Customer support what is

That has created a new era of customer support, one where there is a much greater need for companies to stand out by providing great service. Today, the companies that are coming out on top are those that understand the ROI of great support and treat exceptional customer support as a feature instead of an inescapable cost. Start in minutes with a free trial.

Instead of the stereotypical view of customer service as a cost center, customer support teams are the face of the company. They play a critical part in sales and word-of-mouth marketing, work side-by-side with product teams, and have a seat at the table when it comes to company decision making.

Modern customer support is a much more all-encompassing role that plays a part in the entire customer lifecycle — from acquisition to retention.

Disempowered agents who require managerial approval for tasks customers should be able to accomplish themselves.

Self-service first; skilled and empowered agents can help with more complex questions and requests. Round-the-clock help via multiple channels: knowledge base documentation, email, phone, chat, social media, etc.

The new customer support applies the principles of customer service in helping customers solve problems and make decisions but, in addition, functions as part sales, part tech support, and part customer success. Many businesses continue to direct their energies toward protecting revenue by putting these speed bumps in place, but they waste time that could have been spent solving a problem that only a human can solve.

While there are many different approaches to delighting your customers, here are our eight best ways for company leaders to enable their teams to deliver great customer support consistently.

Dedicated customer service software is often a better choice for enabling your team to deliver excellent support. Tools that have been designed specifically for support teams offer features like shared inboxes , built-in help centers , saved replies , automated workflows , duplicate reply prevention , and customer relationship data.

These features help your team deliver personalized, fast, and expert service with every customer interaction. Sometimes, delivering excellent customer support means making it easy for customers to help themselves. Make sure you have a knowledge base that includes answers to frequently asked questions and how-to articles that walk customers through the steps required to solve common problems.

Some of the most important skills for support professionals are patience, attentiveness, the ability to communicate clearly, a willingness to learn, and empathy.

Your team needs to be composed of people who want to learn everything there is to know about your product because they genuinely want to help your customers succeed. They must be willing to dig in to troubleshoot issues , solve problems outside of their domain , and actively listen to customers to determine what they really need. Having to check with management to solve all but the most basic requests will disempower even the most competent agents.

Jack Jenkins. Davin O'Dwyer. Des Traynor. Yasmine Sefouane. Support 31 min listen. Support 19 min listen.

Kaitlin Pettersen. Main illustration: Hanna Swann. That personal connection is most keenly felt when things go wrong and when customers need support. We have become synonymous with making personal and conversational support interactions the bedrock of a great customer support experience. In the not too distant past, customer support was often seen as a hassle, a cost that had to be borne but which was really just a tax on success.

Luckily, that adversarial view of customers is on the wane and progressive companies consider a customer-centric culture a core value. As a result, customer support has undergone some dramatic changes in recent years.

Increasingly, companies realize that putting your customers front and center is essential to customer retention, transforms customers into advocates for your business and delivers a competitive advantage. Learn the latest strategies for your most personal, efficient support team yet. Customer support is the range of services you offer to help your customers get the most out of your product and to resolve their problems.

Customer support includes things like answering customer questions, providing assistance with onboarding, troubleshooting, and upgrading customers to a new product or service. Depending on the industry, these services can range from call centers phone support to ticket-based helpdesks and email support, from self-serve knowledge bases to increasingly personal types of customer support using tools such as Intercom. Some companies interchangeably use terms such as customer service or even customer success, but while some insist on subtle nuanced differences between those fields, the larger principles should remain the same — making sure your customers get the best value possible from your product.

We have always championed one aspect of customer support above all others — we intentionally avoid the concept of ascribing customers a support ticket or number when they make contact, because the people at the other end of the question are not numbers. But thinking of your customers as numbers rather than people hinders the sort of empathy that is key to successful customer support.

Customer support should be personal. As a business, this requires responding within a reasonable period of time honestly, personally and proactively. As you can see, while only some customers will require Customer Support, all your customers will experience Customer Service.

The reason why these terms are often confused is because providing Customer Support requires Customer Service skills. Want to learn more about these terms? Read our article on the differences between customer support and customer service. However, Customer Success and Customer Support are quite different. Customer Success is a set of practices and procedures that seek to help your customers with their own success.

After all, their success is your success. With this in mind, Shopify engages in customer success strategies that seek to help their clients grow their business, improve their marketing, etc.