Customer Support Whitepaper - iOPEX technologies · Customer Support | WHITEPAPER Introduction...

Customer Support | WHITEPAPER

Aspects Companies Often Overlook While Designing A Customer Support Strategy

www.iopex.com Customer Support | WHITEPAPER 2

Customer support is the lifeline of businesses

and has become a vital competitive differentiator.

If managed well, customer support can directly lead to

prolonged customer loyalty, customer advocacy, and

generation of additional revenue opportunities.

This whitepaper will help you to :

Fine-tune your customer support initiatives

Build a robust strategy that boosts customer lifetime value

Drive profits through additional sources of revenue

Minimize customer support costs

Make support your true competitive differentiator

www.iopex.com Customer Support | WHITEPAPER

Introduction

Customer service is the top strategic priority for most businesses, but many of them still focus on

minimizing costs rather than on augmenting customer satisfaction and redefining customer

experience with their brands. In a time when the technology landscape has become extremely

complex, it becomes difficult for organizations to identify the right solution that can help them to

offer what their customers so rightfully demand.

Modern customers are tech savvy and have easy access to online tools and resources – they are

able to find solutions instantly through online communities and social media. Mobility has made the

process even faster. This has tremendously changed the mindset of the customers. They believe

that their problems or issues can be and should be resolved quickly and effectively at all times –

putting immense pressure on the customer support system.

A differentiated customer experience can be fostered through the use of correct technology,

optimized processes, and the right customer support team with deep skills, knowledge, and

attitude for customer care. Identifying the challenges faced by the organization when it comes to

customer service and resolving them effectively will help build a robust customer support strategy

that will successfully take the test of time and drive revenue.

Customer expectations have reached the moon

Top customer support challenges faced by businesses

Gauging customer expectations

Building in-house support

infrastructure

Selecting the outsourcing vendor

Optimizing issue resolution process

Offering proactive out-bound support

Measuring customer satisfaction

Providing a holistic support service

Increasing revenue while curtailing costs

Offering multi-channel

support

Gathering and utilizing

customer data

1 2 3

4 5 6 7

8 9 10

3


Customer service starts with understanding

customer expectations. When you know what your

customer anticipates from support, you can truly

align your service so as to meet those expectations,

achieve customer delight, and differentiate your

customer experience.

4

Analyzing the changing customer expectations from support

1

customer experience decision-makers say that good customer experience is one of their top strategic priorities,

and 75% say they want to use customer experience as a competitive differentiator.

93%

Understanding Expectations

Explicit

Expectations

Product performance standards

General support standards

Implicit

Expectations

Performance as compared to other companies, brands, industries, cultures

Basic courtesies , communication skills, professional service

Performance

Expectations

Knowledgeable help, accuracy, promptness, competency, customization

Changing support as per future needs

Taking customer feedback and improvising

Technological

Expectations

Multi-channel support, technical knowledge

Evolved customer support management technology

Quick response with technology as the enabler

Interpersonal

Expectations

Respect, friendliness, honesty, empathy, patience, enthusiasm

Need anticipation, dedicated attention

Keeping customers informed


Analyzing the changing customer expectations from support

Expectations keep changing

Just like everything else in the world, customer expectations are also dynamic. There is recent up-

turn in customers asking for self-service capabilities, mobile support, social support, extensive and

searchable knowledge base, consistent cross-channel support, proactive support, and much more.

Businesses not only have to keep pace with these changing demands, they must also ensure that

they achieve these cost-effectively.

Most customer support teams are problem-focused; they resolve issues

as they come. Today, there is a need to change that attitude and become

solution-oriented. Anticipating customer needs & adapting appropriately

so as to remain a step ahead is the way to go.


Outsourcing customer support activities has become

a common practice for growing companies.

Outsourcing to experts not only reduces costs but

also removes the hassle of managing and growing

the support infrastructure, technology, and

resources. But, when it comes to vendor selection;

finding the cheapest option is not the best way to go.

