good customer service costs less than bad customer service.
Businesses lose $2,378 every second due to poor customer service. be smart! invest in good customer service tools and save on customer churn.
Reading: Reviews how to improve customer care tool list
The problem is that today’s customers are more demanding than ever. they want faster and better.
at the same time, most customers won’t think twice about leaving you. Statistics show that 51% of customers will never do business with the company again after a negative experience.
These new expectations lead to new challenges. in order to resist them, you need to stock up on useful tools.
with that in mind, we put together a list of the best customer service tools, which will help you overcome these challenges and obstacles and make you and your customers happy.
index:
- why do we need customer service tools?
- phone software
- ticket/email software
- chat software
- knowledge base
- support in social networks
- video conference
- meeting schedule
- online community
- customer feedback
- video recording tool
- incident reporting
- project management/bug reporting
- personalized videos
- newsletter tool
- Which customer service tools to start with?
but first, let’s take a look at why customer service is so important and why customers switch brands.
why do we need customer service tools?
as funny as it sounds, customer service reps are guardians of your brand. they fight to the end to solve customer problems and try their best to rectify the situation and make customer happy again.
They are the bridge between the user and the product or service, serve as a library for all business-related questions, and translate customer experiences to the product team.
no business can survive without customers. that means customer support teams are literally responsible for the future fate of the business itself.
The goal of any business is development and growth. but as the customer base grows, so does the number of problem reports.
along with the increasing number of problem reports, it is becoming easier to forget/miss something. In addition, waiting times are getting longer, which annoys customers.
For that reason, you need to arm yourself with useful customer service tools that will help you keep growing.
and in case your company credo is:
“We don’t hold anyone back. I want to go, there is the door. I’ll even save it for you”,
You should know that it is 6-7 times more expensive to attract a new customer than to retain an existing one.
plus 95% of customers share bad experiences. while a single negative review can cost the average company an average loss of 30 customers.
so support your agents with the best customer support tools and avoid these problems.
customer service tools
phone software
statistics say most customers would call rather than go online because they’re looking for a quick response (59%) or to speak to a real person (57%).
offer your audience a perfect solution to contact you and solve their problems in an instant.
In addition, the phone software has useful features that can enhance the customer experience, such as ivr.
is important for accuracy, one of the principles of good customer service. implementing software like ivr will help your reps serve customers more accurately.
This system saves time and resources by triaging callers and instantly connecting them to the right customer service representative. in this way, they connect with the representatives who will surely help them solve their problem.
and since 30% of customers are switching brands because they’ve moved to multiple agents, you’ll avoid losses.
That’s why I consider phone software to be one of the most important customer service tools.
example: channels – $24/month
channels is a telephone system that helps companies offer better customer service. incoming calls, ivr, toll free numbers, international numbers from 75+ countries, call recording and monitoring, reporting, lead generation and other features that will boost your customer service.
ticket/email software
Don’t forget the importance of email in customer service. Email remains a critical customer service channel, typically ranking second (after phone) in studies of customer preference.
Another reason to use emails is transparency, one more principle of customer service. their goal is to make the customer problem-solving process as clear as possible.
instead of simply accepting a ticket from your customer, you can send a series of emails outlining how deep you are in the process of resolving an issue.
example: helpdesk – $19/month
helpdesk is email helpdesk software that centralizes all incoming emails into a common system. It allows you to organize emails into tickets, share constant updates with your customers on the status of their issues, measure and improve processes like response time or staff time spent on tickets.
chat software
one more way to communicate with customers is live chat.
statistics say that 38% of consumers are more likely to buy from a company if it offers live chat support. and 51% of consumers are more likely to stay with or buy back from a business if it offers live chat support.
See also: 5 Effective Customer Service Tools & Software for Your Business
it is clear that live chat can have a significant impact on the user experience.
at the same time, a clunky and poorly designed chat screen is worse than no live chat. so if you decide to add this feature to your site, be sure to choose the right one for your business.
example: live chat – $16/month
livechat is a help desk software that gives you the ability to help your customers instantly with live chat or chatbot.
knowledge base
Lately, people have become very comfortable with technologies.
Today, many of us prefer to obtain information on our own without having to contact anyone.
Don’t you think so? remember the last time you googled your symptoms before visiting a doctor.
Knowledge base software will help you organize self-service customer service by creating your own knowledge base, so your customers can find answers for themselves.
example: proprofs knowledge base – $30/month
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proprofs knowledge base is an easy-to-use tool that can be used to create a public and private knowledge base, documentation, manuals, guides and more. While the tool helps customers solve problems on their own with a self-service knowledge base, it can also be used internally for knowledge sharing and team collaboration.
support in social networks
one of the principles of good customer service is accessibility. the best way for your company to achieve this is through omnichannel. and since we live in the age of the internet, it’s foolish not to use it.
Because the internet is a vast area made up of many independent platforms, you may need help managing all your accounts.
example: hootsuite – $29/month
hootsuite is a platform where you can manage all your social networks in one place. allows you to find and resolve social support messages quickly and efficiently.
video conference
face-to-face interactions are very powerful when it comes to your business.
