Keeping customers happy and satisfied is very important for the success of any business. It has become so important that providing customer service has itself become a business. There are many organizations which provide customer service on the behalf of larger companies. By outsourcing their work, companies save their efforts as well as time.
Customer service is a way to take care of the customer’s requirements by providing professional, good quality and supportive assistance before, during and after the customer’s purchase. Customers always expect to receive quick and resourceful responses to their queries. They have a lack of patience and hate to wait. They get annoyed easily and delay in providing effective service lead to frustration, exasperation, and anger.
A customer wants to be treated with respect and care and they expect politeness and courtesy from the service provider. The lack of all of these makes a customer switch to other business and in worse scenarios, they post negative comments on social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or even they give negative reviews about the services of the company which gives negative publicity about the company. Social media nowadays is a strong platform which can make or ruin a company because it has the reach to the people of the entire world.
No organization can afford to be publicized negatively on the social media platform. Therefore, customer service has become an important segment of every business and companies are spending billion dollars of money to provide before and after services to their customers and to keep them satisfied. On the other hand, a satisfied customer will return again and again and will provide the more business to the company, along with this, some customers are kind enough to give positive reviews on the social media which boost the image of the company.
In addition to that, if a customer is really happy and satisfied with the services provided, he/she will act as the advocate for the company and recommend the services of the company to their family and friends.
Any company which has been in business knows that customers build their business. The power lies in the hands of customers and they are in-charge of company-customer relationship and it is fair too because they are the end user of the company’s products. Therefore, they have all rights to expect the top-class services. In this article, you will learn about the different types of customer services. Companies provide services as per the expectations of customers which not only attract more customers but also retain them for a long time.
Therefore, companies provide different types of customer services to cater to the needs of diverse customers. this segmentation is done on the basis of a few aspects, such as people’s lifestyle, their reachability based on demography and other aspects. Customer services also depend on the nature of the company’s business. It is very difficult for a company to do the segmentation of its customers.
Therefore, it will be prudent for a company to provide multiple types of customer services, so that, customers can access services as per their requirements. Here, you will get to know about the different customer services provided by the companies to hold their customers.
1) Email support :
Email is one of the fastest and reliable ways to provide customer service to customers. Customers can write emails to the company containing their queries and can get a prompt reply from the service provider. It is considered to be a convenient way by many people to get connect with the companies. According to the Radicati Group, there are almost 3.2 billion email users in the entire world who sends a total of 269 billion emails every day. It is considered a cost-effective way to respond to the queries of customers.
email can also be used to provide specific information using the link to the company’s website, attaching files etc. there are companies like Zendesk and Freshdesk available in the market which provides customer service software and automation.
Customer service software and automation help to sort and prioritize the support issues which makes the experience convenient for both customer and service provider. Customers usually have lack of patience and they don’t want to wait for days to get a response, therefore, it is advisable to respond to all queries of the customers within the 24 hours after receiving an email. According to an online survey, 62% of the companies don’t respond to the emails of their customers, which is not appropriate business ethics.
2) Live chat support :
This type of customer service can be seen on the right bottom corner of the websites of most companies. This service is greatly appreciated by users who avoid human interaction. A customer can make queries and get responses even in the middle of a purchase. Service providers usually limit the time for live chat interaction to weekdays. According to a survey of digital, 73% of people prefer to live chat support whereas 61% of people prefer emails and only 44% of people likes telephonic interaction to the service.
You need to hire live chat agents who can effectively handle the written queries. You can provide an alternative method such FAQ or help videos or demos to your customers when live chat is not available. Plugins can be installed on the websites. Plugins can be purchased and installed from Zendesk, PureChat, and LiveChat.
3) Social media support :
Recently, social media is becoming the most popular platform for every business to reach their customers. Social media platform is used by many companies to advertise their businesses and make people aware of the products and services provided by them. However, social media platform can also be used to provide support to the customers. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are the most famous social media platform to provide help to customers. Other than that, WhatsApp can also be used to provide information about the order placement and delivery.
