9 Reasons Why Your Small Business Needs Customer Service Software in 2023

Intro

Let's face it: Customer service may not be the flashiest part of your business.

But you surely can’t ignore it, not at this time.

Customers demand immediate, personalized, and convenient support throughout their interaction with your business.

So offering incredible customer service is important for customer retention, But you need customer service software to make this easy. Customer support software could be the key to not only retaining customers but making them become brand loyalists.

Today, we'll see the reasons why you should use customer service software to support your customers.

The table of content:

• Streamline operations
• Enhance customer experience
• Manage customer data
• Empower the customer service team
• Stay ahead of the competition
• Track performance metrics
• Improve collaboration
• Monitor social media
• Enable multilingual support
• Support remote work
• Provide Insights for other business areas

Reason #1: Streamline operations

Customer service software helps streamline business operations by automating routine tasks.

Tasks like email responses, chatbots, and self-service portals can be automated using customer service software.

With this, your service reps have more time to answer to focus on complex complaints and inquiries from your customers.

For example, customer SaaS landing page builder software can automate password resets, order tracking, and returns. This will save time for your customer service team members and increase their response time to common issues like product feature inquiries.

Reason #2: Enhance customer experience

Hubspot report shows that 90% of customers see "immediate" customer service response as an essential factor to consider when making an inquiry or placing a complaint.

So the faster you respond to customers' needs, the better their experience.

And what better way to provide a fast customer service response than using a customer service tool?

With features like live chats, chatbots, and knowledge bases, customers can access your support team, or resolve their problems by themselves.

This improves the experience for your customers.

Using a spreadsheet and shuffling between many apps is inept for your small team. They can’t catch up with customer requests popping up from different apps at a time.

But a customer service tool reduces the shuffle by bringing all customer notifications to you. It also keeps records of all past interactions between a customer and a service rep. With this, any customer service member can quickly attend to a customer without asking for back stories from the customer.

“When customers reach out to you, they want their questions or issues resolved. They don’t want to repeat it 10 times to 10 different people in 10 different departments. They want one agent to be empowered to efficiently and correctly solve their problem or answer their question.

The more you do this, the more customers will trust your brand as the one that has their backs when they need it.”

Says Jenny Dempsey, Customer Experience Manager, Apeel.

Reason #3: Manage customer data

(Source)

Little confession.

During my work as an in-house lead content marketer, storing customer data with an Excel spreadsheet was a mess. Sometimes, I mix up customer data as the rows and columns are hard to identify. Don’t get me started on the data crash that made me cry.

So managing and constantly updating your customer data on a spreadsheet is a lot.

There is room for human errors during data loads and even when computing formulas.

It’s also an overwhelming and time-consuming task.

Relieve yourself and your team members by using customer service software to manage customer data.

With the right software, you can track customer interaction and analyze your customer behavior.

This data can provide valuable insights into your customers' preferences and help you make informed decisions about your business.

Managing customer data is also about protecting your customer's privacy and security. This ensures your customers’ information is encrypted, safe, and secure.

Reason #4: Empower the customer service team

Pilling requests and complaints from customers will leave your customer service team exhausted.

Empower your customer service team to be at the top of their game by giving them the right customer service tools to make their work easy.

For example, a knowledge base tool provides all the FAQs and common inquiries from customers. With this tool, your customer success team can refer customers to the knowledge base resource for reference.

See how to create a knowledge base:

https://youtu.be/r0uiE3gg97A

Ticket tracking features can help your team check incoming requests and rank them.

Team collaboration tools like Slack, Trello, and Wimi encourage team collaboration.

Performance analytics like Ranktracker, Hotjar, Kissmetrics, and Google Analytics provides insights into your team's efficiency, allowing you to identify areas for improvement.

By giving your team the resources they need to succeed, you show your team members that you value their contributions.

Reason #5: Stay ahead of the competition

In today's business landscape, competition is fierce. Businesses that fail to meet their customers' expectations risk falling behind.

77% of U.S. consumers believe good customer service is fundamental to earning loyalty and business.

So customer service is a valid strategy to stay atop your competitors.

With customer service software you gain a competitive edge by offering fast and personalized support.

Hiver's survey report shows that most customers prefer to receive fast customer service without repeating their complaints or requests.

Reason #6: Track performance metrics

Customer service software can help track all the metrics that matter and make data-driven decisions to improve your customer service operations.

For example, you notice that your response times have been increasing over the past few weeks. By digging into the data, you discover that a representative always responds slowly to customers.

With this knowledge, you can work with that representative to improve their performance or reassign them to a different role.

Similarly, tracking ticket resolution rates can help you identify bottlenecks in your process and make improvements.

If you notice that a certain type of ticket takes much longer to resolve than others. By analyzing the data, you may discover that this type of ticket requires more training or resources to address.

Finally, customer satisfaction scores can be a powerful tool for understanding how well your team is performing. If your scores are consistently low, it's a sign that your customer service effort is not enough.

This means your team needs more training, or you need to rethink your approach to customer service altogether.

Reason #7: Improve collaboration

(Source)

With customer service software, your team members can share information, assign tasks, and work to resolve customer issues.

If one team member is stuck, they can ask for help from another team member. It's like calling in backup when you need it most.

But it's not just about getting the job done. Improved collaboration also means a more positive work environment. When team members feel supported and valued, they're more likely to be engaged and motivated. This can lead to higher job satisfaction and lower turnover rates.

Reason #8: Monitor social media

Customers expect you to be present on social media platforms, ready to answer their questions and complaints. They also express their grievances about your business on social media.

But managing many social media channels is challenging for any customer service team.

That's where customer service software comes in.

Tools like Freshdesk, Khoros Care, and Sprout Social are used to track comments and brand mentions on social channels.

This helps your customer service team oversee your social media pages from a central app. It also helps them build a strong bond with customers.

Being responsive to customers' complaints shows you're committed to their satisfaction.

Reason #9: Enable multilingual support

Picture this: You're in a foreign country and you need customer service. You speak a different language, and the representative on the other end of the line struggles to understand you. It's a frustrating experience that can leave you feeling disconnected and unheard.

But if that same customer service team had access to multilingual support, communication becomes easy.

This is the power of multilingual support in customer service.

Customer service software can help bridge language barriers by providing translation services. This can help you connect with customers from different cultures and backgrounds.

Wrapping Up

With exposure to a fast internet connection, customers now expect the same fast customer service from every business.

But keeping up with your customer's service demands isn’t easy, especially when you have a small team.

That’s why you need customer service software to enhance your small team's efforts to improve customer experience. By investing in customer service tools, you are investing in the long-term success of your business.