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Customer support
Why offer phone support?
Having phone support has a positive impact on retention, and the majority of customers prefer it. Unfortunately, many companies try to avoid it because it is more expensive than text-based communication. Let’s dig into why this is the case and see if there are ways to reduce the cost of phone support.

Firstly, as opposed to chat and email, a call needs to be answered when the phone is ringing. Wait for too long, and you have an angry customer on the line or a missed call with no context. Given the nature of customer demand with its peaks and troughs, having a phone means a larger team compared to text-exclusive support, where you can answer the query later.

Secondly, Voice is harder to document and analyse compared to text. This is an expensive issue for a number of reasons:

  • Quality assurance becomes more time-consuming because a manager needs to listen to conversations rather than read and search through them.
  • It is harder to analyse customer feedback and get actionable insights to improve your product and processes.
  • Advisors spend time summarising calls so that the next person knows the context.

And on top of that, it’s hard to get a full view of customer interactions. Only about 5% of the companies we spoke to used the same tool for their phone and email / chat communication. Phone support software is a different beast compared to chat and email, and companies tend to choose the best tool for the job.

This gap between different communication channels means customers have to repeat themselves, leading to longer, more expensive conversations and less than ideal customer experience.

At Cordless, we’re on a mission to enable more companies to offer phone support. So here are a few tips on making it more affordable and ensuring that your customers are still having a good experience even if you can’t pick up.
Asynchronous support

If you are a small team and cannot afford to hire a dedicated person or a team to look after customer calls - asynchronous phone support is a great option. When a customer calls, you can prompt them to tell you what the question is about so that the right person can call back with a solution. Take a look at how one of our customers - Fronted - does it. This way, you get to spend less time on the phone, and you are in control of when you talk to your customers.

Save customers from waiting on the line by sending them a message automatically if you can’t pick up. You can share FAQs, link customers to self-service tools or enable them to book a convenient time for a callback. It would allow you to distribute your call volume across the day and resolve a lot of questions offline. See how Curve does this with Cordless.

Voice-to-Text

Voice-to-text technology has improved a lot in recent years. Transforming calls into digestible text format can help you unlock your voice content. Analysing and searching through voice conversations as you do with chats and email can be really handy to run your QA process more efficiently and make valuable customer feedback actionable. Let alone dealing with complaints or audits!

At Cordless, we transcribe all calls by default so you can have real insight into all your conversations. Our goal is to make it easy for managers to integrate it into their workflows and to improve decision-making.

Voice conversations in your helpdesk

Consider integrating your voice tools with your CRM / Helpdesk for a complete customer view. This will save your advisors time and improve customer experience too. A lot of voice platforms now offer this option, but the quality of integrations and the content they can share varies. How compatible your chosen telephony provider is with your other tools can impact the efficiency and quality of your support.

We are building Cordless from the ground up with integrations in mind to make information about calls actionable and easy to work with on other platforms.

Voice support does not have to be a cost sink if you do it smartly, and your customers will thank you for it!

October 19, 2021
Luba Chudnovets
CEO