In the past, it was enough for a business to offer a quality product at a reasonable price in order to stay competitive. This is no longer the case. In addition to a product your client base can rely on, you must also deliver top-notch customer support. This is especially true in the highly competitive B2B marketplace. If your support team isn’t on top of their game, you risk losing clients to your competition.
Aside from knowledgeable, well-trained agents, a support team needs the right tools to succeed. This means implementing B2B customer support software. Not only will this help streamline your support operation, it will provide attractive features many or your clients now expect. Let’s look at what you need to maintain a competitive edge.
A Strong Self-Service Infrastructure
Putting the control in the hands of customers is quickly becoming commonplace. This is especially important when your clients need frequent support. Providing a quality self-service portal gives your clients the freedom to find solutions on their own time and also takes a lot of the workload off your support team. However, it’s important your portal stands up to the competition. This means providing a customizable dashboard and maintaining an effective knowledge base. It’s important you examine metrics on a regular basis to determine what content is providing results and what needs to be revised or done away with.
Healthy Internal Communication
Response time is crucial when dealing with client issues. Hiccups in this process damage the customer experience you provide, which can hurt client retention. It’s imperative you optimize the communication and workflow process of your support team with customizable customer support software. This will help your team manage tasks effectively and maintain an organized ticket assignment and escalation system. This software will also help agents track ticket details, ensure client profiles are up to date, and maintain a history log concerning changes and issues for each client. This all helps you provide faster, higher quality support when something goes wrong.
Successful Live Chat Functionality
Direct interaction with a support team is a necessity for many clients of B2B organizations. Highly functional chat capability could be the reason your customers choose you over the competition. But a good live chat tool does more than provide an instant line of communication with an agent. It also allows for file and screen sharing, which help agents get to the root of an issue in a timely manner. Live chat gives your clients the peace of mind that someone is available the second an issue arises or they have a product question.
Stand Apart from the Competition with the Right Software
Advancements in support technology have set the bar very high for B2B organizations that rely on a good customer experience to help with retention. It’s important your support team is equipped with the very best software solutions needed to provide the highest quality service possible. Anything less could mean losing business to your competition.
PhaseWare provides B2B customer support software with a wide range of capabilities, all geared toward enhancing the interaction between you and your clients. Contact us today to learn more.