It’s not enough to simply have a website. In today’s marketplace, you need a site that adds value to your customers’ lives. In one sense, this means offering exceptional support for their specific needs and pain points.
Customer Support Matters: 3 Tips for Immediate Application
“How many times have you raced into a store to quickly pick up a few things and immediately looked for a brightly colored vest to find a sales assistant or customer service person to help you out? And how many times have you scurried from aisle to aisle looking for what you came to buy and seeing no sales associate in sight?” conversion optimizer Marie Dean asks. “That gets real frustrating, real fast! This is how your online shoppers feel if you don’t get online customer service right. They need help. And if they can’t find it – guess what, they’re gone, perhaps forever.”
Customer support matters more than you realize. It’s not just about solving isolated needs – it has just as much to do with building your brand and establishing a reputation as a company that’s willing to take the extra steps to care for its customers.
As Econsultancy points out, 83 percent of all consumers need some degree of customer support while shopping online. If you don’t provide it, your closest competitor will. And with that being said, here are some practical tips you can use to begin providing better support for your customers.
1) Use a Help Desk Solution
The most significant mistake businesses make by assuming that customer support is an all or nothing challenge. In other words, they believe that they either have to handle the entire customer support issue manually, or they have to ignore it altogether. The reality is that a customer support strategy is much more efficient when it’s streamlined via some sort of help desk solution. It’s much better to have a “little bit of both” strategy than to be totally hands-on or completely automated.
A help desk solution (such as Web Help Desk or similar) not only gives customers the opportunity to get support for their needs but simplifies the process for the business, which leads to quicker and more efficient support in the future. It’s a best of both worlds solution that reduces the business-side time commitment without compromising the quality of support that customers receive.
2) Provide Educational Material
Why do your customers ask questions and request support? It’s because they have questions or issues that need answers. While self-service doesn’t always work, you can significantly reduce the volume of support tickets and requests you get by taking the time to educate your visitors via your website content. You can do this in a number of ways, including:
- FAQ resources: Every site should feature a robust FAQ section that provides valuable information for pressing issues. You’d be amazed by how many issues you can eliminate by clearly and succinctly addressing common pain points.
- Blog content: A lot of brands use their blogs for selfish reasons only, which ultimately comes back to bite them. If you want to maximize the value of your blog, you should use some of the space to educate and inform readers.
- Website forum: For businesses that sell highly technical products and services, website forums are helpful. They provide a place for customers to come together as peers and address common issues.
3) Ensure the Site Runs Efficiently
Finally, it’s imperative that you have an efficient website that functions well and is free of bugs. Speed is also an issue, as slow loading pages are notoriously frustrating.
The smoother the website experience is for your customers, the less likely that they will have issues. Subsequently, this reduces the volume of customer support requests and gives you the opportunity to address actual needs.
Prioritize Website-Based Customer Support
Your website is the heart of your brand’s online presence. If there were ever a place where you want to wow your customers, it’s on your site. Now’s the time to prioritize website-based customer support and give your customer base the first-class service they need and deserve.
Web developer and SEO specialist with 20+ years of experience in open-source web development, digital marketing, and search engine optimization. He is also the moderator of this blog "RS Web Solutions (RSWEBSOLS)".