What is Customer Support? - Helprace
When a customer approaches you with a request, assistance begins with understanding what is customer support in the first place.
There is a famous quote by Peter Drucker, “the only profit center is the customer”. Using this way of thinking, we can treat the pursuit of customer satisfaction as a pursuit for any other investment that’s driven by profit. The question, “what is customer support” becomes that much more important as we begin to understand why companies are relentlessly fighting to seek out and keep loyal customers.
What is customer support? What is not customer support?
In order for you to understand your customer, you must first envision the support process from your customer’s point of view. There are three main categories that customer support channels can be lumped into: “traditional”, “non-traditional” and a third category which we’ll call “the middle ground”.
Traditional
Traditional as you may have guessed, groups customer service in the familiar channels that we are used to. These are known as “single contact channels”. A single contact is a direct link to customer service representatives, encompassing common knowledge of what is customer support. Here are the traditional forms of support:
In Person
Phone
Email
Chat
Feedback Forms
Non-Traditional
Many non-traditional customer service methods have sprung up in recent history. A good example of this method is social media. There are many reasons why companies are slow to embrace this method, including the reluctance to change, failure to see the benefits, lack of control and the perception that social media is an informal, personal platform.
Facebook
Twitter
Linkedin
Google+
External communities
The Middle Ground
Companies that choose not to migrate into the unpredictable world of external communities may opt to build a database or a community of their own. When a user wonders, “What is customer support when I need it most?” he or she may inadvertently stumble upon an answer before knowing that there was a problem in the first place.
FAQ
User Guides
Articles
Media (videos, photos)
User Communities
Determining what is customer support in terms of multiple delivery methods
We keep asking the same question over and over: “What is customer support?” We at Helprace pondered this question for some time. Thankfully, we found a solution in the form of Helprace customer service software suite. Try us today and quit obsessing over what is customer support. Start providing amazing service instead!
