Feature
The Gist
- Empathy leads. Customer support now thrives on empathy and active listening, vital for enhancing relationships and trust.
- AI integration. Automation and AI are reshaping support, offering 24/7 availability and personalized experiences, crucial for efficiency.
- Feedback power. Actively gathering and implementing customer feedback is key, driving continuous improvement and customer-centric innovation.
Customer support today has outgrown its traditional role, emerging as a key aspect of the overall customer experience (CX). This vital touchpoint between businesses and their customers is instrumental in shaping the durability and depth of customer relationships. Modern customer support extends beyond mere problem-solving; it includes forging connections, comprehensively understanding consumer needs and proactively refining the customer journey. In a marketplace that is abundant with alternatives, where earning customer loyalty is increasingly challenging, the caliber of support offered can profoundly impact brand perception. This article will examine the current state of customer support, underscoring its significance and examining some key strategies that underlie effective customer support today.
What Is the Definition of Customer Support in 2024?
Customer support includes the support and assistance that is provided to customers before, during, and after a purchase, and involves activities such as answering queries, solving problems, resolving complaints, engaging in interactions, following up on issues, and offering advice and guidance. This service is delivered through a variety of channels, including phone, email, live chat, social media, and face-to-face interactions, ensuring comprehensive support across all stages of the customer journey.
Customer support today includes a myriad of technologies and practices. Anand Janefalkar, founder and CEO UJET, an intelligent, modern contact center platform, told CMSWire that a modern customer service strategy adapts to evolving trends and consolidates the distributed parts of the contact center and customer experience landscape. "A robust customer support strategy requires the connection of disparate technologies like workforce management, security, privacy and analytics,” said Janefalkar. “To meet the diverse preferences of customers, brands must synchronize these systems so they can communicate through channels that meet customers where they are most comfortable and blend multiple communication forms."
Customer support has undergone a significant transformation from the era of brick-and-mortar storefronts to the current digital age. Traditionally, customer support in physical stores involved face-to-face interactions, where personal rapport and direct assistance played key roles. This form of support was limited by store hours and geographical location, confining the scope of service and customer reach.
With the advent of the digital age, customer support expanded beyond these physical constraints. The introduction of call centers allowed businesses to offer support over the phone, broadening their availability. The real revolution, however, came with the advent of the internet. Email support became a staple, providing customers with a convenient way to seek help without being constrained by time or location.
The emergence of social media platforms further transformed customer support. Brands began to use these platforms not just for marketing, but also as a means to offer real-time support and engage with customers more informally and publicly. This transition also brought about a more conversational style of customer service, with businesses adopting a more personalized approach.
The latest evolution in customer support is marked by the integration of artificial intelligence and automation. Chatbots and AI-driven support tools can now handle routine inquiries 24/7, providing instant responses and freeing human agents to tackle more complex issues. This technology has not only improved efficiency but also customer satisfaction by reducing wait times and ensuring round-the-clock assistance.
"Generative AI’s explosion over the last year signifies an even more important layer to how brands can uplevel customer support,” said Janefalkar. “This shift underscores the transformative power of generative AI in reshaping customer service strategies and propelling businesses toward unparalleled levels of customization and efficiency."
Related Article: Customer Support Is an Investment, Not an Expense
The Importance of Customer Support in CX
Customer support plays a crucial role in fostering customer loyalty and retention. Effective customer support can significantly enhance customer satisfaction, leading to increased loyalty. The pandemic had a large impact on the expectations and demands of customers. A 2022 Statista survey revealed that 56% of United States respondents had higher expectations for customer service than they had in 2021, while another Statista survey indicated that 94% of survey participants said that a positive customer service experience made them more likely to purchase from a brand again, and 82% would recommend a brand based on excellent customer service.
Melissa Copeland, principal of Blue Orbit Consulting, a Chicago-based consulting firm, told CMSWire that the customer support landscape has changed and is still changing dramatically based on a number of forces and factors. "Since the pandemic, customers have increasingly high expectations of being able to interact with a brand or organization through the channel of their choice for anything they need at any time,” said Copeland. “The speed of an answer, the accuracy of an answer, and the feel of an experience have become critical vectors of the support experience."
When customers receive prompt, empathetic, and efficient support, their trust and confidence in the brand are strengthened. As the above-mentioned surveys reflected, a positive customer support experience not only encourages them to continue using the brand's products or services but also makes them more likely to recommend the brand to others, thus increasing customer retention.
