In today’s world, the Customer is King, and a business needs to keep its potential and regular buyers on priority. The most common and important method of keeping buyers happy is to provide effective and different types of customer service to them.
You might have noticed that not all the users believe in making direct calls to the business; some opt for email support, and others have a real time live chat with a representative to get the matter sorted in less time.
This is why a business should have multichannel support to keep customers happy.
In this article we will be discussing some types of customer service options that you can implement in your businesses to enhance the overall customer experience. But before that you need to understand what customer service actually is…
What is Customer Service?
Customer service is the support offered by businesses, which involves multi-channel support and professional solutions to the buyers, leading to improved customer satisfaction.
The first and foremost step involves listening to buyers carefully, what they want, and their concerns. And once you know what kind of help or solution your customer wants, you can act accordingly following a pattern of customer handling.
In this service, the businesses take customer inquiries, issues or queries via incoming calls, and other customer service mediums. It also includes business-related calls on behalf of the company to resolve the issues, take care of customer feelings, and understand their perspectives simultaneously.
A customer service medium is considered to be one of the best ways in building the customer-business relationship. It eradicates all the scope of doubts from the customer’s mind and gives wings to the conversion.
Now that we understand what customer service actually is and how it can help the businesses, it is time to discuss the various mediums using which businesses can make the process of customer reach easy.
Why is Customer Service Important?
Customer service is important because in the world we live in today is online for most of it. Be it social blogging sites, micro blogging sites, businesses and others, all are online. You may find your customer queries or inquiries everywhere.
This is the biggest reason why businesses must try every way possible to reach out to their customers using various platforms mentioned above. And this is the very reason why customer service is so very important for businesses these days.
These customer services agents keep a close watch on all the mediums you use for your customers and to ease out their reach to your business. And promptly reply to them round the clock making the business present and working at all the hours of the day and your customers feel heard and with prompt solutions they feel satisfied with your business process, that a major win-win for you.
Top 10 Types of Customer Services Businesses Must Consider
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Email Support
Do you even know when the first electronic mail was sent? Well it was in the year 1971, and since then, the process has not stopped till now. From a buyer’s perspective, they consider email a dedicated and professional communication channel or a way to connect with customers. No wonder still many customers prefer to write an email to register their requests or complaints.
One of the pros of email answering service is that the cost is quite bearable and not a fortune and is a pennywise option for small and medium businesses.
In email support, consumers don’t want you to respond immediately, and you get more time to take their grievances; and you can also use canned responses (Predefined Responses) or email templates to have your first round of interaction.
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Live Chat Support
One of the most opted modes of communication for online platforms is live chat. Almost all websites have integrated it as it gives you the freedom to focus on other business dealings while your chat support representative is handling the customers.
According to some studies, live chat services are quite cost-effective and are way cheaper that a phone call, 17-30% to be precise. Why? The answer is simple, a phone call has its own limitations and managing multiple queries simultaneously is not possible in the same.
A live chat offers the fastest response times to the buyers, which resolves their issues faster, resulting in earning their trust.
This type of customer support is most commonly used in ecommerce and other product-related businesses.
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Chatbot Customer Service
Ever since online purchasing and food orders have started, the need for chatbots has emerged. These days, it is most common for people to reach out to businesses via chatbots to get assistance with their basic queries.
A chatbot comes with some predefined questions a user might want to ask, like “where is my food?” and these questions come up with instant solutions which helps in easy dealing.
The adoption of Chatbots delights your regular and potential buyers and takes your customer service to automation mode. -
Live Phone Call Support
At some point or the other, a business needs to interact with customers via live phone call service, and one dedicated customer service team is required to get it done for you. If you are a small business, you can also choose a call center outsourcing service to ease your business tasks.
In this modern world we live today; you will find multilingual call center companies solving grievances in the native language of the customers.
Besides customer support, phone support can also get you some business by reaching potential buyers and getting them informed about your business or brand. This is called cold calling, and it has worked for countless businesses till now.
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Self Service Knowledge Base
Customers these days are so upgraded and empowered that they want to resolve their basic queries or issues all by themselves. After all, when you have the technology, why not use it and get things done.
Self-service is the proactive customer support that provides help to find all the solutions without the help of the company staff. As a business, you should have this knowledge base present to help your buyers solve their queries independently.
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Social Media Support
Social Media, the name covers everything in itself. It is no longer a platform to connect with your friends and family. Nowadays, it is used as a place to promote your business by all means. And where there is business, there is the need for customer support.
Today, social media handlers know how to deal with the customers asking about the product or any service. Social media support can empower your business.
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Walk-in Customer Service
Do you remember purchasing a product from a store and visiting the customer support section to get their help for a product you had recently purchased? The people who attended you there are the walk-in customer service.
Big brand outlets still have these services to keep the process of client dealing smooth. Although online shopping is a trend these days, it still has its essence in brick-and-mortar stores.This type of service is important for meaningful conversation, knowing a customer better, and getting their feedback without any hassle.
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Video Customer Service
Most commonly seen and practiced after the COVID-19 hit the world, these days, many businesses attend to their clients via video mode.Most commonly seen in the banking processes these days, if you want to open a new account or want some banking done, you need to have a video chat with the bankers; they will provide you the solutions right where you are.To become a brand known for personalized customer services, you can record and use the thank you videos that acknowledge your customers for being associated with you. This is more effective than you think.
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On-Site Customer Services
This type offers you the benefit of sitting at home or any location of your choice and getting the work done. This involves installing a product at the site, annual maintenance, or product repairs. Your business can get more trusted customers than ever by providing this service to the clients.
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IVR Support
Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is a technological innovation in which a buyer interacts with a voice-based on their inputs using a keypad that channels them in the right direction of solving their queries.
IVR is a process that can handle customers’ basic queries with ease. For example, whether a client wants to know their account balance of the mobile connection or the due date of the bill payment etc.
Businesses like mobile companies, banking, internet service providers, etc., use this support.
Conclusion
This sums up the topic of various customer support services that can make your business reach new heights by enhancing customer satisfaction experience through various customer service channels. So, it is very important to have good customer service for your business. Many small and large businesses are outsourcing their client support requirements to various service providers.
Want to Onboard Customer Services to Boost Your Business?