Today, it's all about making an impact with your customer base. With consumer trust at an all-time low, providing the best customer service your business can is crucial. Consumers are looking for the ultimate experience when deciding to buy from a business, and when you can exceed their expectations, you're likely to see a lot of repeat customers.
To make your customer experience as positive as possible, you need to take advantage of the tools available to you. From Facebook Messenger to CRM tracking, software can easily increase your effectiveness in dealings with clients and ensure they become loyal shoppers with you.
We asked 14 entrepreneurs from YEC to share their favorite software or solution that they use to enhance customer service.
1. Answering service
"A simple answering service has been an inexpensive and invaluable addition. We found that customers didn't want to leave a message about accounting or finance needs, so if we didn't answer, they would simply hang up. We now have a service that answers all of our calls and then sends us an email or transfers it to our voicemail so that we don't miss an important call." – Jennifer Barnes, Pro Back Office LLC
2. Trello
"We do all of our bug tracking on Trello. When we get an email from a customer about a bug, we keep track of it and the number of times that bug has appeared. From there, we have a process in place to develop a solution to the bug, deliver the fix and then use a follow-up QA procedure." – Andy Karuza, FenSens
3. CRM system
"Our CRM system allows us to manage our projects better, create more streamlined forms of communication, and put in place practices and automated systems that allow us to properly follow up and continuously stay in contact with our clients and prospects. A good CRM system that is properly utilized and managed will not only improve your customer service, but also improve your sales!" – Anthony Davani, The Davani Group Inc.
4. Drift
"Drift is the best customer service software I've seen thus far. Not only is it easy to chat with website visitors, but it also sends shared email sequences and pushes conversations to CRM. The playbook feature is very customizable and is great to engage with visitors on specific site pages, through defined message sequences. It's allowed my sales team to have qualified leads sent right to them." – Samuel Thimothy, OneIMS Integrated Marketing Solutions
5. Facebook Messenger chatbots
"Chatbots are here to stay. They have helped streamline the customer support flow by providing answers in a way that is more intuitive and interactive than a boring FAQ. When we implemented our chatbot, we reduced our emails interaction count from an average of eight to one per customer support inquiry." – Alejandro Rioja, Flux Chargers
6. Help Scout
"Help Scout has made our customer service ticket process so much more seamless. It's as easy as writing an email, but a lot more organized. You can tag people internally to help you answer a ticket and have shared inboxes with your team. Having this system in place has made us quicker with responses and able to meet our 24-hour response time goal." – Syed Balkhi, OptinMonster
7. Intercom
"I'd say Intercom has changed our customer service operation dramatically. It has live chat and email in one package to create automated messages and email campaigns. We can communicate with customers in a faster and efficient way. The results are amazing – highest number of customer problems solved within the service-level agreement, and most tickets solved in just one reply. And our customers are loving our support." – Liam Martin, TimeDoctor.com
8. Live chat
"We encourage all of our clients to install live chat on their sites. If someone has a question, then you want to answer it for them as quick as possible. Asking a question is usually a buying signal, so why make them wait for something that will delay that answer, like email? We notice the conversion rates on sales increase greatly when a question is answered via live chat than it is via email." – Scott Kacmarski, Reps Direct
9. Nextiva
"Nextiva is awesome! It has created a clean and easy way to manage complex customer service needs within many types of organizations. They have created a platform that integrates well with a variety of businesses. For us, it's just streamlined everything. It makes the priorities clear for our customer service team, which makes it easier for them to do their job and make our customers happy!" – Baruch Labunski, Rank Secure
10. RingCentral
"I found that our customer service team has stepped up their game since we implemented call recording with RingCentral on all conversations. If there is an issue with a customer, we are able to go back and listen to the full conversation. This adds a layer of accountability and ensures our team always acts in the most professional manner, even when dealing with the difficult situations." – Brian Greenberg, True Blue Life Insurance Inc.
11. Shared inbox and collaborative workspace
"In the initial years, we exposed every flaw in sharing a general inquiry inbox with standard email applications. We eventually switched to a collaborative workspace (FrontApp.com) that allows all of our reps to share the same inboxes and social media messaging platforms. The automated sorting, internal notes per thread and 'no message left unattended' components are game-changing." – Carmine Silano, CheerSounds Music
12. Slack
"Slack has allowed me to stay in contact with all teams in my organization, including customer service. Since I'm never more than an instant message away, even while I'm not in the office, any dispute that needs my attention can be taken care of promptly. This has significantly shortened the amount of time it takes for customer service issues to be resolved." – Bryce Welker, CPA Exam Guy
13. Twitter
"Twitter has changed the game when it comes to customer service. If a customer has a problem, they can quickly post their complaint online for others to see. Having someone dedicated to answering social media mentions helps a lot so nothing slips through the cracks. Make sure to respond within 12 hours – the quicker, the better on social media!" – Jared Atchison, WPForms
14. WordPress
"WordPress is easily one of the best software solutions out there, for not only content creation and site management, but also for team roles and client management as well. With WordPress being one of the most commonly used platforms on the internet, it also makes outsourcing and custom design work a breeze. In short, we couldn't run our business without it." – Zac Johnson, Blogging.org