In addition, there are some solutions that are impossible to explain in words.
during the video meeting, you can view your customer’s screen, virtually guide them through troubleshooting steps, or even just take control and fix the entire problem while they watch . therefore, video conferencing will be useful for both customer service tasks and lead generation efforts.
example: live webinar – free.
livewebinar is a meeting solution that offers online meetings, training, technical support, video webinars, and conference rooms.
meeting schedule
Because we care about speed and efficiency, we need to manage our time properly.
meeting scheduling software will alleviate the chaos and allow you to focus on the immediate needs of your clients while eliminating the possibility of unwanted repeat bookings.
Customer wait time will be minimized and resolution time will be reduced, ultimately improving customer satisfaction and loyalty.
example: oncehub – $10/month
oncehub is a scheduling solution that helps you reduce time to resolution, maintain customer loyalty, and increase customer satisfaction.
online community
As we all know, communication is the key. and fortunately or not, people like to communicate and share.
There are plenty of forums where people talk about their cats’ names or how to eat chalk, so why not create a place where they can talk about you and your product?
with the online community software, you can create your own community and moderate it.
example: vanilla – $689/month
Vanilla is cloud-based customer community software that can deflect support tickets, encourage self-service, reduce churn, and get feedback.
customer feedback
why is feedback important to your business?
simply because it helps improve products and services, measure customer satisfaction, improve customer experiences and retention.
It is also a trusted source of information for other customers. helps you make business decisions and create a better image, showing that you value the opinions of your customers.
example: good answer – $39/month
nicereply offers you real-time customer feedback, survey distribution and analytics.
video recording tool
While supporting hundreds or thousands of customers, you need to be as efficient as possible, which means fast, helpful, and at the same time personal.
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Let’s not kid ourselves, email or live chat isn’t always an appropriate option. it’s less personal, and in some cases, your team loses some information needed to properly support the customer base.
a video recording tool is another solution to solve customer problems.
it can help increase customer satisfaction and positively impact the way your team works.
When your team needs to explain a complex topic to a client, just send a quick video. Walking the client through information in a visual way is more effective than writing a long essay on the subject, and the client will appreciate being saved from a lengthy read. You can upload multiple customer service videos, which will help potential buyers understand your offer.
examples:
loom – free
loom is a work communication tool that helps you convey your messages through videos.
movavi – free/paid
When you want to go beyond basic, quick videos for your clients, movavi lets you get creative with ready-to-use special effects, templates, and intros. a tool is a great choice for detailed product demos and engaging guides to enhance the customer experience.
incident reporting
Have you ever faced a situation where you wanted to use a site and it didn’t work?
I remember standing in line to pay, but I wasn’t sure I had enough money for my purchases. so i wanted to check it in my online banking, but it didn’t work.
Situations like this are a customer service disaster. By proactively notifying users of downtime, you can turn a bad situation into a memorable customer experience.
incident reporting software is an excellent solution to inform your users about incidents or future scheduled maintenance.
example: status page – $29/month
Status Page is the community piece of your incident management process, easily communicating real-time status to your users.
project management/bug reporting
speed and accuracy are the main qualities your customers will look for.
However, speed and accuracy often don’t go well together. that’s why project management software is here to help.
plan, track, and organize the work of a support team. use dashboards to make sure no problem goes unresolved and to increase customer experiences to 11.
example: trello – free
trello is a project management tool that allows you to organize and prioritize your projects, work more collaboratively, and get more done.
personalized videos
The statistics are clear: Zendesk’s 2020 Customer Experience Trends Report shows that 76% of customers are open to personalized service.
The reason is simple: this type of service increases the chances of meeting your customers’ expectations. otherwise, he or she may feel misunderstood, leave your store, and never return.
An efficient way to provide such a service is a personalized video. What’s even more encouraging, it can be done on a fairly low budget.
The best tool to achieve this is a great video hosting platform. it simply engages your customer success team to work on researching, creating, and publishing personalized videos.
example: five drinks – $9/month
A video hosting platform, cincopa offers features, such as rectrace, that allow you to easily create personalized videos and send them to clients. You can create multiple cincopa accounts per customer and easily switch between them when needed. as a result, he provides his clients with a much-needed individual approach.
newsletter tool
An email newsletter is a perfect way to connect with your customers.
Sending an email newsletter with updates, various policy changes, or just a “stop by” email with a beautiful story or content generated by your employees shows how much you care.
request a review and you’ll be able to spot any issues that need to be passed on to your customer service team before they become impossible to resolve.
Generally speaking, when we think of a newsletter, we think of beautiful customizable templates, mobile responsiveness, targeted marketing messages, and triggered actions.
example: moosend, $8/month
moosend is a newsletter tool that can provide all of the above and more, allowing you to send personalized marketing messages and connect with your customers.
which customer service tools to start with?
Well-organized customer service can be the main power of your business. Based on the principles of customer service and with the help of the right tools, it can work for you as a sales, marketing and public relations machine.
Not all applications are necessary at the beginning, but it is worth implementing them as soon as possible if the need arises, it will save time and money.
start small and keep adding new tools as your business needs. as long as you keep your customers first when choosing new tools, you’ll always make the right decision.
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