Ways To Lower Customer Support Costs Through The Community

Companies that are successful long-term need to keep their customers happy and this is why customer support personnel are very important.  Many organizations require a team of experts standing by to ensure they can resolve any customer issues.  Though, customer support is sometimes so expensive that several firms choose to neglect it.

They fail to realize that they can cut customer support costs drastically by relying on their online community.  Customers have an extensive source of knowledge that membership websites appreciate but many companies tend to ignore.  Often, they just don’t realize that customers can provide valuable support to one another.

 

When you tap into the knowledge of customers in your community, you significantly reduce the number of tickets your customer support staff receives.  If a customer has a question, create an option on your platform that points them to similar topics that were resolved by other customers.  Membership websites do this all the time; they connect customers with similar concerns which eliminates the need for support tickets.

 

In order for this approach to be effective, activity must be monitored in the community.  If the same questions keep surfacing, encourage your staff to provide definitive answers.  When customers post their questions on the community page, that isn’t an excuse for your customer support team to disconnect.  Instead, it gives your team the time they need to find answers at their own pace.  It also allows them to remain aware of customer concerns before they are raised officially through the ticketing system.

An online community can lower your customer support costs but it can’t replace your customer support team.  Customers may know a lot but they usually don’t know as much as your experts.  To get the best results, you should combine the two and integrate the ticketing system with your online community.