6

Selecting a vendor with one-stop support expertise

2

of companies have outsourced their support operations or are very interested in outsourcing, and a

further 8% companies are interested in doing so in near

future.

20%

Complete support solutions under one roof

Deep technical and process competencies

Multi-channel support capabilities

To future-proof your support operations, you must find a reliable vendor that supports a range of

associated products, processes, and technologies, so that it is able to able to scale-up to your

support requirements when needed. For instance, instead of going with a vendor that support PCs,

you may partner with a vendor that supports PCs, as well as networking devices, mobile devices,

cloud technologies, gaming devices, and so on.

Your vendor must demonstrate above average skills when it comes to tackling technology and

managing support processes. The vendor must be able to provide smart solutions that utilize past

customer data, integrate issue management, enable proactive support, and ease issue resolution

with faster access to knowledge.

There has been a steep rise in number of customers asking for the

use of various channels of support such as phone, email, FAQs,

self-support knowledge management details, automated

support, live chat, online community support, virtual support,

mobile support, etc. This mandates that your support vendor

should offer multi-channel support capabilities so as to provide a

consistent service experience across channels to your customers.

There is a 12% rise in web self-service usage, a 24% rise in chat usage, and a

25% increase in community usage for customer service

in the past three years (2009-2012).


Selecting a vendor with one-stop support expertise

Complete alignment with the support vendor results in better

efficiencies, responsibility, accountability, and transparency. When the

support organization works as a part of your organization, the results

are apparent in terms of greater customer satisfaction scores.

It is often seen that companies deploy several different technologies and services for different

support channels. For instance, they have different components for customer relationship

management, knowledge management, automated self-service, chat-support, email support,

customer-center management applications, and so on. Your vendor must be able to offer you

integrated support services for various components of support.

It often requires a lot of convincing capabilities from the agents to persuade the customer into

taking extended warranties, additional annual support, or anytime premium support, and so on. An

ideal vendor would have the desired skills for making such persuasions in a genuine way while

helping the customers with their issues.

The role of a customer support vendor has transcended from just offering contracted support

agents who follow SLAs to full-fledged support partner that aligns with your business processes,

technology, culture, reporting-structure, objectives, data management techniques, and skills while

becoming a major contributor to your customer management process.

Integrated support solutions

Support topped with sales skills

Complete business alignment


The characteristic tint of chaos that binds every

crucial technical issue raised by the customer often

leads to time-consuming, haphazard, and temporary

resolution processes. This happens primarily due to

lack of established automated customer support

systems, categorized processes, and lack of planning.

8

Implementing automated systems and processes

3

customers say that valuing their time is the most

important thing a company can do to provide them with good

service.

66%

Using automated resolution system

Establishing process flows

Benchmarking

Easy self-help systems

One of the grave errors when developing a customer support system is to just rely on basic

software or e-manual practices to channelize, maintain, and enhance customer support services.

The way to go is to have efficient and effective CRM software or even an integrated marketing,

BPM and CRM system, customized for your business needs.

As technical support is a frequent, prime, and productivity-tinkering need of your customer,

quickness of response is of paramount importance. So the key is to identify and establish effective,

proficient & shortest resolution channels, with guided process flows for smooth resolution process.

This is one aspect that works like a measuring tool for the entire team. The key is to set

benchmarks in terms of speed of resolution, quality of service, processes, and customer

experience. Another aspect is to continuously see that these benchmarks are met and challenged at

every given opportunity.

A dedicated and comprehensive self-help channel shall be

established, by means of easily accessible knowledge banks, FAQs,

self-resolving process flows, troubleshooting tips, checks, and

updates etc. This would not only give the customers quick solutions

but will also let the customer support team focus more on complex

and key issues.

of customers say they would use an online knowledge base if it

were available.

91%


Implementing automated systems and processes

The key is not to just resolve the issue and feel unburdened, but to do it

under stipulated durations and established processes to minimize issue

resolution times now and in the future.

