What Does Customer Support Entail?
Customer support encompasses services businesses offer to help customers get maximum value from their products and solve their problems. Customer support involves onboarding, answering questions, upgrading customers to a new product or service, and troubleshooting.
Based on your industry, these services can vary from ticket-based helpdesks and email support to call centers (phone support), from self-service support to increasingly personalized forms of customer support using tools, such as Zight (formerly CloudApp).
Some organizations interchangeably use terms such as customer success or even customer service. Still, while some insist on the differences between these terms, the primary principle remains the same—helping your customers get the maximum value possible from your product.
Customer support must be tailored to each customer’s unique needs. Every customer must feel like they’re in a one-on-one conversation with your company, not just submitting a customer support ticket.
What Do Customers Need From Me?
Businesses focus too much on meeting customer expectations. However, the marketplace is too crowded, and it’s full of customers who need different things at different times via different mediums. So what do consumers need? What do they expect from your customer support team?
It doesn’t matter whether you’re on the phone, in a store, or on an online platform—no one enjoys waiting. So, the response times of the mediums you offer customer support must be reasonable. What’s reasonable typically depends on the consumers and their platform of preferences. For instance, 53% of consumers expect a business to respond on Twitter in less than one hour. That number increases to 72% when customers have complaints.
You can use advanced technology to reduce your response times. For instance, Zight (formerly CloudApp) has a simple GIF maker feature. It allows you to create GIFs from anything on your screen, record and share GIF recordings, and save images instantly on the cloud. Using the GIF creator feature, your customer support and sales teams can explain how your product works efficiently and swiftly and increase sales conversions while reducing customer support response times.
Your customers also want a customized experience. While self-service is standard, customers increasingly crave a customized experience. Yet, according to research by Salesforce, nearly 50% of customers ignore messages that aren’t customized to them.
Customer relationship management (CRM) technology enables companies to create proper relationships with consumers through their customer journey. This approach also extends to contacting customers proactively (for instance, sending messages about relevant offers and making follow-up calls to ensure customer satisfaction).
According to Chad Horenfeldt, the keys to developing long-term relationships are to build trust and deliver value. Fostering relationships with your customers can also increase the chances of exceeding their expectations and converting them to loyal advocates of your brand.
The sales team at G2 Crowd experienced an immediate benefit after using Zight (formerly CloudApp) to produce screenshots, screen recordings, GIFs, annotated screenshots, and webcam-enabled customized videos. G2 Crowd generated over $7 million in sales using Zight (formerly CloudApp)’s customized video pitches. The G2 Crowd’s team quickly records videos to share with their potential customers. In addition, the webcam-enabled video pitches delivered an immediate customized experience for various sales experiences. Also, G2 Crowd saves nearly 88 hours a week via Zight (formerly CloudApp)’s visual collaboration.
What Brings Customers Back?
Creating a program to reward loyal customers is an easy way to create a lasting relationship and provide regular incentives for them to come back to your business.
For instance, you can email your top 20% of customers with a special discount each month. Further, you can test which of your deals resonates with specific audiences and then fine-tune your offers over time. For instance, rewards can range from free shipping to a thank you note to a 15% discount. Eventually, you’ll determine which actions, demographics, and preferences result in successful conversions.
When implementing a customer loyalty program, the essential thing to remember is to keep everything simple. Make it easy for your customers to understand the steps they must take to earn and use rewards.
Another way to bring customers back is by offering personalized experiences—this can make their lives easier when they’re on your website, making them feel appreciated and valued. For instance, you can encourage your web visitors to sign for blog content, coupons, or notifications about sales. Then, collect their email address, name, and birthday, together with any information that would help you deliver a better experience.
Then, the next time they come to your website, display “Welcome come, [Name]” on the web page. Again, it makes them feel valued, which improves your customer retention rates while reducing your churn rates.
Customer Support apps, such as Zight (formerly CloudApp), can help you improve your customer retention rates through visual communications. For instance, the Help Scout’s VP of sales saved over 110 hours since he started using Zight (formerly CloudApp) less than two years ago. Zight (formerly CloudApp) helps him create engaging content for his potential clients. The entire company saves around 34 hours per week with Zight (formerly CloudApp). The sales team at Help Scout uses Zight (formerly CloudApp) to answer potential clients’ questions; they annotate screenshots or record their screens and drag the screen recordings directly into emails. Not only does this save time, but also it delights their customers, improving their retention rates. That’s because customers crave easy-to-digest content and customization.
How Does Good Customer Support Create New Customers?
Your customer support team interacts with customers regularly, which means they’re directly responsible for representing your company’s values and mission. Excellent customer support can increase positive reviews and word-of-mouth recommendations for your company, attracting new customers. In addition, a positive image can strengthen the way customers view your products, services, or company.
Positive word-of-mouth referrals come directly from existing and repeat customers that have had an exceptional experience with your company. In addition, existing customers tell their relatives, colleagues, and friends and even post about your friendly customer support on social media, encouraging their contacts to do business with you. Thus, word-of-mouth marketing is often a business’s best and least expensive form of marketing.
Zight (formerly CloudApp) can help you deliver your customers with detailed answers. With Zight (formerly CloudApp), you can get to the point by directing potential customers to what you want to show them while keeping sensitive information private. Also, it can help you respond promptly to customers with high-quality and relevant content, allowing your customers to derive maximum value from products and services. It also enables you to deliver excellent customer experiences which convert existing customers to loyal advocates for your company.
Zight (formerly CloudApp) Reduces Customer Support Response Times
Since consumers consume visual content quicker than text, you can leverage Zight (formerly CloudApp) to deliver quicker responses than ever before. For example, with Zight (formerly CloudApp), you can:
- Use GIFs as follow-up tutorials
- Use annotated screen captures with circles and arrows to point out key details
- Create webcam screen recordings that guide your customers through solutions to their problems
By creating detailed content that covers everything, you can reduce the back and forth communication and minimize any miscommunication that might occur using emails. Because Zight (formerly CloudApp) copies a link automatically to your clipboard, it’s easier to share content with your customers. Also, you can embed content in emails, making it easier for customers to see. Easy sharing and quick creation mean you can close customer support tickets faster, improve customer satisfaction, improve customer retention, and reduce churn rates.
Zight (formerly CloudApp), a groundbreaking customer support tool, can help you avoid writing lengthy descriptions while delivering responses to your customers 300% faster. Its innovative visual features, including GIF creator, easy-to-use snipping tool, and live HD screen recorder, will improve your customer support team’s efficiency.
Zight (formerly CloudApp) helps the customer support team at Social Tables reduce customer support response time by 7 minutes. Social Tables saves a minimum of 3 hours per week by using Zight (formerly CloudApp) to close customer support tickets.
In addition, the Social Tables team uses Zight (formerly CloudApp) to send customized videos and screen recordings. It’s better if customers can watch a video about their issues while showing them how to resolve the issue. It saves so many steps, and it makes them feel special and heard, improving customer satisfaction.