You may be of the opinion that Support software is a boring and sleepy software category that does not call for innovations.
You are right! However, this is about to change.
In this article, we are going to explain why we demarcate this software is a wrecked category, which is failing to solve customer problems in this modern world.
This is because CS software is going to be massively disrupted by CRM software designed for CS teams- which is an entirely new way for these teams to work in the present times.
Although CS is an essential team in your business, Sales and Marketing also get in touch with your customers every day. This is how CRM helps in marketing.
Hence, when your CS team interacts with your customers for years, it is the time that you need to provide them with a new software that they need for their daily chores.
Still date, bad CS scenarios are very common everywhere across the globe. If you enquire in a room full of people, when they faced a bad customer oriented experience, most people will cite a date within the range from the last months. Mostly, these customers are those who had been kept on hold or had interacted with agents who could not answer their problems or provided impersonal services.
There are hundreds of articles, which confirm this fact.
According to Edison Research, while more than 80% companies boast about delivering unparalleled Customer Support service, only 8% of the customers, in reality, agree about the same.
However, legacy software does not only suck the customers. During the past couple of years, while we were developing ConvergeHub CRM for SMBs, the best CRM software for small business, we discussed with hundreds of CS team members to locate their pain-points, and their top complaint was that the software they use sucks. According to the users of legacy software, these software are hard to use, clunky and fails to unify all customer touch points and data, which are essential for serving the customers.
If you are not okay and you would not think about carrying a phone that is 10 years old, why then is it agreeable to use legacy CS software that is equally old as your dumb phone.
In fact, all major legacy CS software are crammed with so many unnecessary and outdated features that for today’s CS agents it may take weeks to learn how to properly use these systems.
While using a legacy platform, CS team members often find themselves overwhelmed by the myriad number of applications that contain customer data in such support-oriented software. While building ConvergeHub, as the numero-uno CRM for SMBs, we came across several team members who still use 10 or more applications in the process of resolving an issue.
It is very natural, that it is impossible for any team member to offer a high level of service if they are spending all their productive hours going back and forth between different applications and screens. Moreover, as legacy software are usually built on closed architectural platforms, it becomes painful to integrate any third party app in these systems (especially in a security compliant way).
If you view any website of a Support software provider, you will most possibly see several images of people and mentions of the term ‘relationships’. Hence, although these software gives the impression that these software enables high-quality personal communication for upholding relationships between the company and their customers, in reality, the opposite is true.
Legacy software treats customers like tickets, which highlights and promotes a transactional approach while dealing with the customers that are completely opposite of ‘building relationships’. So, getting a 360-degree view of the customers along with their transactional and purchase history is really a hard thing to accomplish with these traditional CS platforms.
1. The Solution: CRM for CS
Before launching ConvergeHub, the best CRM software for small business we talked with several team leaders through meetings, online forums, dinners, conferences and happy hours, listen to their complaints. During those prolonged conversations, we kept hearing to a common theme “We do not want just another silo (stand alone) CS software. We want a CRM platform that unifies all touch points and is built around the customer”. This feedback proved astonishingly valuable for us and it served to confirm the founding vision for ConvergeHub, which is a converged CRM that gives a 360-degree view of the customers across all departments, right from Sales, Marketing, and Billing to Customer Support.
2. Solution: Everything In One Place
CRM created for CS unifies all the customer data in one place. Remember, every time you keep a customer on hold while you search between applications, you are alienating your customer by not giving them what they need. ConvergeHub is a CRM, which uses an open architecture that helps in easy integration of any application within its platform.
3. Solution: Treats Customers Like People
The central focus of CRM for CS is to keep its spotlight on the customer timeline since CRM is built around the user experience of the customer. CRM integrates everything related to the customer, which includes conversions, transactions, events, and your company’s data into a cohesive and unified experience. Hence, while using a CRM, rich customer profile aids agents to learn more about customers, so that they can provide more personalized services.
4. Solution: Fun to Use
Gone are those days, when CS team was stuck with old software. CRM for CS is easy now. Converged CRMs like ConvergeHub are Customer Relationship Platforms that are as easy to use as Snapchat or Facebook. Modern day Converged CRMs have extensive collaboration features so that you can work in tandem with other members of your team. Moreover, present day CRMs have built-in intelligent workflows, which automate all the cumbersome admin stuff, like reminders and routing, so that you can utilize your time helping customers instead of sticking post-it notes on your office desk.
CRM for CS Empowers The Most Important Team At Your Company
Traditionally, CS was seen for a very long time as an unavoidable necessary evil needed for keeping frustrated customers at a bay. A cost center for the company, whereby CS teams were almost never given a seat at the big table. According to Forrester, in a research done in 2012, more than 50% of the senior executives never focused on customer experience over sales and marketing departments.
However, today CRM for CS has radically changed the previously held concept, which has subsequently altered the productivity and happiness quotient of the CS teams.
Here is a list of enhanced abilities that CRM has accomplished for the CS team members of a company:
Unifying CS applications and data in one place have made the team members a lot more efficient. Automation of tedious processes and daily admin works enables the team to concentrate more on important things like serving the customers.
By increasing the rate of customer retention, best CRM for SaaS companies like ConvergeHub has enabled business establishments to increase customer lifetime value, which translates to a substantial growth in ROI.
CRM has enabled team members to find a strong leadership role in the company. Modern CRMs like ConvergeHub not only amalgamates and improves customer data but also export the data to other applications so that CS information can be used in making decisions throughout the company.
When you capable of having a full picture of your customer, you can easily find where you can benefit from an up-sell. Cross-selling and personalized automated email campaigns are more likely hit the mark and perfectly position products and services to drive-in revenue.
Takeaway
When CS teams see ConvergeHub, the best CRM for SaaS companies they usually switch over to us in a few weeks. We have a talented team that can help you to get started with our #1 CRM for SMBs within a few weeks and that too with limited hours needed for its configuration time.
So, if the future of Customer Support is CRM, now we would like to hear you talk.
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