Is your company struggling to keep up with the increasing needs for customer support? Are you tired of hearing the same questions asked and answered or wasting time on problems that have already been solved?
You might attempt to resolve this problem by hiring more personnel to handle these inquiries or outsource incoming calls to a third party. However, both of these options can become quite costly in the long run – costing money and potentially losing customers.
Instead of hiring multiple customer support representatives or outsourcing calls to another company (which customers find frustrating) you should look at using all the data you already have to create a self-serve support system.
We will tell you why you should consider using knowledge base software to improve your customers’ experience and how it will benefit your company financially. Keep reading for more information!
Help Your Sales & Service Teams
You may have an effective social media campaign and a great online presence. This is all wonderful, but if a potential customer has a question and it’s not answered quickly enough, you could lose the sale. In fact, around half of potential buyers decide to use the company that responds to inquiries first.
This means that if a customer has a question about a product and can get an answer from your competition regarding a similar product at a similar cost, they have a 50% chance of choosing to spend their money elsewhere. Basically, too-long wait times can severely and negatively impact your sales and possibly cause current customers to take their business to another company.
While an interactive AI exchange may not close the sale or answer all questions that a customer may have, it will keep them interested long enough so that an actual person can help. This is applicable to both sales and service teams.
Help Your Customers Help Themselves
Depending on the size of your business and its needs, your company may need to consider cloud data warehousing or more traditional data warehouse options. How much data you need to be stored and what it will be used for will help you determine if you should opt for a traditional, physical data warehouse or if choosing a cloud-based option is best.
Many companies are finding that cloud data warehousing is a better fit because there isn’t a need to buy a ton of hardware or have space to store the hardware. Cloud storage options are also less expensive and extremely fast.
Either way, by collecting the proper data, you can ensure that your customers have easy access to most of the information they need without having to contact support.
You may have a place for customers to post their solutions and answers to common questions or choose to use an automated response system to help troubleshoot issues. Another great way to gather information is to ask customers to fill out a form so that your support team can see what is going on before connecting. Having each of these options available will allow people to find the level of help and support they need without overwhelming your team with redundant questions.
Better Ranking on Search Engine Results
When you opt for a knowledge base website, you are inadvertently adding more content without necessarily having to do a whole lot or create blog content. More content means that people who are searching for solutions to similar problems but with different products can see your site. This may not lead to an immediate sale but could cause a customer to change their loyalty down the road because your site is the one that offered the answers they needed.
Also, with the proper amount of information, your company can become the authority on a topic, even if there are many high-level competitors on the market. When you become the authority, you become the go-to company for that product which eventually will lead to the sales of other products you may offer.
Between being seen as the authority in your field and having more people click on your website due to it matching numerous keywords and phrases, you will notice your company beginning to rank higher on any search engine’s results page. A higher search engine ranking will also mean more hits to your website which will also lead to more sales and new customers as most people won’t scroll past the first page of results.
Save Time and Money on Employee Training
In addition to helping customers find you and the answers they need, storing all of your company’s information and data efficiently will also help with the onboarding and training processes. New employees can quickly find the answers they need about anything and everything without having to spend too much time searching; trainers have access to the most updated versions of necessary materials.
They can quickly locate commonly asked questions (and their answers) or have the information to your human resource department at their fingertips. All training documents can easily be found without the need for hard copies with remote employees equally easy access.
This ultimately will save your company money by saving on time spent training and empower your agents to make the best judgment calls possible.
The Right Solution for You
There are many data collection and storage options available at varying price points with many options for scalability. Whether your company is a small start-up or a larger business, it can benefit from what amounts to data warehousing.
It is more affordable than ever to keep all relevant data and make it accessible to customers who want it or employees who need it. Regardless of how big or small your needs are, there is a way to monetize your company’s data while allowing it to encourage growth within your organization.
