To achieve success in 2022, you must bring customers to the front of your B2B business. But that may not be possible when your customer support software holds you back or prevents you from connecting with your customers.
So, to become a customer-first business, you must develop a customer support system that acknowledges your customers’ goals and pain points.
You should support your customers in a way to make plans more achievable. Plus, you must make the customer-centric strategy your business foundation because 70% of your annual revenue comes from current customers.
However, developing a customer-first business model isn’t easy, especially when a business’s support software hinders it.
Plus, being customer-first means more than meeting customer needs. It requires your business to guarantee customer success and growth. A B2B business needs to know, grow and support its customers — and that’s extremely challenging without having excellent B2B customer support software.
5 Ways Your System Is Holding You Back
You may have heard that customers are the lifeline of your business and have purchased customer support software to meet their needs.
But if your B2B helpdesk or customer service center isn’t giving you the gains you seek, here’s how it may be holding you back:
1. It Fails to Improve Customer Relationships
Customer relationships are the most critical element of a successful business. Improved relationships mean higher loyalty and greater customer retention, which is the key to increased recurring revenue. It also means more chances of success for your business since it’s 5x more expensive to attract new customers than to retain them.
Some customer success services completely ignore opportunities for relationship-building initiatives. They also lack robust analytics to identify opportunities and risks. Plus, any customer success initiatives or live chat functions may also be unavailable in the software, making it difficult for you to create long-term customer relationships — the foundation of long-term business growth and revenue.
So, if you’re suffering from a lack of stable customer relationships, consider revamping your customer support and moving to B2B or B2C customer service software.
2. It Closes Customer Tickets Too Soon
If your B2B ticketing or support software is inclined towards closing tickets, it may harm your customer relationships.
For instance, if your customer submits a query about a problem or issue occurring with your products or service and you close the query too soon, without providing the customer any satisfaction, you’ll damage your relationship with them, increasing the likelihood of customer churn.
By closing tickets too soon, businesses:
· Increase customer satisfaction
· Miss opportunities to gain insights into the real reason behind customer needs
· Aren’t able to recognize obstructions that create different customer problems
· Can’t reach their full potential of helping customers achieve their objectives.
Your customers need a strategy that supports them and identifies areas where they can be successful. So, invest in B2B customer support software that ensures company-customer relationships.
3. It Ignores Customer Growth Goals
Sometimes customer service software only resolves what you need, not what your customers need. That’s the best approach to increase customer churn — not what you want.
So, you must understand that a satisfactory support experience is about your customers’ particular experience with your organization, not anybody else’s. In fact, a satisfactory support experience is so valued by customers that 86% of them are willing to pay extra for a satisfying experience.
Thus, your ultimate goal must be to ensure your business’s and customers’ success. How can you make sure of that? Through a B2B customer support software.
A B2B customer service solution guarantees that you and your customer simultaneously achieve growth. In other words, customer success directly correlates to your customer’s success. So, don’t invest in support software that fails to ensure customer growth.
4. It Offers Too Many Support Channels
Too many choices lead to decision paralysis, so if you’re offering too many support channels to your customers, you may be unable to keep track of every lodged query or complaint. Plus, your customers may also feel unable to decide where to contact you, leading to a negative customer experience.
So, focus on one support channel and make it the best you can. For instance, if you’re focusing on live chat, you’ll need people who can easily convey concepts and provide instant service. Similarly, if you’re focusing on an email channel, you may require copywriters with excellent writing skills.
5. It Has Outdated Tools
You may be in trouble if your customer service software doesn’t offer instant notifications, AI tools, live chat, or other essentials of B2B helpdesks.
If your software tools are outdated, your customers will:
· Find it challenging (if not impossible) to reach you
· Run into long response times
· Not finding any human to talk to.
The above problems cause negative customer experiences and decrease customer satisfaction, leading to increased customer churn and recurring revenue.
Plus, if your customer support service software doesn’t allow you to calculate your net promoter score (NPS), you won’t be able to know your customer satisfaction rate. This will stop you from finding the problems in your customer service strategy and fixing them.
So, invest in a robust B2B customer success support system with relevant and cutting-edge tools that allow you to help your customers as much as possible.
The Takeaway
Customer service is essential because it helps you retain customers and gain insights into their opinions and needs. Your organization can recoup customer acquisition costs and develop a loyal following by providing excellent customer service.
Plus, fantastic customer service helps you increase customer loyalty, leading to word-to-mouth marketing, which will broaden your customer base without you needing to lift a finger.
So, if you’re using low-performing customer support software, consider switching to newer, more cutting-edge CS software because it’ll help you retain your primary customer and gain new ones simultaneously.
