The customer service support of old relies on the classic phone-based support for inquiries and concerns. As technology advances, customer service has evolved to support multiple communication channels, including email, chatbots, and many more. With businesses leveraging modern communication tools and clients expecting high-quality customer service support, optimizing their digital customer service becomes a strategic endeavor.
As the name implies, digital customer service support refers to the provision of customer care support and assistance through digital means, such as social media and live chat. According to McKinsey & Company, most customers (76%) have shown satisfaction with businesses offering digital-only customer support. After all, good digital customer service comes a long way. If they have a bad experience, they can just walk away and move on to another brand.
Below, let’s check out the success stories of companies with different customer service support channels. In addition, this guide includes apps and platforms that act as a role model for a particular digital channel.
Email Support
Email is a classic customer service support channel. Customers can send an email to a brand at any time and wait patiently for a response — which can take hours or days. Unfortunately, not everyone has the luxury of time.
That doesn’t mean businesses should completely get rid of email support. But with the help of the right customer service support solution, email support can be less of a drag for both agents and customers.
1. Hiver
Hiver is a customer service support software with features ranging from email tagging and shared inboxes to supported integrations with Slack, WhatsApp, and many more. Like any helpdesk program, Hiver streamlines customer care to ensure customer concerns and inquiries are attended to without delay.
For companies like Flexport, Hiver was of great help in optimizing their email customer service support. Nathan Strang, the company’s Ocean Freight Operations Manager, uses the helpdesk program’s email tagging feature to assign an email to a customer agent. Thanks to this convenient feature, unanswered emails and email forwarding are now a thing of Flexport’s past, enabling its customer service support team to answer queries and concerns quickly.
2. HappyFox
HappyFox is a help desk software with a ticketing system that streamlines a company’s email customer service support, automating email routing, ticket priority setting, and other mundane, time-consuming tasks through its Smart Rules. In case of complex customer concerns, the program’s Private Notes tool functions as an internal collaborative space for agents to converse and work on a ticket without the customer’s knowledge.
Improved Racing is one of HappyFox’s users. Thanks to the program, Improved Racing can now route tickets to the right customer service support agent for faster email resolution. What’s more, all three of the company’s brands have their dedicated email category, ensuring both efficiency and brand identity consistency.
Phone Support
Unlike most digital customer service support channels, over-the-phone communication is more personal — albeit with the caveat of hold times and higher costs. While phone support may be another classic customer service channel, it doesn’t mean it’s losing its relevance in a digitized world. These programs prove that phone support can work in your agents’ favor.
1. Zoho Desk
Zoho Desk helps streamline various customer service support channels, including over-the-phone communication. The software features call scheduling and a call reminder for hassle-free follow-ups to customer calls. Automated voice messages are also delivered to inform customers of agent availability or busyness, or remind them that your shop is closed after business hours.
Also known as De Surinaamsche Bank NV, DSB Bank, is a successful user of Zoho Desk. But before it implemented Zoho Desk, customer service support was done manually — from ticketing to tracking messages.
Thanks to Zoho Desk, a ticket is created for every customer query made via phone and other customer service support channels, and the bank’s customer agents work on their assigned tickets until a customer concern is resolved. This led to not just better customer satisfaction ratings, but also a 50% boost in agent productivity and efficiency.
2. CloudTalk
CloudTalk is a call center software platform with a smart dialer that simplifies the repetitive act of dialing numbers to initiate outbound calls. With its three-way calling support, senior customer service support agents can help newer agents learn the ropes of customer care. Besides that, CloudTalk’s Call Transfer feature lets agents transfer calls to a more qualified agent without the long wait time, promising seamless and satisfactory communication.
Nokia is one successful user of CloudTalk. With its dedication to providing high-quality customer service support, the telecommunications company implemented CloudTalk into its workflow. Using the software’s Analytics feature, Nokia drastically improved its customer service — reducing call hold times by 47% and boosting productivity by 10%.
SMS
We commonly associate customer service with phone calls, emails, and live chats. But did you know that customer service support can be delivered via text messaging? Businesses can capitalize on SMS customer service to keep customers in the loop of the status of their orders, remind clients of upcoming appointments, request feedback, and many more. Because people spend most of their time on their phones, SMS customer service support is a gift of convenience.
1. SimpleTexting
Want to improve your SMS customer service support? Look no further than SimpleTexting. This product supports two-way messaging to encourage free-flowing conversations between an agent and a customer.
What’s great about two-way messaging is you can use a business number to facilitate such conversations, creating a clear boundary between personal and business texting. Automated text messaging is also another standout feature of SimpleTexting. With it, you no longer have to manually send a text message informing your customers that your business is closed for the holidays.