There are problem patterns that can be identified for a particular product or software over a

period of time by careful observation. These issues can be categorized and along with solutions can

be delivered before-time to the customers. This will not only avoid unnecessary rising of support

tickets and going through the resolution routines but will also enhance the customer support

experience.

Issue anticipation and proactive resolution


Data is power. But the data that is generated in hoards through thousands of customer

support calls; the disjointed data that lies unused due to its complexity – cannot add any

advantage to the support system.

10

Utilizing the wealth of data to improve customer experience

4

The bulk of data and customer information generated daily through phone calls, email support,

online support, and social media can all be consolidated automatically into a central database or

knowledge base. This data can then be transformed into meaningful and actionable insights that can

help agents to resolve issues faster and offer proactive support solutions.

Building a single view of all customer interactions with your

company is a major step in improvising customer experience.

Universal customer history data will enable the support

agent to know the exact problems faced by a particular

customer in the past, the devices he had used, the

solutions provided, and so on.

Backed with the knowledge, the support agent can get

to the task of helping the customer in a shorter

timeframe and also appear knowledgeable and proactive

to the customer. This directly impacts customer perception

and minimizes issue resolution time. Empowered with customer

insights your support agents might also come across some

beneficial cross-sell and up-sell opportunities.

Build a data analytics edge

Create a single base of customer history records

Only 19% of companies support multichannel

integration, while 21% support back-end

integration.

19%


Utilizing the wealth of data to improve customer experience

When you make knowledge management a part of your support

environment; you make intelligence work to your advantage. With

appropriate information, customer segmentation details, and past

records, your sales, marketing and support team can device more

customer-centric strategies to enhance experience and boost lifetime

loyalty.

The solution is to collect data intelligently, analyze it systematically, and use it to create competitive

advantage.

Make knowledge management the core part of your support environment

Multiply the effect of knowledge and turn it into real-time actionable

intelligence

Deliver insights proactively

to your customers and

support agents through

multiple touch-points

Consolidate knowledge from

various channels including

phone, email, social media,

chat, web usage, etc.

Ensure easy access to

data through use of

powerful and integrated

back-end systems

Enable customer and agent

rating of the data and

improvise over time

Integrate contact center

application with CRM,

knowledge management,

and customer data base

Use robust analytics

tools to get more value

out of data


Multi-channel support and mobile support services

5

The tendency to be content with the traditional phone

and email tech support is understandable, as they are

the de facto customer support channels for most

companies. However, these channels, though they

do bulk of the job, can be supported by other

channels which can drastically improve the quality,

speed, and experience of technical support.

Phone and email communication has decreased

from 73% of customer communication to 59% in the

recent years.

59%

The key to selecting support channels

The decisive factor in choosing additional support channels is to

understand the preferred communication channels of your average

customer. There are customers who would call you, there are

customers who would prefer chatting, and there are customers

who would prefer reading the FAQs and fixing problems themselves.

of customers move from the web to

another channel when getting service.

74%

Let us now look at some new support channels:

Self-help Websites

The self-help websites must be effectively designed and stacked with all the necessary

resolution information. Your knowledge management engine will play a great role in

developing a useful, accessible, searchable, and easy-to-use self-help website. Most

customers today prefer to troubleshoot the issues themselves first and only call support

when it is beyond their capabilities. Solid self-help knowledge base along with user-

community support will help in minimizing support calls or emails.

Mobile support services

The versatility of the mobile phone makes it a mandatory platform to deliver technical

support services. It not only converges the traditional channels of phone and email but also

enables other support-providing options like support-based apps, chatting, getting ticket

updates through messages, delivering customized mobile tech-support sites, etc.


Multi-channel support and mobile support services

The mantra is to open up as many support channels as possible, to make

the whole technical support easily accessible and readily available.

