Customer Service Types: What is the best fit for your small business?
The people who make sure your business is offering support before and after product usage are what we technically call customer service. Another thing is they are the ones who help your business’ consumers have a user-friendly experience with your products.
When your small business is already on the run, customer service will make it more functional and efficient. Being able to prioritize customer service is also prioritizing your consumers. With customer service, you will take time to know who your customers are, specifically their wants and needs, through customer feedback and other strategies.
In today’s era wherein technology is expanding, business owners have brought customer service beyond the operation of traditional customer assistance, known as telephone support service. Now, you can access customer service through text messaging, emails, and chat support on their social media platforms.
Moreover, there are a lot of support modes corporations create that they can benefit from utilizing customer service and technology. Some companies provide self-service customer service wherein you choose what kind of help you need through their AI chat support system or chatbots. If you keep reading, you will know more about the different types of customer service and what type is the best fit for your business.
What are the different types of customer service?
In the long run of a business, interacting with customers is unavoidable. As a business owner, you should not dismiss the demands and criticisms you may get from your customers. The difficulties will occur, and coming up with solutions is what your business should focus on during challenging times.
Working well under pressure is one habit every employee should practice in the workforce. However, a customer service representative may have an edge on what to do if that pressure comes from the consumers. Here are three main types of customer service a business can choose from:
- Live Answering Services
- Interactive Voice Response
- Live Chat
What are Live Answering Services?
A live answering service is a service allowing a business’ customers to speak to a person within a selected geographic area every time a customer calls the business’ hotline.
The term “live” states that the conversation will be real-time and unscripted. We all know that dealing with an automated and scripted voice-over can be frustrating. And if you don’t like this customer service process for your target audience, you may want to try offering live answering services.
In addition, live answering services offer a range of assistance. The tasks and duties include answering phone calls, scheduling appointments, asking screening inquiries, and providing customer service and support.
What is an example of live answering services?
A Virtual Receptionist is an ideal example of a live answering service. Virtual Receptionists are known to have the skills and experiences that live answering services offer. From the role itself, receptionist – this position is well-known to be one of the most cordial employees in a corporation. The main task of a receptionist is to offer an exceptional and beyond satisfactory experience to every customer.
With the rise of small businesses and remote working, virtual receptionists are also in demand for business owners. Envision all the tasks a receptionist has in a virtual space – that is what a virtual receptionist is.
What are the benefits of a live answering service?
The main benefit of a live answering service is that customers converse with individuals in real-time at any given time. Other than this, there are also several benefits a liver answering service can offer to a small business:
Call Screening
As a business owner, there are times that your business will receive calls from clients. If you have virtual receptionists, this is already less of a burden for you to think about.
In this process, a virtual receptionist must screen calls from different people daily and match each caller with the right representative of each department in a company – whatever the caller needs.
To get into details, the virtual receptionist will screen the incoming calls by asking screening questions. Next is to set an appointment, brief, and prepare the representative about the caller. The last thing to do in this process is to schedule follow-up calls if needed.
Call screening is also known to avoid spam. All customer service personnel would know that prank calls and other call spam are normal to receive in this field, the reason why doing this task is very beneficial to the business. And this task also benefits a small business because there will never be missed calls from clients, customers, and potential consumers.
Flexibility
A business owner will often look for the flexibility skill in an applicant’s resume. Most employers would prefer flexible individuals in the workplace.
A flexible employee is willing to do whatever is necessary to accomplish tasks within a workday. An employee who can offer flexibility has more to offer their employer.
As stated previously, a virtual receptionist can not only perform live answering services but can also perform administrative tasks in the business.
Exceptional customer support
Eventually, as a business owner, your business will be known beyond your target landscape. So, expect endless inquiries from clients and customers moving forward. And you should not only think that demand will only be coming from calls. Since the business is booming, there will also be requests from other sectors of the business. And with this, like what they usually say, a missed call is a missed opportunity.
Exceptional customer support is when a business has outstanding customer service that consists of individuals with flexibility and a “can do” attitude. These traits and work ethics are something a virtual receptionist alone offers.