For A-1 Self Storage — a San Diego, California-based company under Caster Group — using SimpleTexting was a huge step up to their customer service support. Apart from reminding customers of their overdue payments, the software enabled A-1 Self Storage to reply to inquiries faster — creating a positive impact on its customer base.
2. Textline
Supporting both SMS and MMS, Textline is a business texting program that features two-way texting, automated messaging, scheduled messages, and the like. Its Shortcuts feature is every customer agent’s best friend. Instead of typing the same canned responses daily, agents can use Shortcuts to craft templates or use pre-existing ones to speed up customer service support with little to no manual input.
Prior to the implementation of Textline, tire size confirmation was a tedious process for Roll By Goodyear, with the brand reaching out to customers via phone call or email. With the help of Textline, Roll by Goodyear created templates for size confirmation and other purposes. Because of Textline, response rates improved and sizing errors dropped.
Chat Support
We often use WhatsApp or any messaging app to communicate with family, colleagues, and friends. But did you know these same apps can be used for messaging businesses? Let’s look at how the below applications are used to supercharge a brand’s customer service support experience.
1. WhatsApp
WhatsApp has transformed into a customer service support hub. This is backed by statistical data from Spectrum, with 39% of survey respondents using the said app to inquire about a brand’s services and products, and 11% to report complaints and ask questions related to shipping, delivery, and the brand.
Supporting media and document files, WhatsApp enables customer service support agents to send messages in the most appropriate format. In addition to its intuitiveness and chatbot integration, the app also boasts end-to-end encryption that gives customers peace of mind whenever they interact with a customer service agent.
Decathlon is a popular sports retailer with over a thousand stores across the globe. To keep up with the influx of customer inquiries and concerns, Decathlon started to leverage the power of live chat. Delivered via WhatsApp, the retailer powers its live chat system with automation, allowing seamless, hassle-free self-service customer service support and contributing to a 50% reduction in handling time.
This is also a blessing for Decathlon’s customer agents, as they are now less swamped with simple customer queries — which means they can simultaneously work on multiple complex customer concerns.
2. Apple Messages for Business
For entrepreneurs and brands, Apple Messages for Business is their best friend. While simple customer queries are answered through automation, customers can opt to chat with a human agent for more complex concerns. This application also features a host of features to elevate the customer service support experience, such as Apple Pay integration, appointment scheduling, and many more.
However, there is one standout feature of Apple Messages for Business — Chat Suggest. Not only is it convenient, but it also promises seamless communication and better customer satisfaction due to reduced hold times. Lush, a retailer that sells handmade, cruelty-free cosmetic products, uses Chat Suggest to minimize calls from customers.
AI-Driven Messaging
AI has taken the world by storm, and it’s no surprise that this technology has made its way to the customer service industry. Through AI, brands can provide faster support and assistance while preserving the human element inherent to customer service support.
With the support of automation, businesses can deliver high-quality customer care without overwhelming agents with queries. Below are examples of AI messaging in action.
1. Kik
Kik is home to a thousand chatbots. From chatbots that give a dose of entertainment to those that streamline the shopping and customer service support experience, there’s a chatbot for everyone. For Kik users with a penchant for fashion and style, H&M’s homegrown Kik chatbot is heaven-sent. Powered by natural language processing (NPL), this chatbot can understand natural language and provide human-like responses, even to the point of using emojis!
Through the chatbot, customers can ask for personalized recommendations and fashion tips without the hassle of contacting a human retail customer service agent. They can also take a quiz that lets the bot determine their personal style. Unsurprisingly, the chatbot led to increases in click-through (8%) and engagement rates (86%).
2. Facebook Messenger
While Facebook Messenger is primarily used for keeping in touch with loved ones, it also serves another purpose — customer service support. This does not come as a surprise given the app’s convenience and high user count. If you’re a long-time user of Messenger, you’ve probably come across or interacted with several chatbots from your favorite companies.
1-800-Flowers is one of those businesses that leverage the app for its chatbot. The chatbot eliminates the hassle of calling the retailer’s eponymous number to purchase flowers. Additionally, the speed and accessibility of the chatbot drew in a slew of chatbot-based orders from new buyers.
Social Media
For entrepreneurs, social media is not a waste of time; it’s a battleground for marketing one’s brand to build an online reputation and attract new customers. As most people are online and have social networking accounts, it just makes sense to provide customer service support via social media.
1. Facebook
Businesses can’t just create a Facebook page, do the bare minimum, and call it a day. Nowadays, content and customer service support go hand in hand. This means creating relevant content, such as product tips and showcases, to encourage new and old customers to reach out to your brand.
