6 Best Practices For Online Customer Support

Supporting customers online is essential for a lot of small businesses, if not all. But how can you do it more effectively? What should your approach be? 

If these questions have been knocking around in your mind, this post provides some much-needed answers. We explore some of the strategies you can use to make your customers happier and really get the results you want. 

Obsess Over Self-Service

The first thing you’ll want to do is obsess over self-service. While some of your clients want to talk to someone on the phone, the vast majority would actually prefer to figure out solutions by themselves, as long as it is easy. 

Therefore, offer wizards to fix issues and community forums. Get customers to educate themselves on troubleshooting so they don’t need to keep coming back to you. 

Close The Loop With Follow-Ups

At the same time, you want to close the loop with follow-ups. Checking back in with customers to ensure they’ve reached a satisfactory resolution to their issue is critical. Many clients will just give up and you’ll no longer be providing them with value, increasing the likelihood they’ll bail. 

Follow-ups don’t have to be complicated. Even an automated message sent from your CRM can be a good idea to ensure that issues don’t continue to fester or linger. 

Consolidate Your Communication Channels

Consolidating your communications is another solid idea. If you can funnel everything into the same dashboard, you can reduce confusion and give your customer service agents more oversight. 

Apps like Mava prove that it’s now possible to take communications from many different channels and feed them into a single dashboard. For example, solutions can provide visibility for email and WhatsApp chats in the same piece of software, reducing the need for reps to constantly switch from one platform to another. 

Empower Your Agents

If you are a small company and can empower your agents, that can be even more effective. Giving them the ability to make decisions in real-time allows you to resolve customer issues faster instead of going through the chain of command. 

Agents also prefer this approach. They want companies they work for to empower them to make decisions that are in the best interest of the people they serve. 

White In A Human Way

While AI has been great for customer service and online support in a lot of ways, it can feel robotic. And customers are able to spot it a mile away these days, making interactions less authentic and meaningful. 

Because of this, it’s a good idea to inject some real human conversation into the mix where possible. Or, at the very least, train AIs to adopt an acceptable brand voice. 

Reach Out Proactively

Lastly, you might want to try reaching out to customers proactively. Being forward with them can actually make your brand appear even more valuable. 

For example, deal with issues before customers notice them becoming a problem. Alternatively, warn customers about something you think might go wrong so they can have a better experience.