On the other hand, poor customer support can have a detrimental effect. It can lead to customer frustration, decreased trust, and ultimately, the loss of customers to competitors. As far back as 2018, a Microsoft report titled the "State of Global Customer Service" indicated that 61% of customers ceased to do business with a brand due to poor customer service. Fast forward to today's overly competitive market, where customers have numerous options, and the quality of customer support can be a key differentiator for a brand. Therefore, investing in quality customer support — by training staff, implementing effective customer service tools, and continuously seeking feedback for improvement — is essential for maintaining a loyal customer base and ensuring long-term business success.
Customer support has evolved into a pivotal brand differentiator primarily because it significantly enhances the overall customer experience. When products and prices are often comparable with other brands, the quality of support offered by a company can profoundly influence a customer's perception and decision-making. Effective customer support not only builds trust and bolsters a brand's reputation but also helps to build customer loyalty. This is particularly evident in scenarios where customers, having experienced satisfactory support, become brand advocates, sharing their positive experiences through word-of-mouth and social media, both of which are powerful tools in the digital era.
Copeland explained that today, in 2024, the view from the ground — the practical view — has shifted a bit although the labor struggle is still real. "Effective support emphasizes a mix of meeting customers where they are with a variety of options — through a variety of channels like voice, text, chat, web form, and chatbot available for however a customer wants to interact," said Copeland. "The next level is having these options available anytime — maybe or not 24x7 but certainly when most customers want to interact." Copeland said that the last level, and the hardest to achieve, is connecting all of the channels seamlessly so that customers, their history and their information can move from channel to channel and interaction to interaction with the history attached.
Additionally, a brand that is well known for its superior customer support can effectively reduce customer churn, even justifying a premium pricing model due to the added value it provides. This aspect of customer support is a crucial competitive advantage, as it not only retains existing customers but also attracts new ones, drawn by the promise of reliable and empathetic service. The emotional connection established through personalized and compassionate support interactions further deepens customer loyalty, making customer support not just a service function, but an integral part of a brand's identity and value proposition.
Related Article: How to Leverage Your AI-Powered Customer Support Strategy
5 Essential Strategies for Effective Customer Support
Strategy 1: Using Omnichannel Support: Omnichannel support in customer service is a comprehensive strategy that integrates all of a brand’s channels to offer a seamless and consistent customer experience. This approach is tailored to meet the expectations of modern consumers who seek real-time responses and prefer to interact with brands across multiple platforms, including online, mobile and in-store environments.
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The effectiveness of omnichannel customer service lies in its ability to provide a unified experience. It's not just about having multiple channels of communication; the critical aspect is that these channels are interconnected, offering a seamless, consistent and cohesive customer journey. This strategy leads to numerous benefits, including enhanced customer insights through data gathered across various platforms, improved customer satisfaction by offering diverse self-service options, and increased efficiency in handling customer queries.
Edlyn Collanto, a B2B marketing research specialist at UpCity, a B2B service connection resource, told CMSWire that exceptional customer service is a competitive differentiator that builds brands, retains customers and drives growth. Collanto's business provides customer support through channels including live chat, email, social media and phone. "Strategies like one-on-one consultations, unified cross-channel assist, proactive account guidance, and self-service resources help us enhance each customer touchpoint."
Strategy 2: Emphasizing Empathy and Active Listening: Focusing on empathy and active listening in customer support is a strategy that significantly enhances the quality of customer service interactions. This approach revolves around fully understanding and responding to the customer's needs and concerns in a supportive and understanding manner.
Chris Gerbig, president and co-founder of Pink Lily, a women's boutique clothing retailer, told CMSWire that customer support is about connections, building relationships and being relatable. "We want the customer to know that we are real people running this company as if it were still a small business. We aren’t a billion-dollar company where every customer is just a transaction. We are just regular people trying to sell clothes, and we display that throughout all of our customer interactions."
Active listening involves giving complete attention to the customer, recognizing the nuances in their words, tone and underlying emotions. This level of attentiveness shows customers that their concerns are being taken seriously and that they are valued. Empathy, on the other hand, allows customer service representatives to emotionally connect with customers, putting themselves in the customers’ shoes.
