Summary: Customer service software is the backbone of your customer support model. It must offer quick answers, customer insight and branding. Top customer service software does this through predictive models, flexibility and data analysis.
Position is everything. In a brick and mortar business, it’s all about store location. On the web it’s about where you come up in the search pages. And where you’re positioned is often the thing that brings customers through your door – or portal, for the first time. But, once you get customers through your door customer service is one of the tools in your arsenal to try to keep them coming back and a way to get them to keep spending money.
In tough economic times customer service budget cuts offer short term savings that often erode revenue in the long term. Too often management teams look at budget line items and struggle to find a tangible value to offering good customer service. One way to save money, yet continue to provide top quality service, is to move from a traditional phone based help desk by capitalizing on customer service software. Customer service software can reduce overhead and personnel costs while helping you retain customer loyalty and sales.
Recently, Forrester research conducted a survey of 90 large companies asking about their investment in customer service. About half of those surveyed say they are making attempts to keep funding their customer service organizations at the same level or increase their budgets. Because of these efforts, more companies are looking at innovative customer service software solutions to maintain effectiveness and maintain their presence.
Web customer support is a great way to maximize customer service offerings and reduce the need to staff call centers. I had a recent conversation with the Director of Information Services at a large rental supply firm. After migrating the customer support function and help desk services away from the traditional call center approach; their calls were reduced by nearly 90%.
Customer service software comes in many different types of packages. From light, inexpensive packages to fully functioning software suites that are customizable to every aspect of your business. One strong customer support system is Parature. The company offers on demand support through its web software packages.
One appealing thing about Parature’s customer service applications is its ability to fully integrate in to the look and feel of your existing web presence. The company uses an on-line portal that mimics the look and feel of your present branding allowing customers to navigate familiar terms and layouts while offering the information they’re looking for. Without leaving the look of your main site, customers can submit help tickets, navigate and search through your knowledge base and track the status of previously submitted customer service requests.
Many Parature reviews offer that the customer support software has the capacity to let customers download documents and manuals, software patches, plugins and video files. This tool can be a powerful and helpful solution for those businesses with an audience fairly well educated on a product. Imagine an auto parts company offering manuals and instruction videos for installing their products right in the online knowledgebase.
Customer service software has come a long way in the past few years. Gone are the days of slow service, cumbersome databases and antiquated portals. You need to be able to position yourself so that your customers will want to grow a relationship, recommend you to their friends (virtual or real) and come back to purchase more. And through top customer support software packages, you can ensure your ability to be there when they are looking for help.
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