By
“Do you know that nine out of ten consumers would not come to your company again because of poor customer service means if they find that the support service is not effective or professional?”
World class support service comes with a huge price tag. As per the Worldwide Industry Benchmark Report, 2015, ‘the average cost per inbound customer service call is $1.30.’ It’s for the average support service, but the moment you add something more into it, the overall service cost will go up exponentially.
But it does not mean that you will give up the urge of providing exceptional assistance to your customers. Here are some great ideas that will help you to reduce the overall customer service cost without compromising on the quality.
1. Add live chat software to serve more customers at a time
Compared to other traditional support channels like email or phone calls, the cost per interaction is much lesser with live chat software. As its real –time, each of the support agent can respond instantly. So because of this, they spend less time per interaction which on the other way saves on the human resource expenses.
‘Live chat solution helps businesses to save big and makes the support agents more efficient.’
2. Hire the right people
Hire the ‘Right’ people to manage your customer service department, otherwise you are in big trouble.
By ‘Right’ I mean the few essential qualities that the support agent needs to have which include:
a. Patience
b. Strong communication skill
c. Ability to handle irritated customers
d. Helpful nature
e. Quick decision making capability
f. Cognitive skill to understand customers’ problems
3. Use Social Media as a multi-channel communication tool
Social media channels like Facebook, Linkedin or Twitter are no longer exclusively aimed for social networking only, as nowadays some of the most famous brands are using it to promote their businesses and keep touch with their target audience.
Social media helps you to create brand loyalty and improve the quality of customer service. Live chat software like REVE Chat, can be easily integrated with your Facebook company page which offers an additional way to reach to your potential clients who visit your Facebook company page.
‘So if used smartly, social media is a great cost effective way to make your customers happy and satisfied.’
4. Invest to train your support team
The efficiency and quality of support service depend on the level of training your agents are getting. So, never skimp on training. Apart from that, to increase their productivity, start using good customer support solutions that also will reduce the overall expenses.
There are plenty of customer support software available in the market specially designed to facilitate the support job, so make sure you choose the right one. Apart from improving on the poor customer service, this will considerably reduce the work pressure of your support team without compromising on the quality.
5. Consider remote work for your support agents
With the latest technology available today, now you don’t need to have all of your customer support personnel under the one roof. Now it’s easy to build your own support team where agents can work from home located anywhere in the world at much lower cost than transporting your whole team in your office, paying rent, electric bills and other assorted overheads at any permanent commercial property.
‘To make your support service smooth and efficient, invest in useful support tools.’
REVE Chat, a live chat software, for example, enables agents to live chat with the website visitors and manage the whole activity through an easy to manage web based dashboard. Through its ‘Reporting and Analytics’ feature, you will be able to understand the team’s overall performance and the quality of your support service.
6. Use self-service programs
For providing excellent customer support, self-service program is a good option. Basically self-service programs are some sort of guidance system designed to help website visitors find solutions to their queries or provide support while installing any program.
‘WalkMe‘ is one such a self-service program that guides visitors to take action within the website. As a cloud based enterprise class guidance and engagement platform, it understands customer needs and provides assistance whenever they need. Highly functional, and very easy to apply, WalkMe is a great investment for those companies who want to reduce the cost of service associated with customer support without lowering its quality.
Over to you!
So these are my thoughts on saving big with your support service. What strategies you are following for reducing the overall cost of service without compromising on the quality? What are the smart tricks you are following? Tell us in the comment section!
Having all your resources under one roof is not a viable idea. It will mean a more stressful life for them, reduced output and above all, customer dissatisfaction. An idea of having the team all over the targeted area is much better. After all, if one is assigned a task when he is at home, he can quickly rush to the client’s location without bothering to show up at the office.
Hi Ron. Thanks for commenting.
Yes, you are absolutely right. Apart from that, if people in the support team can work from anywhere, it will be helpful because, that way you can manage 24/7 support service in a better way. You can divide the working hours and will be able to provide quality support all day long.
The way to reduce costs is to just do things right in the first place. Hire and train the right people to begin with. Identify customer’s problems and them proactively eliminate them. That is part of what delivering a great customer service is all about. If you want to cut costs, do it right from the beginning!
Hi Jhon. Yes, the easiest way to cut down costs is to identify the issues at the beginning and then eliminate them. Also, you should hire the right people because if they are not capable of handling customer queries, then you will never be able to provide quality customer support. The 2nd step will be to provide proper training for further improvement. Don’t forget that they will be the ones who will represent your company.
Traditional phone support or face to face support have a chance to guess customer’s mind and impression. According to their vibe of voice or facial expression we can understand their mental situation. But in live chat we are only able to read their word not their expression. So if any customer is unsatisfied but not expert communicate in written form what can be the best idea or terms to understand their impression?
Hi Ramim. Several live chat software, for example REVE Chat offers audio and video calling facility with which customers apart from live chat, also can initiate voice and video calls to the support agents from the chat widget itself. So, its not a barrier anymore.
In the competition of the e-commerce business it is most important to catch the customers to increase the sales and get more profit. Its important how quickly you can response to your customers. By using live chat software you can easily serve your costumers and you make them satisfy. I am using the live chat solution named REVE chat in my site and it saves my support cost. I think everyone will be benefited if they use live chat. Thank you for this article and for better tips.
Hi Labaan. Thanks a lot for your appreciation. Keep visiting.
Thanks for sharing, this is perfect for me because I am trying to find more sources to get inspired. I look forward to reading more from you.
Hi James. Thanks a lot for your appreciation. Keep visiting for the upcoming blogs.
Thank you for your great article. It is the clearest I’ve found and i am sure it’s going to help me in my effort to improve my business. Nice work !
Thanks for your appreciation.
As customer service teams use live chat, They can support multiple customers simultaneously typically 4-5, but sometimes more. Live chat will also reduce the number of calls coming in to the call center as customers turn to live chat over dialing a phone number. Live chat agents can do the same work as many phone support employees.
Great Article. I think it would be better idea if we use live chat as service center as well as selling point. Through this we can get benefit either way.
In the networking era most of the people are using social media like as Facebook, twitter, Linkedin and so on. A grate number of people in the world connecting everyday. This is the best platform to introduce you businesses quickly.
You can add your business ion social media through REVE chat as like me. Thanks a lot to REVE chat as it is possible to add in the Facebook.
Hi Javier. Yes, on the REVE Chat widget, not only you can add your social media icons, but also with the ‘Facebook Chat Integration’ feature, you can directly engage and provide instant support to those customers who visit your Facebook company page. Its a great way of reducing customer service cost without compromising on the quality.
Hi Marshall. Yes, you are right and because of that, you can save huge on your overall expenses without degrading the quality of customer support.