By acknowledging and validating the customer's emotions, service agents can create a rapport and demonstrate compassion and understanding. This combination of active listening and empathy is effective in addressing customer issues, building trust, and providing personalized solutions, thereby enhancing the overall customer experience.
Strategy 3: Continuous Training and Development of Support Staff: Continuous training and development of support staff is a crucial customer support strategy, deeply rooted in the understanding that the quality of customer service is directly proportional to the skills and knowledge of the support team. This approach involves regularly updating training programs to keep pace with new technologies, product changes, customer expectations, and communication techniques.
Tom Lewis, SVP and head of consulting at TTEC Digital, a contact center solution provider, told CMSWire that it’s important to combine the tried and trues with a new "ready-set-go" approach, especially at this point, when AI can modernize and significantly enhance relationship-building with the customer. "The ‘Ready’ stage includes investing in your customer support employees. Empower them with the right modern technology to make their jobs easier and provide the support and education they need to grow and improve within their role. Then invest in process improvements around training, education, and technology."
The core idea behind continuous training is to equip customer service representatives with the latest tools and information needed to provide exceptional service. This includes not just technical know-how about products or services, but also training in soft skills such as communication, empathy, problem-solving and handling difficult situations. By continually developing these skills, support staff can adapt to varied customer needs and preferences, leading to improved customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Additionally, ongoing training ensures that staff members are well-versed in the latest industry trends and customer service best practices. This is particularly important in sectors where products, regulations, or customer expectations are rapidly evolving.
Strategy 4: Leveraging AI and Automation: Leveraging AI and automation in customer support is a strategy that focuses on integrating artificial intelligence and automated systems into customer service operations to enhance efficiency, improve customer experiences and streamline processes. This approach involves using AI-driven tools such as chatbots, virtual assistants and automated response systems to handle routine customer inquiries and issues. These technologies can provide immediate responses to customers, reducing wait times and improving overall satisfaction.
Lewis suggested that brands can set themselves up for AI-driven customer support success by realistically understanding their current state of CX and their short- and long-term opportunities for AI enhancements — and should pinpoint the easiest and most impactful opportunities to elevate customer support with AI now. “AI can come into play in bite-sized pieces — to further the humanization and automation of interactions. Maybe it’s using AI with your interactive voice response system to reduce the endless array of options that can put off a customer, especially during interactions for trouble-shooting their problems,” said Lewis, who added that AI can help the chatbot more easily understand the customers’ questions and offer more complete and relevant answers.
AI in customer support not only handles simple queries but also gathers and analyzes customer data, enabling more personalized and informed interactions. For instance, AI systems can analyze a customer's history with a business and tailor responses or recommendations based on that history. This level of personalization can significantly increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. “It can also eliminate the chain of human agents who keep asking the customer to repeat the same information over and over again,” said Lewis.
Strategy 5: Gathering and Implementing Customer Feedback: Gathering and implementing customer feedback as a strategy in customer support revolves around the active collection, analysis, and application of insights that are derived from customer opinions and suggestions. This approach is anchored in the idea that understanding customer experiences, needs, and expectations is crucial for any brand.
Businesses often employ various methods to collect feedback, such as surveys, feedback forms, social media engagement, direct customer interviews and through analysis of interactions with customer support. More sophisticated techniques such as sentiment analysis are also used to understand customer emotions and opinions based on their digital interactions.
Ian Sells, CEO of Million Dollar Sellers, an ecommerce community, told CMSWire that active community engagement has multiple benefits, one of which is the ability to obtain genuine customer feedback. "We actively engage with our customer base through social media and community forums, not just to provide support but to gather valuable feedback,” said Sells. “This engagement allows us to stay attuned to customer needs and preferences, continuously shaping our services to better meet their expectations."
Once collected, this feedback is critically analyzed to identify patterns, preferences and areas for improvement to obtain actionable insights. The real value of this strategy lies in how effectively a business can implement changes based on this feedback. This could involve modifying products or services, enhancing customer service practices or refining user experiences.
Final Thoughts
Customer support has become a pivotal component of the overall customer experience, with the potential to significantly influence brand perception and customer loyalty. By embracing omnichannel strategies, emphasizing empathy, leveraging AI, investing in staff training, and proactively gathering feedback, businesses can transform their support functions into strategic assets that enhance satisfaction, build enduring relationships and provide a vital competitive edge.
