Customer Support Definition Made Easy

Customer support definition is an important thing to grasp in modern business. With the increase of technological progress and social attitude changes, this has become a new concept, much apart from what it once was. This happened gradually, but seemed so sudden upon realization. Not long ago, customer support was just a call in center to answer questions and resolve complaints or billing issues beyond this, they didn’t serve much of a deeper person. It was a colder, more austere business environment between customer and company in this time.

The customer support definition has changed, and this is ultimately for the better, but if we want this step to a better tomorrow, we have to be prepared to understand what it really means for us. It puts pressure on us as companies that we must be ready to handle right now.

Our call centers must now be more accommodating with shorter hold times, more agents to handle it, and a lot of unneeded issues offloaded from this. Customer support is no longer a game of patience, it involves speed of serving the customer right along with the resolutions provided.

As a result, we must take advantage of new digital technologies to handle issues our call centers must not. These must be easy to use, and conveniently something the customers already access. Social networks are a good starting point.

Customers also no longer tolerate a pat on the back and an apology as a resolution for issues. They now expect to be compensated either with a positive solution or some sort of restitution from the company. As a result, customer support must now be prepared to add overhead for this compensation, and be unable to ultimately do wrong.

Customers also expect customer support to be proactive, and working to empower them as customers to accomplish more. Self service is becoming a very in demand model. We have the technology through onboard services to make this work, and now we must embrace these.

Finally, customers expect to feel bloody well appreciated now. This means that proactive positive actions are expected of customer service now. Some companies have done this for years, actively rewarding long time customers in one way or another. This is a model we must all now pay close attention to, and begin adopting as well.

So, customer service has gone from a passive and slow venting post and human FAQ page to being a proactive, positive and negative response system to engage customers and innovate on their interactions with the company in creative ways. It is now a science that must be applied with precision and care, and a field of significant new depth in the new century.

So, think long and hard about this new customer support definition, because failure to apply this knowledge will result in calamity. Remember, customer support is how you will be judged ultimately, so you really don’t want to mess this up. If you think a call center and slow resolution is how customer service works, well, then you are from the 1990s and welcome to the future, brave time traveler!

 

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is Specialist in Customer Success and chief writer and editor of I Want It Now, a blog for Customer Service Experts. Follow her @StefWalkMe