Technical forums and support groups

Running a company-led technical forum or customer discussion board will drastically

improve your technical support capabilities. Most customers rely heavily on these kinds of

forums and groups as it gives them flexibility and freedom to be extremely critical about

the issues that they are facing. This channel is also helpful to the company as even other

product/service users will step in as customer support volunteers by giving quick solutions

to known issues.

Social media

This is one channel that almost all users access every day and thus makes it a good channel

to extend customer support, valuable technical updates, or product details. Using this

media you can also conduct polls and reviews of your product and support service, which

will help in better technical support.

Dedicated chat lines

Dedicated chatting lines that run 24x7 are great for rendering technical support to your

customers. This channel provides scope for real-time checking of the fixes suggested by

support personnel and this can aid resolving customer issues during the support chat itself.

Multi-channel resolution process

You can use a combination of channels to resolve issues quickly. Customers also find it easy

to start a support call from one channel and then move on to another channel during the

resolution phase.


Proactive technical support is often ignored in a

mediocre customer support system. But it is this

feature which is capable of increasing customer

confidence and loyalty towards your product and

support.

14

Proactive outbound support

6

of enterprises are planning to invest in proactive outbound communications in the next

12 months.

29%

You should plan and schedule service calls in a manner that will help you check the quality and

reliability of your product, its usability factor, specific customer issues, and other technical niggles

that customers often skip to communicate, and so on. Mark service calendars of your customers

and pass on timely information to them so that the service schedules, warranties, etc., are properly

followed. It is important to first understand the nature and kind of information that the customer is

expecting you to let him know in advance.

Conduct demos on newly added products, product features, or services. The support team must

also ensure that the customers understand the new features fully and make them operational to

extract the maximum benefits. This is very important as most customers fail to make maximum use

of the product, leading to poor product experience.

Once an issue is resolved it is the responsibility of the support team to make checks whether the

given solution has helped the customer completely resolve the issue or not.

Planned checks and quality assurance calls

Feature demos

Post-resolution calls

Proactive support must render beyond making plain calls regarding

service expiry dates and renewals. The key is to really foresee issues

and deliver precautionary or pre-resolution enabling services.


Technology has become intertwined with our lives with a range of interconnected devices

and programs that run in our homes, offices, and even when we are enjoying a leisurely

day in public places. Devices like smart phones, PCs, tablets, GPS devices, WiFi devices,

Bluetooth devices, gaming consoles, smart TV, smart remote controls, printers,

projectors, MP3 players, watches, smart shoes, software applications, and a lot more, are

available at arm's length. Each device comes from different brands with varied operating

systems and applications.

15

Exploiting “out-of-scope” support calls

7

What happens when things go wrong in terms of connectivity, performance, or security? The

complexity of the situation is immense. Technology must work as an enabler for the users and not a

challenge that they cannot surmount.

Users of any technological device want that their devices should work the way they are supposed

to, with other compatible devices. So when, for instance, their PC is unable to connect to the

printer through the WiFi router, they get frustrated and do not know whom to call for support.

This not only frustrates the customers, but also diminishes their confidence in your brand. The

users expect that their issues be resolved with agility by the first contact center they call. And they

deserve no less.

It is a common practice at many support centers to point the fingers

at others, mark the call as out-of-scope, and redirect the customer

to some other support provider. By turning your customers away,

you not only frustrate the customer, but also give-up a potential

business opportunity. To truly differentiate your customer support

strategy, you must try and support all the allied technologies that go

along with your product or service.

What users expect?

Every issue is “in-scope”

Customers wish for issue resolution during the first call itself and that is why

“First Call Resolution” metrics is a primary indicator of how your support

system is performing. Just like a bad customer experience can give you a

lifetime of negativity; a positive experience during the first call itself can give

you delighted customers and ardent brand promoters for a lifetime.

The players who are first to market

with a solution that closes the technical support gap for both consumers and support agents

will quickly capitalize on a largely untapped market

opportunity, which will grow to $8.25 billion

by 2017.


