Customer Service Management (CSM)

Customer service is vital to any company. A great — or less-than-great — experience can have a major effect on your business. Whether you have a customer success team in place at a Fortune 500 company or you’re running a 15-person operation, how you treat your customers matters at every stage, no matter your role.

So, how do you get started?

When your company is just starting, it’s easy to handle the customer service needs of the first few customers. But as your customer base grows, you need to have systems in place to continue providing customer service at an excellent level.

Thankfully, there are tools and customer service best practices that make management easier — for both customers and your team.

First, make sure your team understands what customer service management means.

We like to define customer service as the support you offer your customers — both before and after they buy and use your products or services — that helps them have an easy and enjoyable experience with you. Along the same vein, customer service incident management involves nurturing customer relationships beyond sales.

According to Salesforce Research, 73% of customers said an extraordinary experience from one company raises their expectations of experiences from other companies. This is especially important because in today’s digital world, it’s easy to shop around and buy someplace else. After all, 71% of customers have made purchase decisions based on customer service quality.

• Why is Customer Service Management Important?
• What Are the Benefits of Customer Service Management?
• How to Improve Your Customer Service Management
• Six Examples of Technology in Customer Service Management
• Why You Should Incorporate Generative AI into Your Customer Service Management Strategy

Customer service management is important because it’s how companies can strengthen their relationships with customers. When a business has fast, easy access to customer data, it can better strategize and improve its interactions with them. This helps companies improve customer loyalty and retention by exceeding customer expectations with great service.

A customer relationship management (CRM) system can be a great deal of help here. The right tool stores key customer data such as purchase history, preferences, and contact information. And with all of your data in one central location, businesses have a complete picture of customers that they can share across the company.

Customer service management goes far beyond addressing customer inquiries — it’s a strategic approach that can transform customer interactions, drive business growth, and foster long-term success.

Some of the key advantages customer service management software offers include:

• Cost savings: Streamlining processes with automation contributes to cost savings by both making the most of your resources and reducing operational expenses.
• Customer loyalty and retention: A positive customer experience builds loyalty and trust, leading to increased retention and repeat business.
• Enhanced brand reputation: Satisfied customers are more likely to become brand advocates, promoting your business through online reviews and word-of-mouth.

Today’s world is more connected and online than ever. That means customers have access to you — and your competitors — all day, every day, and through a variety of devices. That’s why technology investments are more important than ever before.

Technology improves your customer service in a number of ways. It’s not a replacement for every human interaction — but it can be a game-changer for you.

Here are four key areas in which technology helps your customer service efforts:

1. Organization: Software makes it easy to collect, organize, and store customer data. A good CRM tool can segment your customers and help you create relevant campaigns, make better marketing and sales decisions, and watch for trends in customer needs.
2. Time: With technology, your conversations with buyers and prospects are more efficient and productive. Customer support tools enable you to connect with customers around the clock and get back to them more quickly.
3. Costs: When you free up employee time, your team members are empowered to work on important projects that require a human touch. The initial cost pays for itself by decreasing customer churn and increasing customer win rates.
4. Efficiency: On top of saving time and money, technology can automate many of your customer service operations. This lets you move faster, provide better, more accurate solutions, and serve more people.

So what are some examples of how technology can help boost customer service management for your business?

The scope is broad, but six technologies that companies commonly use to provide high-quality customer service include:

• Customer relationship management (CRM) software
• Marketing automation
• Omni-channel workflow management
• Social media
• Video
• AI-powered chatbots

Let's briefly look at each of the six, with suggestions for how to incorporate them into your company's efforts.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software

Using CRM software is a solid way to manage your leads and customer contact information. Managing customer information is especially important for a larger company with sales, marketing, and customer service teams. A well-organized CRM system helps your team keep tabs on communications, subscriptions, purchases, and more — all critical when it comes to corresponding with your customers.

Marketing Automation

Be proactive with your customer service by connecting your marketing system to your customer service. This allows you to set up automated email or even SMS messages to welcome new users with helpful blog posts, tips, or answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs). Many automation platforms also include analytics and reporting functionality, so you can A/B test messaging and send tailored product recommendations. By connecting marketing with service, you’re continually engaging with your customers.

Omni-Channel Workflow Management

No matter how customers reach out for support, they want the person on the end of the other line to understand their entire situation. Omni-channel workflow management helps you connect your customers’ support tickets across multiple channels. That way, if a customer reaches out on social and email for the same issue, your service team has visibility into the customer’s request, including the customer’s history with your company.

Social Media

Social media is a relatively easy, low-cost way to use technology for your company’s customer service management.

When considering using social media for customer service, think about which platform(s) will best fit your needs. Do you already have a strong following on one or more of the platforms? Or, do you know that most of your customers prefer one platform to the rest? Meeting your customers where they already are is key, as it makes it easier for them to engage with your business.

Video

Videos can be a great way to connect to customers on a more personal level. Your customer service team can record educational videos to introduce users to your products and help troubleshoot common issues. You can also create demo videos to show your product functionality in action. Depending on your company and industry, videos can also be a great way for your brand to have fun and show some personality.

For example, take viewers on a video walk-through of your product or service and shoot some behind-the-scenes footage of your office. This helps with customer service management by personalizing your brand, preemptively answering questions, and reaching leads and customers using a popular medium.

AI-powered chatbots

A chatbot is an application that simulates human conversation, either aloud or via text message. Instead of having a conversation with a person, like a customer service agent, a customer can have a conversation with a computer. Whether through typing or talking, a chatbot can connect with a customer to help answer simple questions like the status of an order or if an item is in stock.

Chatbots also help your agent productivity by answering customer questions or gaining information, like an order number, even before an agent jumps into a ticket. This shortens the time it takes an agent to close a case immensely.

And speaking of AI…

With generative AI now at the forefront of the tech industry, there are even more technologies to help power your customer service. Unlike traditional AI, which uses data to predict, generative AI takes data and creates content of its own.

A specific example of customer service AI in action can be found in Salesforce Service Cloud. Reps can receive AI-generated suggested offers and actions gathered from customer data, giving you everything needed to help customers with issues they haven’t even considered. You can also create case summaries so you don’t have to take notes during and after customer interactions, saving valuable time and ensuring none of your customers’ info falls through the cracks. When your company adopts generative AI, you can both improve workplace efficiency and deliver highly personalized experiences to customers.

Whether you have one customer or 1,000, meeting customer needs is critical. Today’s customers are more connected than ever, and expect to get in touch with businesses on whichever channels they use. In a world where hundreds of different companies can offer the same product, it’s sparkling service that will often win over the customer to your business in the end. A happy customer is the most important asset your company has.