Providing good customer service options is crucial in the world of business. No matter the type of company that you run, it always makes sense to work hard to provide as many contact options as possible to the people spending money with you. Not only will this help to make them feel confident before a purchase, but it will also enable you to spread the load of contacts you receive when you are hard at work. But how exactly should you be offering customer services? Let’s take a look at some of the best options in the modern world.
By Team Savant
Image: Louis Hansel
Email Addresses
Email is great. It is fast, reliable, and it doesn’t require an instant response like many other forms of communication. You should be providing email addresses to the people who shop with you, and these need to include your website URL, rather than a free email service like Gmail. You can create policies for your email responses, along with offering a range of different contact forms so that people can choose the ones that apply to them. You just need to make sure that your forms are secure and that you get consent to store customer information.
Live Chat
Live chat is great for small companies, providing a way to let customers talk to you with instant messaging. Chatbots can be used to direct the flow of the conversation, enabling customers to get help without even talking to a human. Alongside this, though, you can also take over the chat to give tailored support. Tools like Dialogflow make it easy to create chatbots that are responsive and easy to talk to. This can be a great way to collect user information before you contact them as a lead.
Phone Numbers
Phone numbers have always been important to business, providing a way for people to talk directly to you and your employees. Of course, though, you need to make sure that you have a proper system in place for inbound calls. Phone answering service pricing is far lower than it used to be, and this can be a great way to start. Much like a chatbot, you will only have to talk to people if they need help with something specific. In most cases, the answering service will be able to solve their problems for you.
Ticketing Systems
Ticketing systems are great for support issues that require long-term troubleshooting. Most CMS systems can handle tickets, enabling you to give your customers dedicated support with products and software that need to be fixed. From your end, it will most likely look like an email system, but your users will see something very different. Ticketing systems are used in a variety of different industries, but you have to be careful not to get overwhelmed with this and it can be worth having dedicated team members to handle it for you.
Automated Support
Automated support systems have been gaining a lot of popularity in recent years. Being able to cancel orders, request refunds, and get help in other ways without having to talk to a human will appeal to a lot of your customers and clients. This is something that may require custom development on your website or app, but this will be worth the time and effort to make sure that your customers are able to resolve issues as quickly as possible. Saving yourself from dedicated valuable time on common requests can make your life much easier. This even has the potential to save money down the line.
Forums
Support forums are one of the oldest ways to get help online. Many people are used to the format of forums, with people being able to weigh in on any topic they like. You can add a forum to your website with relative ease, especially if you use a tool like WordPress. You will need to moderate the forum you create, but this will be much easier than dealing with phone calls all the time. Of course, you can even rely on your customers to help one another when you have a forum in place.
With all of this in mind, you should be feeling ready to level up your customer service options. Many companies fail to offer the right level of service to their clients and customers, but you can easily overcome this by offering a range of options for people looking to get in contact. You just have to make sure that you keep on top of this work once everything is in place.