates, around the customer's problem, whatever their front door.
- 👉 Jamespot contextualises requests and replaces isolated emails with conversations. What's more, the customer can engage with you via multiple communication channels: by email, but also by phone, chat, social media or messaging apps.
- 👉 Salesforce's Service Cloud omnichannel customer service software provides you with a 360° view of all customer interactions via a simplified dashboard. So as soon as a customer contacts you via the channel of their choice, you have all the information you need to provide them with the most appropriate solution as quickly as possible. What's more, you'll have an AI to guide you through your next customer interactions.
2) Streamlining and automating claims processing
Streamlining claims processing means lowering the cost of managing them.
Cost optimisation systematically involves assessing what already exists and setting new objectives.
You therefore need to be able to assess the time taken to process requests from the moment a ticket is opened to the moment it is closed.
This is where the KPI monitoring dashboard comes into its own: far from being useful just for managers, it enables agents to understand where the real difficulties lie in their day-to-day tasks.
Dashboards are designed to generate concrete actions based on real data.
FreshDesk also makes bandwidth management easier by automating repetitive tasks using scripted triggers, configured according to timing, event or keyword.
As for Salesforce Service Cloud, it enables you to automate your entire approval process by setting up intelligent workflows. In this way, you become more responsive and relevant to the customer's request.
3) Offer customers self-service technical support
If users have a clear, comprehensive and user-friendly help centre, they are less likely to write to customer support.
A self-access support platform should enable 90% of redundant requests to be resolved, relieving the burden on agents.
Intelligent self-service is all the rage: allow customers to find answers for themselves by offering a knowledge base, dynamic FAQs or a chatbot.
Don't create an unusable online help system with content you can't find. A customer service tool should be partly self-managing (thanks to artificial intelligence) and, above all, propose content linked to the technical issues to be resolved.
In this way, technicians can focus on their expertise by enriching online assistance with official procedures, troubleshooting guides, direct telephone contacts to take charge of the resolution, etc.
💪 Users who sense a real dynamism (speed and number of resolutions on the forum) in the community quickly become active contributors to those who need help.
Jamespot Technical Support's Question/Answer module makes it possible, for example, to set up a self-help function between your customers. This saves a significant amount of time and helps to engage and unite your customers.
4) Creating value beyond the simple contact form
The quality of technical support has a huge influence on how customers perceive a service or product. Many of us are prepared to overlook a few shortcomings when the team producing it has our full trust. Here are a few tips:
- Let your customers call you on a non-premium number. Also offer a free call-back. This conveys an image of seriousness and a willingness to help you quickly.
- For a given incident: the customer should only make one request and it should be dealt with quickly. Repeated requests greatly increase frustration and dissatisfaction.
- Customers should not have to provide information that they have already provided. Verification of identity should be the only area of doubt.
- Accessing a reseller or purchasing an additional service should be easy for the customer! Even if they contact the technical department, it must be able to direct them very quickly to the right person. This means that the software must contain customer data (contacts, event history, etc.).
- Any agent must be able to provide a rapid response to a problem. The technical support software must therefore include a technical knowledge management module.
As far as interpersonal skills are concerned :
- Even by e-mail or on the phone: smile!
- Never forget to say hello and thank you.
- Assume that if there's a problem, it's never the user's fault but yours.
- Explain the situation to the customer and what you are going to do in simple words. This will involve them in the solution and make them more patient and understanding.
easiware has perfectly understood this need to create value. Its platform has been designed to improve the productivity of your support team, but also to make it easier to monitor customer satisfaction. For example, it allows you to deploy "NPS and satisfaction" campaigns, as well as tracking your results using customised dashboards and reports. The aim? Ensure that your technical support is effective and that your services are well received by customers.
5) Liberate the internal organisation of customer service
Top-down bureaucratic organisations have reached their limits. IT and technical departments need to be able to organise themselves.
That's why Jamespot makes it easy to model its Technical Support software with small applications and business rules. What's more, knowledge is capitalised and shared within teams, and everyone can follow their team's news in the dedicated feed.
💡 Favour a scalable solution that allows, for example, good practice to be propagated from the technical department to the rest of the company.
Improve your competitiveness by putting the customer at the centre
If, as in many service sectors, competition on price or product is not enough, implementing effective customer support can help you win market share by increasing customer loyalty and creating value in their eyes.
Track your KPIs on the dashboard and take concrete action to make your customer support a key factor in your competitiveness!
Article translated from French