For organizations in the B2B technology space, customer support has always been paramount to business success.
While once upon a time that meant having technicians available from 9-5 and having an issue resolved within a week or two, today, expectations are higher than ever.
Just consider some of these stats:
- 90% of customers rate an “immediate” response as essential or very important when they have a question. (HubSpot Research)
- More than 70% of consumers believe that companies should collaborate on their behalf so they don’t have to repeat information to different representatives. (Zendesk)
40% of consumers cited “multiple options for communicating” as the most important feature of a company’s customer service department. (Business Wire)
Modern customers demand timely assistance, relevant solutions, and service options that suit their preferences. Fortunately, customer expectations are not the only thing that has evolved.
Business tools that support customer engagement and support have advanced considerably over the years and these tools provide the means to meet these growing expectations.
Customer support software is an obvious example of these tools, and having a customer support platform to aid your support processes is a must-have these days.
But why stop there? Exceeding customer expectations should always be the goal, and to do that, customer support platforms empowered with the integration capabilities of CRM can be a real differentiator.
What is CRM?
CRM (customer relationship management) is a software toolset that assists businesses with the day-to-day management of their people (customers and employees), work processes, products, and projects.
Once thought of primarily as a sales tool, CRM has evolved to address the needs of many different business aspects, including marketing, customer service, and HR.
Through the use of advanced automations tools and data centralization, CRM software can help your business improve communication (both internal and external), work more efficiently, and track performance.
Using CRM to empower customer support
Integration with other business applications enhances data accessibility by providing a 360-degree view of the customer journey.
Integration can also provide multi-channel communication capabilities that allow you to address customers on their own terms.
Let’s dive a little deeper to get a better understanding of the potential benefits CRM integration can provide.
Enhancing Customer Support with CRM Integration
CRM platforms can integrate with your other business software tools to provide a more uniform work experience for all your teams. Support teams, in particular, can benefit through:
- Customer support tool integration- Customer support software provides many benefits to customer support teams including ticket management, ticket routing, and AI chat functionality.
With CRM, these benefits can be greatly enhanced through improved customer segmentation, greater multi-channel communication capabilities, more comprehensive reporting features, and more.
For help finding a customer support tool that is right for your business, check out our customer support vendor comparison series:
- Knowledge base integration- One of the most useful integrations for customer support teams is with your company’s knowledge base.
This allows support agents to access and share support resources such as product manuals or troubleshooting guides directly from the CRM.
This can significantly reduce the time it takes to draft responses to common customer questions or issues and can also be a great tool for teaching customers to support themselves.
- Unified data flow- CRM systems can integrate with other business applications, such as email, calendars, ERP software, and customer support platforms.
In this way, the CRM becomes the central source of truth for a customer or account. All interactions, purchases, meetings, appointments, notes, demographic data, and more are collected, accessed, and tracked.
For support teams this means no more searching through different data silos for information, no more redundant data entry, and no more surprises.
FreeAgent CRM can help you empower your customer support processes
FreeAgent CRM is designed for today’s world of work and our robust toolset is ideally suited to supporting the varied work processes of modern businesses. FreeAgent is:
- Easy to use: FreeAgent works like you expect modern apps to work, providing a user experience that feels fresh and familiar. Teams love working in FreeAgent, leading to high adoption and greater ROI.
- User-configurable: FreeAgent can be configured by you to work the way you do. This means you don’t need outside support to add a form field, adjust a CRM automated workflow, or try out a new process.
- Customizable: With FreeAgent, apps, forms, and configurations are all completely customizable, allowing you to capture and connect your data in any way you like.
To see FreeAgent in action, get a demo, and discover for yourself how FreeAgent can help you have workdays full of impact.