If a support center is managed as a cost-center, then more

emphasis is laid on agent efficiency, productivity, resolution

times, and so on. In such a scenario, agents are inclined to

quickly mark a call as “out-of-scope” rather than making

the effort to resolve it. But, if your contact center is turned

into a source of revenue, then customer satisfaction

comes in to the limelight.

16

Identifying and channeling revenue streams

8

Customer support for technical solutions acts as an enabler to achieve

various business development and revenue generation goals, such as:

- Offering premium support for out-of-scope calls

- Proposing other value-added offerings during the support

call (extended warranties, product servicing, refills,

customization, upgrades, enhancements)

- Cross-selling or up-selling products and services

- Offering better customer experience which leads to greater

brand advocacy by the happy customers, thereby increasing sales

- Understanding customer pain points and improving the product,

service, and processes

Channeling revenue through support

of companies consider their contact center to be

a cost center.

50-70%

Better customer support directly translates into profits. It's all connected!

69%organizations believe that

their contact center is critical to revenue generation.

The world has embraced premium customer support

When it comes to getting problems solved quickly, customers are willing to pay a premium. It is

time for companies to innovatively optimize their processes, increase support efficiency, reduce

support costs, and identify opportunities. Companies can offer various types of premium support

solutions:


Identifying and channeling revenue streams

In a world where technology, products, product-usage, and customer

allegiance change very quickly, the only real opportunity that businesses

have is building strong long-term relationships with their customers. A

star product is only a part of it; the other key is the amount of customer

loyalty that companies are able to foster.

Where the support

team helps the

customer with the

current issue,

troubleshoot it and

resolve it.

One-time support

Subscription-based support

24x7 support

Out-of-warranty support

Where you can

define various

duration-based

support packages

for all-inclusive

support.

There is nothing

better than getting

the frustrating

issues resolved

right when you face

them and 24x7

support, 365 days

of the year is a

great solution.

Though the

product is out of

warranty duration,

support can still be

provided for such

products.

Premium support requires a solid support team that has experts in a

variety of technologies who can work closely to resolve issues quickly. It

also needs a high level of support automation, comprehensive

knowledge-base, trained specialists, and most importantly, a certain

level of selling skills to reason with the customers and convince them to

purchase premium support.

Cross-sell and up-sell opportunities

The support agent has complete insights about the customer's pain points;

usage of other allied products, services and technologies; and purchase

patterns. Based on these inputs, the agent can offer highly personalized

up-selling and cross-selling promotions to the current customers.

Powerful analytics tools can be used to understand the “next best actions”

suited for each customer and the support agent can offer appropriate

suggestions based on those insights.

When a customer call is resolved you increase the

customer cross-selling acceptance rate by 20%.

customers would pay more for a product that provides them better

service.

86%


Your company's perception depends on two foundations – one is your brand and how it

performs, and the second is how you support your products and service; if either one is

bad then your business is doomed. Offering a differentiated customer experience is thus

an integral part of the support team as well.

18

Empowering support team to offer a differentiated experience

9

Refined support processes

A single-point knowledge center

With substantial resolution experience the support resources get quicker at identifying problem

patterns and get exact at issue anticipation; this capability can prove highly beneficial as the

technical officers can instantly deliver solutions based on customer inputs and their resolution

experience. Technical support agents must have the right simulators, remote access tools, physical

access to the lab of various tools and technologies supported, product documentation, and more to

make it easier for them to understand customer issues and resolve them faster. If smart agents are

backed with intelligent technology and processes; they are able to perform even better and delight

the customers.

Enabling single point access to knowledge center and avoiding

categorization and access limits of knowledge and customer

databases will enhance the ability of the support team to deliver

faster and more accurate resolutions that meet customer needs.

Customer support centers are no longer considered cost centers rather

centers for delivering customer service excellence, which will become a

key competitive differentiator in the market. And this is possible

through smart and effective support team empowerment through right

technologies, processes, and collaboration.

