Customer Service Solutions for Small Businesses
Customer service programs help you better serve consumers. Check out eight effective solutions.
Understanding your clients’ expectations and how your company may surpass them is essential for providing quality customer service.
There are many low-cost customer service options available to assist businesses in effectively handling queries and grievances from clients.
This post is intended for small company owners who are seeking strategies to improve and broaden their relationships with customers.
Providing first-rate customer service is essential to operating a successful company. Customers want help to be quick and easy, and that means being accessible whenever they need you, whether they contact you via phone, email, social media, or your website.
The importance of customer service in the business
Consumers now have a variety of places they may take their business unless you have no rivals, which is uncommon. While bad customer service is a certain way to lose them to your competitors, good customer service may cultivate devoted clients.
Not only present customers are impacted by poor customer service; future consumers are as well. According to Shane Dutka, director of SEO at Three Ships, a performance-based marketing platform, a small number of upset consumers who post a bad review online may lose you a lot of future purchases.
According to Jenny Massey, a former business operation, customer acquisition, and sales channel development specialist for Alltel, CenturyLink, Suddenlink, and Altice, providing excellent customer service is what keeps consumers coming back.
Even if a restaurant has the greatest cuisine in the city, chances are that fewer customers would frequent it if the staff members are rude and unwelcoming, according to Massey.
8 business customer service tools
Given Below are eight customer service solutions, including help-desk services, as well as live chat, social media, and mobile support platforms, that can help your small business better connect with consumers:
1. Freshdesk
To provide good customer service, collaboration is essential. A help-desk platform called Freshdesk links your customer support staff so it can easily and efficiently service your customers. Every team member has access to an assistance ticket once it is opened. Freshdesk shows the agent working on the ticket, its progress, and any internal comments on the problem. Any member of your customer support staff who receives a call from a client who has a help ticket open about them may check the ticket right away and collaborate with the customer to fix the problem. Additionally, Freshdesk offers service-level agreement choices for your clients, which aids in ticket prioritization and lets them know when to anticipate a response.
Freshdesk has a monthly starting price of $15 per agent. It offers an unrestricted number of agents for a free 21-day trial.
2. Zendesk
Customers sometimes need one-on-one assistance; other times, they would prefer to handle problems on their own. In addition to a customer self-service site, Zendesk offers an intuitive multi-channel ticketing system that unifies all email, online, social, phone, and live-chat contact in one place. Additionally, Zendesk offers vital information and insights that businesses can use to enhance team productivity and provide individualized customer service.
The cheapest package from Zendesk is $5 per month per agent and just includes email and social media features. Plans with more features start at $49 per agent each month.
3. HappyFox
HappyFox can receive support requests via a variety of channels, including phone calls, chat sessions, emails, social media posts, and online inquiries, and instantly turn them into tickets in a well-organized help-desk system. Additionally, the platform may categorise cases based on similar difficulties, assign numerous agents to tickets with more complicated issues, and discover common issues. In order to simplify customer support with the programmes your company uses most, HappyFox now interacts with a variety of business apps, including Google Apps, Salesforce, SugarCRM, Insightly, SurveyMonkey, and FreshBooks.
HappyFox provides four packages. A personalised pricing quotation from HappyFox must be requested.
4. ClickDesk
Want to provide your website’s visitors on-demand customer support? Try ClickDesk, a live-chat platform where your business’s customer service staff can manage several conversations (including live chat, phone chat, and video chat concurrently), keep organised, and respond to client inquiries and grievances. Live conversations may also be recorded using Google Hangouts with ClickDesk.
The monthly price of ClickDesk begins at $14.99. The free version of it allows for voice calling, 30 conversations, and 10 users.
5. Olark
Live chat solutions aren’t only for delivering customer assistance for businesses. With the help of Olark’s live chat service, companies can conclude deals with clients before they leave. To reduce shopping cart abandonment, agents may prioritise numerous conversations that they receive. Olark offers comprehensive client data, including browsing history, time spent on your website, contact information, and if a visitor is a repeat or new customer. To combine customer support with your business operations, Olark interfaces with a variety of third-party business systems, such as Salesforce and Magento.
Olark’s monthly starting price is $19 per agent.
6. My LiveChat
Try My LiveChat, a free service, if you’re unsure whether a live-chat solution is appropriate for your website. It provides essential features often seen in premium services, like numerous tickets, transcripts of chats, live visitor tracking, and prewritten replies to save agent workload. My LiveChat has customised chat windows that you may brand with your company’s colours and logo if you upgrade to one of the premium plans offered by the firm. On the web and on Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS devices, the programme may be accessed.
The business provides four premium subscriptions in addition to My LiveChat’s free option, which removes the My LiveChat logo. Starter, the most affordable option, costing $15 per month for one seat.
7. Sparkcentral
Many clients use social media to vent their frustration with a business. To catch your attention, they may sometimes rant to their followers or tag or mention you. Get a grasp on customer service on social media and address problems with Sparkcentral. This social media support platform includes real-time collaboration tools to automate workflows and share knowledge with other team members, a reporting and analytics portal to track metrics and productivity, and an engagement dashboard to help agents quickly resolve issues and improve response times. Sparkcentral can provide you with price details.
8. Helpshift
Do you have a mobile app for your company? To provide customer service directly from your app, use Helpshift. Customers do not need to visit your website, do an online search, or contact your company. Helpshift improves customer experience by making receiving answers as simple as texting. Features include push alerts, analytics, the option to change colours, fonts, and other branding components, and picture and video attachments (for instance, consumers may provide screenshots to demonstrate their issue). Supported platforms by Helpshift include iOS, Android, HTML5, Unity, Cocos2d-x, and PhoneGap. For information about prices, contact Helpshift.
Customer service tips for businesses
More than just a smile and positive attitude are needed for great customer service. Bright Iris Film Co. founder and owner Lisa Trifone advises investing time in learning about your clients’ expectations and how your company may surpass them. Spending the time and money necessary to understand your clients better can strengthen your relationship with them and increase their propensity to pick your brand.
Trifone said that “excellent customer service is often available via modest but significant actions that may make all the difference.” Like considerate packaging, legible signage, and the additional effort to check in with clients.
When it comes to establishing relationships with clients, social media is also a potent instrument. According to Dutka, companies benefit most from being proactive on social media.
Dutka said that furious individuals usually vent their complaints on social media. “The only thing standing between an irate consumer and an online nasty review is your Twitter/Facebook/etc. accounts.”
The CEO and storyteller of CorporateFilming.net, Trevor Rappleye, advises picking up the phone at the first ring. He said that doing so conveys a favourable message to your customers, which is a desirable attribute. Additionally useful is having a live chat function since it enables you to respond to customers quickly.
In addition to the software suggestions and guidance offered above, always be professional and polite anytime you or your workers are engaging with an unhappy client.
MD Organics president and owner Mark Rogers recommends company owners to encourage staff members to express regret for mistakes or misunderstandings that resulted in a customer disagreement or complaint. Rogers advises that you and your staff take the following further actions in addition to apologising:
*Always provide replacements or refunds.
*Quickly respond to a call or message from a client and then take prompt action.
*Treat customers kindly and the way you would want to be treated.
