Customer support is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, troubleshooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product.
Communication channels
Channels of communication that companies may offer to customers for support:
Phone support
Customers speak directly to customer support representatives over the phone. For inbound calls, an IVR (Integrated Voice Response) can be programmed to route captured calls in a variety of ways with the potential goal of quickest resolution of a customer’s request/problem. Phone Support is often used for order taking, pre-sales queries, upselling and cross selling, troubleshooting etc. Outbound calls are calls made to customers from the call center to give or take information.
Email support
Email is the primary means to offer web-based assistance for your customers when matters do not require an immediate answer. Low-cost, non-intrusive and anywhere-anytime access are some of the advantages of email-based communications. Trouble Ticketing System and CRM Applications help keep track of a series of follow-up correspondence with a particular customer. Services offered via email response management is claims processing, polling/media analysis, subscription services, troubleshooting, complaint registrations etc.
Online chat
With online chat a web visitor seeks assistance, a text chat session is started by clicking on a link on the provider's website. The customer support representative interacts with the web visitor, understands the requirements, resolves the query and closes the interaction. Alternatively, based on the requirements the customer support representative could also trigger a chat session with the web visitor. Chat support assists with language barriers as both parties involved in the chat session may be able to use an online translation service to communicate. It is also considered less intrusive than phone support. Live chat support is often used for lead generation and fulfillment, campaign management, pre-sales and post-sales enquiries, complaint registration, tech support etc.