Moreover, businesses should make their presence known by responding to comments, private messages, and reviews. BlendJet, for example, answers customer queries in the comments section.
2. TikTok
TikTok conjures images of content creators and influencers dancing and sharing short-form content. Surprisingly, this app is also a viable customer service support tool. Businesses with Creator accounts can use TikTok’s Q&A feature to answer customers’ questions via written (comment) or video format. Q&A supports TikTok LIVE, so there’s real-time interaction between your brand and audience.
Furthermore, TikTok puts a creative, yet entertaining and grounded spin on customer service support. Zendesk reported that Starface, a skincare brand, uploads engaging tutorial and FAQ videos on its page to help customers with their skin problems and answer product-related queries.
Self-Service Portals
Technology and digital tools complement human customer service support agents. Self-service portals put the agency of customer service to customers, which means they don’t have to contact a human customer agent to resolve an issue or get answers to common questions. Below are two examples of self-service portals.
1. Google Help
Google Help features a treasure trove of guides for each of Google’s products and services. On the main page, click on an icon — say, Google Chrome — and it will take you to a list of help topics you can click and read at any time.
Don’t like doing your own research? The website has a digital support assistant called “Help Guide” to assist you with anything. Select a pre-existing response and “Help Guide” will share a relevant article. If you pick “Something Else,” you’ll be asked to provide an explanation of your issue. You can also look up, ask, and answer questions in “Community,” adding a social element to customer service support. Overall, Google Help is the best example of a self-service customer service support portal.
2. Document360
If you’re looking to create a self-service customer service support portal from scratch, check out Document360. Here, you can write articles and guides and organize them into categories and sub-categories. The software solution’s WYSIWYG editor works just like any word processing tool, whereas the Advanced WYSIWYG editor supports text writing and embedding of media content such as images and videos.
Finally, there’s the Markdown editor. While the word “Markdown” sounds intimidating, newbies with little to no experience in coding can use the editor to write and format text using the Markdown toolbar or writing the syntax. It supports live previews, too — which is a plus. Avontus, for instance, hosted and organized all their guides — from FAQs to installation guides — on Document360, providing round-the-clock, self-service support to customers.
Video Support
Are phone calls, emails, and AI not enough? There’s video support. Video-based communication makes customer service support a highly personalized experience. For visual learners and non-readers, video tutorials are heaven-sent as they provide straightforward solutions to problems.
After all, why read a lengthy tutorial when you can watch and follow a three-minute video? If you plan to innovate your business’s customer service support channels, consider the following programs.
1. Loom
From marketing to customer service support, Loom is a must-try for any business. With this software, you can create personalized videos to address a specific customer concern, guiding the customer every step of the way. Postclick elevated and humanized its customer service support through Loom. By creating videos, customer satisfaction soared and customers could easily follow or understand even the most complex tutorials or topics.
2. ScreenRec
ScreenRec is more than just a screen recorder for your personal needs. It’s also a customer service support solution for customer care agents. Because agents can just record their computer screen for demonstration purposes, or send pre-made video tutorials, it minimizes the need for typing long tutorials or responses. As of this writing, ScreenRec has garnered an average TrustPilot rating of 4.5 stars. Additionally, IT Specialists London’s director George S. claimed that the program enhanced customer communications and internal workplace processes.
In-App Messaging
In-app messages refer to messages that are integrated into the app itself, only appearing while you’re using the program. These messages can be in the form of banners, full-page displays, welcome notifications, and many more. Though some people find them annoying, they’re actually beneficial for customer service support. Check out how two companies use in-app messaging to their advantage.
1. Dribble
Dribble — an online platform for designers — uses in-app messaging as a microsurvey channel for rating the quality of customer service support. You can select “Epic!,” “Meh…,” and “Scuk” or include written feedback on Dribble’s customer care.
2. GoToWebinar
With programs implementing new features, it’s hard to keep up and master them all. Web conferencing platform GoToWebinar displays an Appcues-created animated slideout demonstrating its Transcripts tool. A brief description of Transcripts is included to give returning users an idea of what it is. Thanks to the slideout, they can stay in the know of new features without being overwhelmed with information.
Optimize Customer Service Support on Digital Channels With KDCI Today
We hope this comprehensive guide sheds light on how brands and companies use various digital channels to deliver timely customer service support. Optimizing your digital customer service support may be challenging, but for KDCI, no challenge is too hard. KDCI only employs and trains customer service agents equipped with the essential hard and soft skills to deliver high-caliber customer service support.
With KDCI’s experience in the customer service industry, we are confident that our agents can streamline your brand’s customer service and make your customers happy.
What are you waiting for? Outsource customer service and build your customer service dream team. Contact us now!
