Customer Support: Definition, differences, importance and tips

Customer support plays a crucial role in the overall customer experience. With technological advancement, people have access to many different platforms like phones, email, social campaign, and so on. 

Earlier, there was a time when customers used to call the help center and wait for a long time to get connected with the support agent. Now, in the digital-first world, customers expect quick responses from businesses. 

To meet these increasing customer expectations, several tools have come up in the market. In this blog, we will discuss in detail about customer support meaning, the importance of customer service, & the difference between customer service and customer support. 

What is customer support? 

Customer support refers to a team of people who provide help to customers when they face some problem with the product or service of a company. Customer support is a part of customer service. 

Customer service interactions are short and mainly initiated to solve the problem of a customer. These conversations are started by the customers when they encounter any issue with the products or services of a company. 

The main task of customer support members is to resolve the customers’ problems or guide them through the next steps. Customer support is available in companies where there is direct dealing with customers or clients like eCommerce, SaaS, and IT. 

Not every company requires a customer support team. For example, a restaurant doesn’t need a customer support team to help a customer at the restaurant. 

What does a customer support team need to do? 

The customer support members should provide quick and accurate resolutions to customers. They should also take customer feedback and provide valuable information to product teams for improving the products. 

A customer support team is also divided based on technical proficiency and product expertise. For example, if a customer needs support with installation then they can directed to a support agent who has product expertise. Dividing support agents based on their expertise will help you resolve customer queries quickly. 

What is customer service? 

Customer service refers to offering support to customers throughout their journey with a business. Customer service focuses on both potential and existing customers. 

Customer service involves offering support to customers from finding a product to billing, upgrading, or even for the refund process. 

It aims to assist customers throughout the buying journey and even after it to ensure customer satisfaction. 

Customer support is one type of interaction where a customer approaches the support team just to get help regarding an issue. 

But customer service refers to all interactions that customers have with a business i.e. before purchasing, post purchasing, etc. 

What’s the difference between customer service and customer support? 

Customer support vs. customer service: The main difference between customer service and customer support is that customer support focuses on helping customers while customer service aims to build relationships. 

Let’s take an example to understand this. 

A customer walks into a shop and is not able to find the T-shirt in the size they want. A customer service representative helps them find the T-shirt and shows other options in the same size. 

After a few days, the same customer sees that the T-shirt’s print has faded in one wash despite its claim. Then, they drop an email to the customer support team. 

The customer support agent gets in touch with them and tells them that they can exchange it from the store. 

Here, you can see the customer service agent’s role was to provide service and the customer support agent’s role was to help the customer. 

Now, we will tell you the main differences between customer support and customer service.

Why is customer support important for your business? 

Customers often reach out to brands with problems on different channels like website, phone, social media, and so on. 

Customer support is important for brands as it helps to resolve customer queries quickly and effectively. It helps in improving the experience of a customer with a brand. 

Customer support teams answer customers and assist them in resolving their problems. Customers expect a quick reply from businesses and support teams help to do that. 

Happy and satisfied customers tend to do business again with a company. Customer support services aid in increasing customer lifetime value and retention. 

Customer support teams help to get direct feedback from customers. This feedback helps businesses improve their products or services. They can add new features and modify the existing ones to provide a better experience to customers. With the help of professional customer support outsourcing services, brands can deliver seamless experiences while focusing on their core business operations.

Best tips for providing good customer support and services 

Now, you understand the importance of customer support and services for businesses. In this section, we will tell you how you can enhance your customer service and customer support.

1. Have a unified approach 

Customer support and customer service go hand in hand. You must ensure that you provide a coherent experience to customers through both customer support and service. 

You should have a unified approach or it will lead to a lot of inconsistencies in your customer service. To avoid this start by defining the set of principles and rules that will guide your customer services support.

You can also create a guide that contains the common and best practices that your teams should follow. It should include instructions for addressing customers, reporting errors, and taking customer feedback. 

