A good customer service can go a long way, and this is why you need to make sure that your business’ customer service exceeds expectations. It plays an important part in making sales and profits for small to big businesses. It makes brands popular and loved all over the world. Spending money on customer service software is worth it if it will increase customer satisfaction and improve your customer service ratings.
What is Customer Service Software?
Customer service involves all of the business’ interaction with their customers. It happens at all stages of the sales process making it an important phase because that is how your business makes money. Remember that customer service is important because this is the impression that you leave your customer. It is the reason they become loyal customers, and it will be the image that they have in mind when they talk about your store.
Customer service software helps level up your customer’s buying experience by making sure that you assist them in every step of the process. It helps you interact with your customers better and easier which gives them peace of mind that they will not waste their hard earned money. Capterra claims that Vision Helpdesk is one of the best customer service software in the market today.
What are the Features of Customer Service Software?
Customer service software modernizes the way of tracking, processing, reporting, routing, and resolving your customer’s issues. Gone are the days when a live human answers calls, which leads to a long wait time. Customer service software can sometimes be part of your CRM software or can come as a stand-alone product. Regardless of the type of customer software you choose, here are the common features that you need to look for.
- Live chat—this is a common feature that makes your interaction with the customer better and easier. Customers love this feature because they can directly talk to a representative as they are browsing the website making it easier for them to ask questions without having to call your hotline. Having an effective live chat service on your website can greatly improve your customer service skills.
- Self–service—since customers are becoming more and more independent, it’s only expected that the self-service function should be included in the customer service software. It is basically just a storage area of queries and answers as well as solutions to issues. For example, if your customer has a problem with their app, they can look it up on your website to save them the trouble of calling in your helpdesk. This helps you free up your call queue and is best for both parties.
- Information Base—This is also known as the FAQ section of your website. It acts like lists of frequently asked questions that can assist the customer service representative diagnose the problems quickly during a call. As your representative solves newer problems, they are added to this list. By doing so, you can reduce the time of having to solve the same problem.
- Ticketing—just like a stand-alone ticketing software, this acts like a system for tracking your customer’s current issues. Once a customer places a call, a ticket is generated by the system. This ticket can be handled by different departments and personnel within your company to prevent the customer from repeatedly explaining the issue. A good ticketing system can lead to better customer satisfaction, which improves your customer service.
- Reporting and Analytics – this feature lets the supervisors and department heads to generate reports that help them analyze important data. Just like in your Point of Sale software, you can compare data from different reports and create a solution based on the information that you get. This can be a great tool to assess your customer service department’s performance.
- Multiple Channel Management—there are mediums such as web chat, phone, email, social media, and Smartphone app. Once the customer chooses the channel that they want to use, the issue is routed to the proper agent for a fast resolution.
How does Customer Service Software Benefit You?
Aside from improving your customer satisfaction rating, there are other ways on how customer service software can benefit your business. Here are some of the top reasons.
1. Increased Accountability
The capability to record every single contact that you make with your customers is important in enforcing the customer service team’s accountability. In the old system, it’s easy for records to be lost which can make it difficult for you to perform coaching. By having the modern software, this can be avoided giving you perfect accountability since the beginning. This will help the manager provide feedback to the representative during the feedback session.
2. Improved Account Organization
When the sales process and customer support system are combined, it gives the customer service representative an edge by viewing the customer’s data before they answer the call. It also allows the CSR to know if there are pending repairs or replacement that the customer might be following up on. This increased visibility and organized data allows the representative to make the customer feel taken care of.
Having a well-organized account will also help the representative identify if the customer’s complaints are legitimate or if they are just after a lower bill. The system will show all the discounts applied to the account and will help the representative take care of the issue faster.
3. Enhanced Asset Management
Integrating the Inventory Management Software within the customer service software allows the representative to give more accurate information to the customer. For example, if your customer is ordering replacement parts, you can give them an idea on when they can expect it to arrive. It also helps that the issue is identified before picking up the call as the system can route the customer to a representative that is more experienced with the issue at hand.
4. Enhanced Scalability
For complicated issues that cannot be handled through phone or email, a number of self-help systems can be offered to the customer. This lets them try to resolve the problem on their end increasing their experience and gives your brand a positive reputation. It also allows the company to scale the effort that they put out while making sure that their customers are satisfied.
5. Less Time to Resolve Customer Problems
This has been an important metric when evaluating the customer service performance, and it is one of the most important targets for a company. If you are using good customer service software, you can lessen the time that you need to resolve issues by a considerable amount. This gives you lower costs for your business while making sure that your customers are satisfied.
Things to Consider When Buying Customer Service Software
To make sure that you are spending your money wisely, you need to consider a lot of things before making your software purchase. Although customer service software promises a lot of benefits, you might want to see if your business absolutely needs it.
- Fits Your Business needs—The most important thing to consider before buying customer service software is if it fits your business needs to boost the level of your customer service.
- Fix Your Weakest Link—Start by giving out surveys to your customer to find out what the weakest part of your customer service is. It is this weakest part that holds you back from achieving the maximum level of customer satisfaction for your business. If the customer service software can fix this weakest link, it’s worth purchasing.
- Affordability—Small businesses usually have web-based software as it is more affordable compared to an on-site system that has a bigger overhead and requires more space and manpower.
- Ease of Use—The customer service representative needs to have a firm grasp on how to operate your system without having to go through hours of training. The simpler your interface is and the easier it is to use, the better.
- Compatibility—Make sure the software is compatible with your hardware, especially if you are planning to install it in an already existing system. Non-compatible software might cause you to spend more money than you have expected.
How Much Should You Spend on Customer Service Software?
After considering everything mentioned above, you need to set a realistic budget that you can use to purchase your software. There are vendors that offer free trials for a limited amount of time to let you experience their software and the services that they offer. You can take advantage of this free trial period to test the software and make sure that it fits your business needs. If you don’t have the time or manpower to test the software for you, you can try to read blogs and reviews to compare customer service software. You can also go to CrowdReviews.com for a list of reviews and ratings.
Keith Moore
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