Support Insider Customer Service Channel Strategy for Effective Support

 

SUPPORT INSIDER

Does the number of customer service channels impact CSAT scores?

Discover data-backed tips to guide your support channel strategy and increase customer satisfaction.

Start free trial Get a Demo

In the world of customer support, businesses are increasingly being pressured to meet customers where they are. This means the number of customer contact channels is growing all the time, with lower-friction options like live chat, messaging platforms, and social media growing in popularity.

However, there does seem to be a caveat here: offering lower-friction channels to customers pretty much guarantees higher ticket volumes. After all, the easier it is for your customers to reach you, the more likely customers are to get in touch with trivial or repeated queries. Our data shows that overall, there’s about a 23% higher ticket volume when low-friction channels are introduced.

At first glance, this could make customer support leaders nervous. After all, more tickets at your help desk mean more work for your support team, right? This might mean your customers wouldn't get the attention they deserve, resulting in higher resolution times and lower customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores, right?

customer service channels and CSAT scores customer service channels and CSAT scores

Well, not exactly. We analyzed 107 million customer interactions and identified how the number of support channels impacts customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores. Our data actually shows that offering more support channels—such as live chat or phone, in addition to email—actually leads to a 17% improvement in resolution times and a 4% increase in CSAT scores, on average.

Our takeaway? Ticket volumes have no bearing on CSAT or resolution times, and high ticket volumes shouldn't make you nervous. If anything, they could actually be a great sign of effortless customer experiences. Allow us to explain.

Common customer service channels and the rule of five

There’s a whole lineup of customer service channels that are available for businesses to offer support to their customers. The most common communication channels used for customer service, include -

While every business is different, analyzing our data, we’ve found that, on average, employing the five channels below is enough to get to 95% of your customers’ queries and elevate your service experience.

5 customer service channels to cover support queries 5 customer service channels to cover support queries

Reality check: Customer support channels used by businesses

95% is a lot of coverage—but how many businesses are actually using all five channels? Results from our customer service speed test have the answers.

Surprisingly, 17% are still relying on only email or phone as a primary support channel. These respondents may be receiving fewer queries; nevertheless, it’s more than likely that their competitors that offer other low-friction channels will still have happier customers (even if it means agents receiving trivial queries now and then).

A further 10.97% are relying on only one of the four following channels: email, phone, social media, or live chat. Again, while this may feel like a simpler approach, it’s likely that these respondents have frustrated customers who’d like some flexibility in how they get in touch.

Split of support channels Split of support channels

Let’s be clear: we're not just saying you should blindly increase the number of communication channels for support. Each channel has its own merits that your customer base may prefer along the customer journey.

We're saying you should add channels that make sense for your customers as well as your service team. It's also critical that as more channels are added to your customer service strategy, you’ve also got to ensure that your team has full visibility of customer needs across channels to achieve holistic, omnichannel customer service.

Find the right mix of customer service channels

When all is said and done, businesses should reframe their fear of higher ticket volumes. Using any of these channels is beneficial, but offering the right combination of effective customer service channels results in a better overall customer experience —even if that means a higher number of queries.

If you’re introducing customer service channels that make it easier to reach your support team, you’ll get more tickets. But you’ll also be introducing a lower-friction option that makes it easier for customers to get a resolution and enables your support team to resolve customer issues with less effort.

Building a multi-channel support strategy that includes lower-friction channels like live chat, bots, or social media, allows support agents to respond to multiple customers at once (also known as agent concurrence), meaning they don’t have to get stuck on one issue at a time. Additionally, shifting your channel mix so that customers have the option to move away from more time-consuming channels like phone and email makes it much easier for customers to get their answers on their preferred channels.

The bottom line? Having the right channel mix that aligns with evolving customer expectations will allow reps to offer effortless resolutions as long as you equip them with the right tools that give a single view of the customer across channels. And such painless resolutions are more valuable than any number.

If you enjoyed this article, we've got more coming your way. The Support Insider series is a collection of insights we've arrived at after analyzing over 107 million customer interactions and observing patterns that lead to greater customer satisfaction and efficient customer service.

Subscribe to Support Insider, and don't miss the latest updates in the series.

 

Explore the Support Insider series

 More resources on setting up common support channels