Look, if there’s one thing SaaS companies can improve, it’s their customer service.
That’s because SaaS customers are a totally different breed than the normal customer— they’re paying a monthly or yearly subscription, and are using software on a daily basis that’s ever-changing.
This means they need customer service when they need it— in fact, 90% of Americans use customer service as a factor in deciding whether or not to do business with a company.
In short-and-simple words, bad customer service will drive your customers away.
https://tenor.com/4mdi.gif
Conversely, if you have excellent customer service, you’ll generate more leads and satisfy your customers. That’s why in this article we’ll cover the top 7 customer support strategies you can implement for your SaaS company.
Strategy #1: Get the Best Customer Support Team for Optimal Customer Satisfaction
If you don’t have the right customer support staff, you won’t get very far. It’s important to build a team that your customers can rely on— and it’s completely fine if it takes time to get the perfect team you want.
If you haven’t started a call center for your customer support team yet, consider checking out Time Doctor’s guide on how to start a call center.
There are two ways of going about building a great team. First, you can hire them right from the get-go. Secondly, you can invest in your team by training them to improve their customer support skills.
Now that you’ve got your main customer support up and running, let’s move onto another type of customer support: live chat.
Strategy #2: Use Live Chat to Help Customers Quickly and Easily
There’s no doubt that today’s modern age has dwindled attention spans greatly.
That’s where live chats come in— even 42% of consumers say that they prefer live chat simply because they don’t have to wait on hold.
When you incorporate live chat into your website, you’ll be able to guide customers along their entire path— this includes answering questions about your SaaS software’s features, billing, technical support, or just questions in general.
Case Study: Segment
Now let’s take a look at Segment, an SaaS company based on customer data.
When Vice President of Segment, Guillaume Cabane, set out to increase leads using live chat, he saw a remarkable increase of 200% in conversions and 500% in chat engagement.
Of course, using the live chat feature wasn’t 100% the reason why Segment was able to increase its conversion rate. According to Credo, the most popular lead generation channels include email, online registration/opt-in, and social networking. But it definitely played a factor.
If you want to rock your customer service by using live chat as Segment did, I recommend using ProProfs Chat as your live chat software.
So you’ve got live chat software on your SaaS website? Great! Let’s move onto the FAQ.
Strategy #3: Implement a FAQ Section for Self-Helpers
When you’ve got the same question being asked over and over again, it’s time to consider creating a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section to your website.
There’s no doubt that creating an FAQ will bring up customer satisfaction. And if you want a more in-depth guide on customer satisfaction, check out Helpjuice’s Customer Satisfaction 101 article.
Because not even your customer service team wants to answer the same questions over, and over, and over, and over again…
Creating an FAQ is easy and simple. And an FAQ done right can help address any problems your potential customer may have, as well as help your SaaS company by:
- Helping address any purchase anxieties that are not directly addressed on the product copy page
- Giving some relief to your customer support team by answering commonly-asked questions
- Improving SEO and site navigation
- Providing knowledge so your customers can get through your sales funnel faster and with less ambiguity.
You can create a FAQ by simply gathering common questions your customers have about your software, and compiling them in one webpage.
If you want to step up your game and add some rad visuals, you can check out visme’s guide on 21 tools to help you create infographics.
FAQ? Check. Let’s see now how you can leverage social media to provide excellent customer service.
Strategy #4: Leverage Social Selling to Connect With Customers on Social Media
Social selling is, according to Koka Sexton, Social Selling Leader, “”Leverag[ing] social selling to build relationships with your buyers early-on; creat[ing] trust and value before you have a dialogue about price.”
And of course, you can also use social selling to take advantage of the social media platform to provide trust and greatly enhance the customer experience. And as of January 2019, there are over 3.4 billion active social media users in the world— or 45% penetration of the entire human population.
That’s a whole lot of customers.
https://www.criminalelement.com/wonton-terror-vivien-chien-visual-guide-gifnotes/
If you’re having trouble growing your social presence, check out Blogging Wizard’s guide on the best social media management tools.
To leverage customer support, make sure to answer your audience’s SaaS-related questions by treating them professionally and answering them thoroughly.
You can even take advantage of personalization, which leads me to my next topic.
Strategy #5: Add Personalization For That “Special” Touch
One thing you can do to stand out from the crowd of SaaS products is to be more personalized than other brands.
Use your visitor’s name when replying to chats. Send them personalized emails that are tailored to each customer. Modify the landing page based on the referral source. And if you don’t have different referral sources yet, you can read up on Chanty’s Ultimate Guide on Backlink Building.
Recently signed-up visitors may be more interested in learning about the biggest features, while experienced users of your SaaS product will be interested in expert tips, hidden shortcuts, and further developments.
So keep this in mind when using personalization to connect with your customers— a recent survey even revealed that customers now value personalization more than speed when it comes to customer service.
Along with personalization, you can categorize different issues your customers receive.
Strategy #6: Categorize Your Customers’ Issues For Better Efficiency
Customers have different issues— misunderstandings, bug reports, subscription or invoice problems, website difficulties, software questions, and more.
So if you don’t start categorizing these problems, it’s like trying to fit the wrong puzzle piece in the jigsaw puzzle. It just ain’t happenin’.
Furthermore, you’ll be wasting a lot of time when you can just set up automation to categorize your incoming requests and auto-assign them,
And when you’ve got everything categorized neatly, you can assign the right issue to the appropriate person or department.
Besides categorization, you can implement one other strategy to cover all your baskets: in-app customer service.
Strategy #7: Provide Awesome Customer Support In-app to Increase Conversion Rates
With mobile apps becoming increasingly more popular in this day and age, it’s important to deck out your mobile app with the best features… and this includes customer service.
So if you’ve already got an app for your SaaS product, great! This strategy is for you.
The truth is most apps don’t include some sort of customer service, so users have to exit the app and find another way to ask a question or find support.
This is where you’ll come in to save the day. You’ll stand out from the crowd and make your customers happier, potentially increasing your conversion rates along the way. Sound like a win-win?
If you provide a way for your customer to message you directly without exiting or leaving the app, users won’t feel frustrated or upset just because they can’t find a solution to their problem.
Creating a customer service option for your app is my final strategy and one you can implement to up your customer service game.
Conclusion: Is Customer Service Really That Important for SaaS Businesses?
Customer service is something that should not be ignored and should be part of most solid business plans.
According to Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, “Customer service shouldn’t just be a department; it should be the entire company.” So if you’re looking to be a successful SaaS company, customer service should be king.
Because without customers, you ain’t got nothin’.
Read more: 5 Face-On-Keyboard Moments All SaaS Customer Support Agents Can Relate To