7 Key Benefits of Customer Service Software
Jess served on the founding team of a successful B2B startup and has used a wide range of sales and marketing tools over the course of her 15-year career. She uses her industry knowledge to deliver the best answers to your questions about sales tools and sales management.
Bianca is a staff writer at Fit Small Business who specializes in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software.
This article is part of a larger series on Customer Service.
Using customer service software improves the quality of support your customers receive—increasing their lifetime value to your business. This type of software centralizes customer data, communication, and agent performance reports. It also increases agent productivity through service automation and provides customers 24/7 access to self-help resources.
In this article, we explore the top benefits of using customer service software and offer examples of the best tools you can use to engage and support every customer effectively.
1. Higher Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
Customer lifetime value (CLV) is an important metric that represents the gross profit you expect to generate from a single customer account. When they spend more on your business, their CLV increases. Using customer service software is an excellent way to improve your customers’ experience with your support team because it makes the entire service request process more efficient.
Customers who have a positive experience with the service team tend to see your company in a positive light. You can expand your client base when happy customers refer your products or services to their peers. This opens up more opportunities for your sales team to facilitate upselling and cross-selling.
Average customer lifetime value dashboard. (Source: Klipfolio)
The example above shows a CLV dashboard generated using the business analytics software Klipfolio. Here, we see a visualization of the average monetary value of each new customer over the entire time that they do business with your company. These projections are usually based on various factors, including historic customer trends, pricing models, and sales expenses.
2. Easier Communication With Colleagues & Customers
A customer service system allows clients to chat with a human agent in real time via live chat or online messaging. This makes getting help more easily accessible for your customers. Aside from that, internal chat or messaging is an excellent way for support executives to communicate with each other concerning customer service requests.
The Agent Workspace displays all your agents’ conversations across all channels. (Source: Zendesk Support Suite)
For example, the Zendesk Support Suite features an Agent Workspace with a unified view of all support conversations across all channels, including email, social messaging, and internal chats. Administrators can choose to enable or disable this function for each Zendesk account.
3. Centralized Database for All Customer Information
One of the reasons why support agents put customers on hold is the time it takes them to look up customers’ details, communication history, and service requests. If you don’t have immediate access to all these pieces of information, you may have to ask the customer about these details all over again.
Using customer service software, you can store and manage all customer information and interactions from a centralized database. You just have to enter their email address, name, or phone number to access the information you are looking for. When you integrate the software with a customer relationship management (CRM) system, you can also access customers’ interactions with your sales and marketing departments.
Zoho Desk pulls all relevant customer data and displays it inside the ticket screen. (Source: Zoho Desk)
With Zoho Desk, you can view all relevant customer data from the ticket tab. This arrangement helps you better understand how your customers are interacting with your support team. The details it displays include customer activity, tickets by status, tickets by channel, customer happiness rating, first response time, average response time, and average resolution time.
4. Increased Agent Productivity
Speed is an important factor in providing top-notch customer service. When you use a customer service platform, you can use prewritten email support templates to save time when answering customer queries. This way, agents don’t have to type their responses from scratch or repeat the explanations to various customers. In addition, you can easily route requests to the right department or person who can solve the issue immediately.
You can also create different inboxes for each department in your company, such as accounting, billing, and payment. For example, all emails to the accounting department are sent to [email protected] This way, you can easily prioritize the requests according to the type of support the customer requires.
Canned responses on LiveAgent. (Source: LiveAgent)
LiveAgent allows you to create predefined responses to prevent agents from repeating or rephrasing answers to commonly asked customer queries. You can create unlimited canned responses and customize which agents or departments can use them. Agents can also define their own canned responses based on their respective workflows.
5. 24/7 Support for Customers
Using customer service software, you can provide a self-service system that allows your customers to look for answers to their frequently asked questions (FAQs). Customers can log in at any time and view their request history or search for resolutions to common technical issues. This way, your customers feel more satisfied because they feel that they are receiving 24/7 support and can resolve issues independently.
HubSpot Service Hub’s knowledge base. (Source: HubSpot Service Hub)
HubSpot Service Hub makes it easier for your customers to find answers to their common questions through its knowledge base software. You can put together a library of help articles that customers can browse through anytime. This system improves the efficiency of your support agents because they can focus on addressing unique support cases instead of answering repetitive questions.
6. Lower Operational Costs
Customer service software allows you to automate many service processes, including call logs, request prioritization, and agent responses. As previously mentioned, you can also create self-serve portals for your customers. All these translate into more efficient service that requires fewer agents than what is normally needed without a customer service system, thus lowering your operational expenses.
HappyFox’s Smart Rules automate repetitive tasks using smart help desk workflows. (Source: HappyFox)
HappyFox uses Smart Rules to automate routine tasks to boost agent productivity. These tasks include workflows, the ability to send templated responses, and rule-based ticket assignments.
7. Measurable Customer Service Efforts
It is essential to have access to measurable customer service performance metrics and indicators so you know the strengths and weaknesses of your team and individual agents. With a customer service system, you can run reports on metrics, such as average resolution time, customer effort score, and customer retention rate. You can use these metrics as a basis for either continuing or altering your customer service practices.
For example, if you see that some of your agents have an unusually long average response time, you can investigate what causes this pattern. Agents who are having difficulty resolving customer issues quickly can participate in one-on-one coaching or additional training. If the problem lies in the nature of the product or service itself, you can work to resolve the issue with your team.
Freshdesk’s customizable reports and dashboards. (Source: Freshdesk)
Freshdesk provides users with support data and metrics to help you make better decisions concerning your service team’s practices. Use the data provided to identify delays in your ticket cycles, analyze agent and group workload, and measure customer sentiment.
Recommended Customer Service Tools
Still undecided on which provider you should use? Check out our guide on how to choose the best customer service software for your business. You can also take a look at our top recommended customer service tools below.
 |  |  | |
|---|---|---|---|
Best For | Businesses needing customer service software with multichannel communication support and email ticketing systems | Support teams that prefer to use customer service software with native CRM software integration | Teams looking for a customer service platform with robust automation tools |
Starting Price | Free for unlimited users or $15 per user, per month* | $29 per agent, per month, billed annually | $29 per user, per month* |
*Based on annual billing. Monthly subscriptions are also available at slightly higher rates.
Not what you are looking for? Read our guide to the best free customer service software for your small business.
Bottom Line
With the help of a robust customer service system, you can greatly improve the quality of your company’s support team and drive clients to be loyal to your brand. Plus, most providers allow you to run one-click reports to help you track service requests and agent performance. Carefully assess your priorities and choose the right software that fits your business needs in terms of features and budget.
You May Also Like…
- Discover how tracking customer behavioral data can help you enhance customer experience. Check out our guide to customer service analytics.
- Learn the steps in selecting the appropriate program for your support team with our step-by-step guide to choosing customer service software.