Cost
In the traditional workplace, exceptional customer service is a single department. A department consists of different employees in the same field. So, when we think about the cost of having a single department of customer service can be a bit expensive.
When you hire a virtual receptionist that can do all tasks a single department does, then it would help with cutting costs in a business.
What is Interactive Voice Response?
An Interactive Voice Response or IVR is an automated telephone system combining text-to-speech technology or pre-recorded messages with a dual-tone multi-frequency interface.
In a more simple term, IVR allows customers to interact with a computer before connecting with a representative.
What is an example of an Interactive Voice Response?
Commonly, an example of Interactive Voice Response is a system you can find in call center agencies.
The process of an IVR starts when a customer tries to call. When a call is received, the IVR system begins. The system may consist of the business menu, frequently asked questions, and the contact details of the business. If necessary, the call can reconnect with a human representative.
What are the benefits of Interactive Voice Response?
A universal benefit of IVR is the time and money by trimming hold times and requiring less workforce. A less workload in the customer service area can equate to focusing more on other tasks in other departments. Some benefits of IVR may include:
Call matching
When using an Interactive Voice Response, the system will gather the caller’s information and automatically distinguish what the customer needs. This process will already match the caller to the right representative. It reduces waiting times and increases efficiency.
Increased security
Some IVR systems can identify the voice of a verified individual from the business. It is helpful because it offers security to its customers when gathering sensitive personal information like social security and phone numbers, financial information such as an individual’s debit and credit card details, and more. It will also build trust among the consumers of a business.
Lower operational costs
An Interactive Voice Response system is known to be cost-effective. Since this type of customer service is automated, a business owner has the option not to hire specific individuals anymore. Another thing is during holidays, offline hours, weekends, and night shifts – calls are still coming in, so an IVR can save you all the cost, time, and effort an employee needs in this process.
What is a Live Chat?
One thing a business should consider is that some consumers will be buying from other countries. In this case, communication through the telephone will not be applicable. But, thanks to instant messaging, communicating with international customers is now possible.
Live chat is now an alternative to phone messaging – it can even be an alternative to personal meetings saving both parties the time and effort to travel from home to the meet-up place.
What is an example of Live Chat?
A live chat will mostly take place in the online space. You will likely find live chats on the website of a business. These are usually the ones that will pop up (not those advertisements!) when a customer visits a website and asks what kind of assistance the customer might need. The examples of a live chat may differ into two types:
- An Interactive Live Chat wherein the customer will take action in engaging with the live chat of a business’ website.
- A Proactive Live Chat is when the live chat starts interacting with the website visitor instead of waiting for the visitor to take action.
What are the benefits of a Live Chat?
The main benefit of a live chat is its rapid response to customers. Whether it’s interactive or proactive, the process of a live chat system will always be ongoing. Here are two other benefits of a live chat:
Customer Engagement and Support
As stated above, a live chat offers a rapid response. And with this kind of habit in customer service, the business may get exceptional customer support. As a business owner, if you receive excellent customer approval, your business will no longer miss a sales opportunity.
Customer Relationship
Since we are talking about distinguished engagement, a business that provides it may expect a customer relationship like no other. Chatting with your customers will form better connections and trust, letting them know they are understood, and the business’ customer service will meet their wants and needs.
Now, what is the best type of customer service for a small business?
Technically, the best type of customer service will depend on the business owner. He needs to consider all factors; time, effort, budget, skills, experience, etc.
However, the best type of customer service is something that is, of course, accessible to all. The kind of customer service a business must aim for should have all the skills, experience, and flexibility to do all ad-hoc tasks and, at the same time, offer customer support that is beyond expectations. And with today’s generation, speaking with an actual person is the most engaging. The process of raising your concern to an individual will build trustworthiness that is long-term.
We all know that building personal connections with your customers will help develop your business, so go with the type that has actual personnel representing your business. The answer to the question above is simple, and you may want to read over the different types of customer service we stated above and see what fits best in your small business.