2. Provide the right tools and technologies to your team 

Choose the right tools and software that can help your customer support and service team to serve customers better. 

Good customer service tools can help ease up the tasks of your representatives and boost their efficiency. 

For example, WebMaxy Omnichannel support helps your support agents respond to customer queries on different channels from one dashboard. 

3. Consider skills while recruiting your support team 

Set criteria to hire the right candidates for your customer service support. Consider qualities like good communication skills, patience, empathy, positivity, intelligence, and so on. 

You can conduct a test before hiring the candidates. This way you’ll know who are apt candidates for your customer support team. After hiring, you can also implement employee monitoring in the workplace to ensure productivity, maintain service quality, and identify areas for further training. 

4. Clear communication 

Be clear in your communication with customers. Avoid confusion and mistakes as it would lead to a bad customer experience and they might not come to you again. 

Make sure that your support agents use simple words to communicate with customers. Hire support agents who can speak the local language that your customers may use to communicate with your brand. 

Clear communication is the key to providing good customer support. Ensure that you inform customers clearly about how much time would it take to resolve a problem or issue. 

Let them know that you will reach out to them as soon as you find an answer or resolution to their problem. Communicate with your customer support team and set standards for how and what you will reply to customers at different stages. 

5. Positive tone 

When customers contact a brand they want to feel assured that their problem or issue will be resolved quickly. Make sure that your customer support agents use a positive tone that seems solutions-oriented. 

Usually, when a customer encounters a problem they’re full of uncertainty and panic. A support agent should try to assure and calm down the customer. The positive tone and language of the support agent can help to do this. 

6. Have empathy 

Customers want to feel heard and understood when they connect with a customer support agent. Having empathy towards customers is really important for support agents. 

Instead of just focusing on solving the problem, they should hear the frustrated customers and have empathy towards them. 

Customer support agents should address customers personally and try to see the problem from their perspective. This helps to build long-term customer relationships. 

7. Fast resolution 

When a customer reaches out to the customer support team, they expect a resolution in one go. No customer wants to do multiple interactions to resolve a problem or issue. 

According to a report, 67% of customer churn can be prevented if issues are resolved in one go. You can also do this by segmenting your support agents based on their expertise. 

Once you get a customer query, you can assign it to the support agent based on the level of expertise required. This will help you resolve customer queries quickly and in the first interaction. 

8. Close conversations properly 

Customer support and service teams must end all the conversations properly. They should ensure that the customer is happy and satisfied with the resolution. 

You can’t know whether your customer had a positive or negative experience without asking them about it. 

Once, you have resolved the customer’s problem you must ask them if they need help with anything else and if they’re satisfied with their experience. 

Asking this question will help you know if it’s right and safe to close the conversation with them now. 

9. Save time with templates 

The customer support team often comes across the same questions or doubts. Thus, it’s better to create response templates instead of just typing the same replies. 

You can make templates for responses and save them. This way the customer support agents can use them directly by just making a few changes.

10. Active listening 

You must listen to what customers have to say about your brand and service. Train your customer support team to have active listening skills. 

Ask your customer support agents to take feedback from customers right after they have provided a resolution.

This shows customers you care about their experience and their opinion matters to you. Their feedback can help you find gaps in your customer support and customer service. 

Customer Support: The Conclusion 

Customer support and customer service are two different aspects that aim to enhance customer experience. 

Customer support focuses on providing quick resolutions to customers whereas customer service helps in building customer relationships. 

Both of them include implementing best practices and processes to carry out seamless customer interactions. 

Over the years, businesses have realized the impact of customer support and customer service on the overall experience of customers. Now, they have started focusing on improving customer service support.  

WebMaxy Omnichannel support is a customer service tool that helps you unify your marketing channels inboxes. 

You can reply to customers on different communication channels from one dashboard. This will help you reduce your first response time and enhance customer experience. 

Schedule a demo with our experts to learn more about Omnichannel support tools and its features. You can connect with us at info@webmaxy.co. 

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