Today’s customer expects a level of response from companies that most of us find unattainable. Case in point: According to Business Dasher, 46% of customers expect companies to respond within four hours of their support request. What’s more, 12% of customers expect a response within 15 minutes.
Unfortunately, many companies are missing the boat, the average support response taking over 12 hours. With customer retention on the line, it’s no wonder that organizations are investing heavily into scalable customer support options.
But what are the right investments?
How do you improve efficiency without adding extra headcount?
The answer is a combination of digital self-service, strong communities, and sophisticated AI. Convinced? Jump into digital self-service solutions to get started right away. If you need a little more information, keep reading.
Digital Self-Service Empowers CSMs to Focus on High-Impact Activities
Customer Success Managers (CSMs) provide millions of dollars in value to their organizations every year. That is, when they can spend their time focusing on renewals, upsells, and other revenue-driving customer engagements.
If CSMs need to spend their day addressing endless customer support questions and inquiries, even if they are quick and easy, they will miss out on important opportunities to grow your business.
Digital self-service resources prevent the risk of missed opportunities. Customers can find the answers they need when they need them, preventing frustration on their end. Simultaneously, CSMs stay protected from time-consuming tasks and can prioritize strategic actions. In terms of cost-savings and revenue-driving solutions, digital self-service improves both.
Gainsight customer Bonfire adopted a self-service customer academy and removed time-consuming tasks like 1:1 basic trainings—saving their CSMs over 2,000 hours.
Avoid Excess Headcount Spending with Digital Self-Service
An additional way digital self-service can reduce operational costs is by keeping headcount at a sustainable level. If a company needs to add additional employees every time they acquire a new customer, then they will always have a cap on their profitability and scalability. On the other hand, when a company leverages digital self-service solutions, their potential increases exponentially.
For added value, digital self-service solutions stay up-to-date and accurate without any additional resources required. The resources necessary to recruit, hire, and train customer-facing teams add up quickly and cut into the bottom line.
Add to that the time it takes to keep all employees trained on customer questions, and you can see why digital self-serve options are the preferred solution for successful companies.
Empower Customers with Instant Answers
Earlier, we mentioned the high expectations customers have for support and guidance. What we didn’t mention is that over half of customers surveyed said they would find a different company to buy from if they experience poor customer support. In other words, not only does instant customer support improve customer relationships, but delayed customer support also hurts customer relationships and their company loyalty.
With a digital self-service solution, companies mitigate churn risk and empower customers to educate themselves on topics most important to them as soon as they need an answer. Often, self-service options lead customers into online communities where they can learn even more without engaging with CSMs or other team members.
Additionally, when customers do reach out to talk to CSMs, the conversations revolve around strategic decisions, new use cases, and expansion opportunities. These are the conversations CSMs need to be part of, not support questions.
Stay Proactive With AI to Avoid Support Surges
Finally, digital self-service solutions allow companies to stay proactive in providing support to customers. In complex organizations, customers can run into any number of issues daily. Likely, those questions have been addressed before, with their coworkers or other teams.
Through the power of AI, self-service solutions can guide customers through common questions and troubleshooting strategies before they even know the questions. Customers will experience fewer moments of frustration, and your team won’t need to use any additional resources.
Instead of guessing what your customers need in terms of support or guessing when it’s too late, use the data available to create exceptional support experiences. Instead of scrambling every day to triage, let AI highlight the next best actions for your team and your customers. And most importantly, save resources for growth opportunities.
Learn More About Gainsight’s Digital Self-Service Solutions
Start today with your own digital self-service solution. Empower your customers and give your CSMs time to do what they do best, grow your business. The time to be proactive is now.
