There are many ways to help companies save money on customer support . However, not all of these strategies are good for business. Some methods can reduce service quality, eventually costing a company more.
The Importance of Saving Money as a Business
Saving money is good because you can use it somewhere else in the company. Look at your business to identify areas where you can cut a few expenditures instead of trimming down the department’s budget.
6 Strategies to Save Money on Customer Support in 2022
1. Hire the Right Customer Support Agents and Keep Them Happy
To trim recurring calls, you must hire employees who can give your customers the right message the first time.
2. Automate Services
Tony Johnson notes that “Sometimes ultra-personalized experiences are valued, but other times customers need quick service above all.” So, by leveraging new technologies, you can deliver higher levels of customer support at a fraction of the cost. Take chatbots, for instance. Chatbots Magazine reports companies can cut down customer support costs by up to 30% if they implement conversational solutions, such as virtual assistants or chatbots.
3. Use Outsourced Employees
Research shows that companies can save up to 60% in operational costs by outsourcing customer support. In addition, you can cut expenses such as insurance and facility costs and vacation pay by outsourcing customer support agents. Also, you will save on training expenses because another company will spend money, time, and resources on training employees.
4. Use Social Media
Research shows that 80% of consumers use social media to engage with businesses. This means that your clients are more likely to ask for support through social media than ever before.
5. Provide Self-Service Customer Support
One fundamental way companies can save money on customer support is to offer customers self-service alternatives, reducing the pressure off of live customer support reps.
6. Offer Proactive Customer Support
Transitioning from reactive to proactive customer support is one of the best strategies for trimming customer support costs. Proactive customer support enables you to solve problems long before your customers reach out with questions or complaints.
- Leverage social media for important updates and announcements. Nearly 47% of consumers follow their favorite brands on social media to stay updated on company news . This makes social media an essential public platform for delivering proactive customer support. For example, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, most companies took to social media to share information about business hours or how they were handling this unprecedented obstacle.
- Send emails. Besides social media, you can leverage email to notify your customers about scheduled outages, maintenance, or unexpected downtime. Unlike social media, where all the people following your business can see your updates, you can leverage email to target a particular segment of your target audience.
- Keep your customers in the loop. One of the most common customer support questions is, “What is the status of my customer support ticket ?” To reduce such questions, always keep your customers updated about their ongoing issues or tickets. For example, send them automated emails or text messages to inform them about their ticket or issue’s progress.
Save Money on Customer Support Using Zight (formerly CloudApp)
For example, the sales team at G2 Crowd made over $7 million in sales by relying on Zight (formerly CloudApp) to create tailored HD videos for customers. The entire team at G2 Crowd also saved 88 hours per week by leveraging Zight (formerly CloudApp)’s visual content. That’s because personalized videos boost engagement rates while saving time by reaching out to customers with a video instead of wordy emails that create room for confusion. Not only do personalized videos grab customers’ attention better than regular emails, but these videos sell even when your sales team isn’t around.