For example, BookMyShow sends WhatsApp message to the person about the theater details and movie time. Social media accounts require a dedicated team to promptly answer the queries because sometimes customers post about their negative experience on the social media pages which has to be dealt immediately, otherwise, those might ruin the image of the company. By providing timely help, you can show your potential customers how caring you are for your customers.
4) Telecommunication support :
Telecommunication is probably the oldest type of customers service. Telecommunication service pertains to agents providing information about a particular product or service to customers by receiving phone calls. To provide this type of customer service company should provide a single telephone number, which customers can reach whenever they want to inquire or make a request about their product orders or services. A company should make that number available on all platforms such as company’s official website and Facebook page etc.
You can set up a call center or hire a few people who can handle phone calls. Make sure your customer service providers should be well informed about the products and services provided by your company. They should be able to handle customer’s queries, both in regional and English language, patiently and give a good description of the situation. They should be good at verbal and written communication.
To work better with telecommunication, you will need a Dedicated Voice Response System (VRS), which can direct people to the service provider as per their needs. This type of customer service is an expensive but effective type of service. It can be classified into two types such as inbound call service and outbound call service. Inbound call service is dedicated to receiving customers calls whereas outbound call service is dedicated to calling customers. You set up either one or both type of customer service as per your requirements.
5) Self – service knowledge base :
There are certain people who want to be able to access information easily. They want to answer their question on their own. Such customers do not require much handling because of their comfortable finding information through the self-service knowledge base. This type of customer service is inexpensive and require zero wait time from a customer.
However, information should be well organized and includes videos, images, and step – by – step procedures. Self – service knowledge base should be kept up – to – date with the terms and policies of the company. The type of customer service works well along with other customer services such as live chat or phone calls.
6) Interactive voice response representatives :
Interactive Voice Response representative system is an artificial response system which features a voice recognition system. it can understand the problem described by a customer and direct him/her to the information they want. For example, if a customer calls with a question about his/her order, the IVR might ask the order number and retrieve information about the status of the order.
This type of customer service requires a good investment initially to set up. However, IVR has various advantages over traditional telecommunication system such as, it can take many queries in less time and also IVR can answer the customer’s queries after the working hours and even in the weekends. This type of customer service is for the working-class segment.
7) FAQs – Frequently Asked Questions :
This type of customer service requires the least amount of investment. A Frequently Asked Questions or FAQ page can be created on official website or App as well as on the social media platforms. You can hire a content writer to prepare a list of all relevant and frequently asked questions and queries and their answers and solutions.
A person who prepares FAQ must have deep knowledge about the company’s products and services as well as have knowledge about the company’s policies. The FAQ is also helpful to convert potential customers.
8) Help videos- Demos or webinars :
Nowadays, people are tech savvy and they research about the things or services, to make their worth, before buying them. Providing help videos and free of cost webinar can give them a platform to try your services before investing in them.
For example, an online course provider website usually gives access to the first lesson free of cost, which helps the client to decide if they want to take a certain course or not. However, help videos are also helpful to teach your customers how to use a certain product after buying it.
9) On-site Customer service :
This type of customer service is provided at the home or workplace of the customer. companies can provide information about these types of services on their official website or they can mention contact information in the catalogues provided with the products. However, this type of customer service is not free of charge. The minimum amount is charged according to the repair done.
But it can ensure the authenticity of the replaced parts. Some companies run separate business for providing these types of services. However, some companies outsource their customer service to other companies to reduce the workload on themselves.
10) Annual Maintenance Contract (AMC) :
Annual Maintenance Contract is also one of the modern ways of providing services to customers. It is the best way to maintain customers loyalty to the organization. Many organizations provide free of cost or at a minimal charges AMC to the customers who buy their products. Prominent examples of such organizations are AC and water purifier companies. These companies provide Annual Maintenance Contract to the customer after installing the unit in their homes. In this way, they can stay in touch with customers.
AMC can be provided to the customers free of cost before their warranty or contract expires. After the contract expires customers can be asked to renew the contract or get the paid services. Few companies like Apple don’t repair device. They exchange the device with a new similar device whenever any fault or problem occurs.
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