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 customer engagement capabilities of CRM can be a real differentiator.
In this article, we explore how customer support tools can be enhanced with CRM and provide tips for implementing a unified customer service strategy that can improve customer satisfaction and retention.
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
There are several key ways that CRM can help enhance your customer support efforts.
First, CRM platforms can serve as a centralized hub for all customer information and make that information easily accessible to support agents. This can improve collaboration by ensuring that everyone involved in customer interactions has access to the same up-to-date information.
Next, integration with other business applications further enhances this 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.
Lastly, CRM automation tools can simplify routine tasks, freeing up valuable time for support agents so they can focus on creating meaningful customer interactions.
All of these aspects combine to create a better, more efficient customer support process for your customers and your team.
Let’s dive a little deeper into each of these areas to get a better understanding of the potential benefits CRM can provide.
Data accessibility and centralization
CRM platforms collect and centralize customer data to create a comprehensive profile for each customer and account. This can improve support interactions through:
- Up-to-date view of the entire customer journey- With a modern CRM platform, customer information is captured and updated in real-time, from multiple sources.
This allows support agents to see a customer’s purchase history, past interactions, and any ongoing issues so they can provide relevant and efficient assistance.
This also ensures that customers don’t have to repeat themselves every time they call in or perform troubleshooting procedures they have already tried.
Additionally, this information can help support leaders identify common issues or frustrations that can be addressed through product updates, bug fixes, training, or better communication.
- Faster resolution times- With easy access to customer information, support agents can quickly understand the context of a customer’s issue. This prevents the miscommunication and misdiagnosis of issues that can delay resolution considerably.
What’s more, CRMs maintain a complete history of every customer interaction, allowing support agents to review previous interactions and gain insights into recurring issues.
- Better personalization- Access to customer data allows support agents to personalize their interactions by:
- Addressing customers by name
- Referencing past purchases and experiences
- Tailoring communications by channel preference and tone
This makes customers feel heard and valued and can start interactions off on the right foot, leading to a better customer experience overall.
Collaboration
CRM platforms can serve as a centralized hub for all customer-related activities. Your marketing, sales, and support teams can all work together in one virtual location, improving cooperation and collaboration through:
- Real-time communication- CRM platforms enable customer support agents to communicate with their colleagues in real-time.
This can take the form of in-platform messaging, notes and records that are updated in the system automatically, or notifications and reminders that can be sent manually or automatically depending on the circumstance.
This functionality allows support agents to seek advice, share insights, and collaborate on complex customer issues.
- Internal notes and comments- CRM systems enable users to add internal notes or comments to customer records.
Customer support agents can use this feature to share critical information, updates, or context about ongoing customer cases, ensuring that everyone involved is well-informed.
This can also be used to share information about known issues, workarounds, and messaging so everyone is aligned and on the same page.
- Cross-team coordination- Your customer support team often needs to partner with other departments such as product development to address customer issues comprehensively.
A CRM system can provide a platform for cross-functional collaboration, allowing the right stakeholders to be involved while ensuring privacy and security are strictly maintained.
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.
Automation
CRM platforms can automate much of the repetitive and redundant work that can slow your team down. For customer support agents, that means more time to focus on what matters, resolving customer issues. This can be achieved through:
- Automated communication cadences- A CRM can enable support teams to automate their communication cadences in line with their best practices. Some examples include:
- Confirmation messages when a support request is submitted
- Notifications to customers of known or emerging issues
- Post-resolution follow-up messages
- Status change updates
This not only ensures timely and efficient communication, it also lays the foundation for aligned and consistent customer messaging.
- Automated data entry and record updates- A CRM automatically populates customer records with data from various sources, including:
- Communication channels (email, phone, chat)
- Marketing automation platforms
- Lead generation tools
- Social Media
- Web forms
- Surveys
This eliminates input errors and aligns data capture processes across teams, creating a more seamless experience for the customer and leading to more accurate and comprehensive reporting and analytics.
- Automated customer segmentation and escalation rules- A CRM platform can automatically assign support requests based on segmentation criteria such as:
- Purchase history
- Demographic data (region, industry)
- Communication preferences (email, chat)
This segmentation ensures that the right support agents are helping the right customers and providing that support in the way most preferred by the customer.
Additionally, a CRM can be configured to automatically escalate support tickets based on criteria, such as response time or issue severity. This ensures that critical issues receive immediate attention.
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.
