One Mistake That’s Costing Your Business Time and Money
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Imagine if all your customers are happy and delighted.
They do repeat purchases and help you scale revenue. They spread the word about your brand and help you get more new customers.
Too good to be true, right?
Not really.
Today, conversations in most business circles are on driving profitability in a sustained manner.
In other words, businesses are looking to identify cost-effective ways to drive ROI. By pivoting customer support, for instance.
But here’s the harsh reality: the support department in most companies can’t drive customer happiness and eventually – revenue. Not yet.
That’s because they’re making ONE major mistake.
Wrong technology choices that cost both time and money. Let me explain!
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The Time Drain
I’ve seen how large support teams invest in technology that’s fancy and bloated. It’s only much later do they realize the struggle that comes with it.
Every day spent using such technology only adds to the grunt work your team needs to do. Something as simple as pulling up a report, or finding out the status of a specific customer query can be mentally exhausting.
For new recruits in the support team, it’s even worse. Having to learn a complicated interface, and grapple with complex terminologies and workflows. It’d take a significant amount of time before they can even start answering customer queries.
You don’t want your team to get burnt out because of tech. You want tech to help them work more efficiently.
Another regularly occurring issue with most traditional support tools is that they don’t integrate well with existing systems and processes.
So, for instance, say a support agent wants to loop in someone from the finance department on a query. They’d have to switch to another platform to send a message, wait to hear back, and then switch back to their helpdesk to relay that information to the customer. It’s a lot of back and forth, that takes valuable time.
The fix here is simple but often overlooked. Invest in tech that makes your team’s life easier. Don’t go for the popular choice. Instead, go for the one that truly adds value to your team.
The Cost Burden
Buying bloated software is like buying an expensive car. It costs you a lot of money at the time of purchase and continues to drain your resources while you’re using it.
Don’t believe me? Find out how much you’re paying every month for your customer support tool.
Then ask yourself: are you using all the features in the current plan?
Often, businesses end up paying for features they don’t even use. This phenomenon can be attributed to the concept of “feature creep” according to which development teams continuously add new features to attract customers, but end up building an even more complicated piece of software.
It’s like buying a car with a built-in ice cream maker when all you really need is a reliable engine.
Such complicated software will burn your company resources in ways you can never imagine. For instance, you’d be able to access certain essential features only if you purchase add-ons for extra. Training and onboarding will be charged separately – or will be made available only in the highest pricing tier.
Don’t forget – you’re already paying a premium every month to use the software.
Again, the fix here is simple, but I don’t see a lot of companies doing it. Assess every tool in customer support against value-for-money.
Are you overpaying for any software? If yes, can you find a more affordable alternative that does the same job? Chances are there’s definitely one in the market.
You might also want to evaluate tools on the basis of whether:
- They come with hidden costs, add-ons, etc.
- They charge separate for training and onboarding
Turn customer support into a revenue generator
Today, business leaders want to save as much money as possible, without compromising on ROI and efficiency.
To do that, you need to make smarter technology decisions. You need to invest in tech that’s enabling teams and not pulling them down.
Get this right in a critical function like customer support, and you’ll notice just how easier it becomes to deliver timely assistance and go the extra mile for the customer.
To sum it up, look for tech that:
✅ Comes with a unified interface, and fits into your existing workflows.
✅ Has a transparent pricing structure and offers good value for money.
✅ Is relatively easy to set up and learn.
“We tried Zendesk, Salesforce, and pretty much everything that’s out there. They were all unfamiliar and complicated. But Hiver being right inside Gmail makes it a breeze to work with. We use Hiver’s auto-assignment to ensure no request is left waiting for a response for too long.” – James McNeil, President & CEO, Daybreak Metro
