What Is Customer Support and Why Your Digital Product Should Have It
Few things are as frustrating as running into trouble after buying a product, whether it's physical or digital. Except, maybe, struggling to get help.
Whether it's a confusing website, no contact options or human support, or anything else, having a problem you can't solve can end the relationship between a customer and a brand. That's why, when you structure your digital business, it's important to set up customer support.
At Cademí, Brazil's first Member Hub, support plays an active role at every stage of the customer journey. So we asked our specialists to explain:
What Is Customer Support?
First of all, it's important to break the idea of support as a call center that customers phone at the height of their stress. Support does solve problems. But that shouldn't be all it does.
For digital products specifically, the goal is both to build a relationship with students and to collect and analyze data that leads to constant improvement of your product.
To make it easier to understand, imagine that 45% of the tickets opened are asking how to get the certificate. Your platform's usability is probably confusing and needs to be reviewed before the next cohort starts. It may also be worth sharing the step-by-step for getting the certificate with everyone, since not everyone will have reached out, and whenever possible, support should work to prevent problems.
+ Online course dropout: how to prevent it among your students
At Cademí, Brazil's first Member Hub, for example, support plays an active role throughout the customer journey, with:
- Onboarding: a walkthrough of the platform that explains how to use it;
- Pre-launch: a test run with the creator to make sure everything works well and see whether improvements can be made before cart open;
- CS: insights from customer data and from the success cases that come out of new frameworks.
At none of these moments does the customer reach out to support. Quite the opposite: it's the team that suggests the meeting and makes itself available. The solution is presented before the objection comes up.
What Good Customer Support Should Have
In short, good support needs three traits: being present, fast, and on point.
No matter how hard you work to prevent them, problems eventually come up. At those moments, your customers need to know how to reach you and, just as important, get their problem solved quickly.
On your website and member area, set aside a page for contact options. To choose them, think about:
- Which channels does your audience use most?
- Which ones will be most practical for you and your team?
Having to download an app to get in touch is frustrating. So is sending a WhatsApp message or an email and getting no reply. Sometimes it's more frustrating than the problem itself. That can lead to a complaint on Reclame Aqui and hurt your business's reputation in the medium term.
Email Sequence
Since the idea is to create a good experience, the ideal is to always anticipate pain points and objections, like the example of what Cademí does. But not necessarily in the same way.
In many cases, the post-purchase experience for a digital product can be handled with an activation email sequence. The content varies by product, but it can include:
- Welcome, with login and password + an access link as a backup option;
- Content schedule, with the days new lessons become available;
- A reminder of assignment deadlines (if there are any).
Anyone who builds a member area with Cademí gets these sequences already built in. Just customize them (if you want) in a few clicks.
A short introduction explaining how to navigate your platform is also welcome and improves the experience. And get ahead of the questions your team already knows are common.
The Impact of Good Customer Support
If you're still unsure whether to have support or just an FAQ page, some studies offer numbers that back up everything we've said so far.
Zendesk's Customer Experience Trends Report, released in 2021, for example, says that 75% of customers are willing to pay more for better service. Another survey, from Gartner, says that 64% of consumers find customer service more important than the product's price.
In other words, having good support will help you not only build a relationship with customers but also keep them loyal and increase your business's value.