Customer service agents must have access to a

customer's profile, current situation, and prior

purchase and interaction history in order to deliver

personalized service.


For most customer support organizations resolving the customers' issues is the end of the

thread. A mediocre system may, on purpose, choose customers with better chance of a

positive feedback, or in most cases the process is altogether ignored, as depicted in the

following survey report.

19

Measuring customer response

10

In the coming years, customer service

organizations will start moving forward with more

holistic measurement programs for

communication channels and touch points.

Failing to gauge the customer satisfaction index

leads to trickling down of customers and market

value and this calls for setting up dedicated and

effective customer response processes.

Adoption Levels For Customer Understanding Principles

“To what extent does your company do the following practices related to customer understanding?”

Base: 100 customer experience professionals at B2C and B2B companies(percentages may not total 100 because “don’t know” responses were not included)

Source: Q4 2012 Global Customer Experience Peer Research panel Online Survey

94182 Source: Forrester Research, Inc.

We don’t do this at all We do this sporadically or inconsistently We do this consistently

Customer understanding is practiced inconsistently - or not at all - at most firms

Gather customers’ feedback about theirinteractions with our company

Gather input from employees about theirinteractions with customers

Conduct observational research studies with customers

Map customers’ interactions with our companyfrom the customers’ perspective

Analyze customer insight acrossorganizational boundaries

Document customer insights to make it easyfor employees to understand (e.g., personas)

Share what we know about customers withemployees at all levels of the company

2%

38% 60%

12% 62% 26%

31%42%23%

26% 46% 27%

19% 45% 33%

21% 47% 31%

19% 62% 19%



Listening to the voice of the customers

The key is having all ears open to get to the true pulse of your

customers; their voice should be clearly heard to get the real

information and feedback. Enabling more and more feedback

channels and making the entire process of feedback system

always open lets in greater customer satisfaction scores. These

scores give a more realistic picture as customers are not bound

by any specific time and communication channels to give their

satisfaction levels and other feedbacks.

When a customer is dissatisfied, you would rather want him to come to your organization with the

feedback, rather than ranting about it to his friends or posting about it on the public media.

Companies must provide the freedom to the customers for giving feedback as and when they

chose, through the channel that they like.

How and when to collect customer feedback?

More companies (68%) adopt voice of the

customer (VoC) programs than in 2011 (55%).

However, companies struggle to distribute the analyzed data

and act on pertinent feedback to deliver

quantifiable business value.

There has to be a vivid categorization of various customer feedback based pointers that should be

clearly marked, scored, analyzed, and benchmarked. These pointers have to be aligned with

product and customer support systems and policies to give the support team a sharp picture of the

entire satisfaction index.

Customer satisfaction score

Anytime feedback(24x7 feedback through email, phone, social media, website, chat, online survey)

Before issue resolution During issue resolution Post issue resolution

Planned periodic surveys(Monthly, quarterly, yearly)



The primary metrics that support organizations must measure:

The work of the customer response measurement team is never over.

Taking customer feedback regularly should be made into an intelligent

and automated process that gives useful insights to the support team on

how to improve customer experience and boost satisfaction scores.

Response time First call resolution time

Issue resolution time

Issue re-open rates

Escalations SLAs met

Overall customer satisfaction rate

Net promoter score


Conclusion

Support is all about enhancing customer experience

Customer support has transcended the era of being a reactive

cost-center, and has now moved on to become a strategic

investment that creates a differentiated customer experience,

builds competitive advantage, generates revenue, and

aids customer lifetime loyalty.

22

Founded in 2009, iOPEX is a next generation Technology Operations Optimization company

focused on delivering application and infrastructure optimization solutions. iOPEX has saved over

USD 50M for its customers through its specialized services. The company is headquartered in San

Jose, California with Global Delivery Centers at four locations in North America and Asia.

For further information, please visit

About iOPEX technologies

www.iopex.com.

Customer Support Whitepaper - iOPEX technologies · Customer Support | WHITEPAPER Introduction...

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