Customer support is changing. Over the last two years, our team has seen this shift firsthand. Customer expectations have heightened. Companies are generating massive amounts of data. Teams are relying on software to stay up to speed.
If there's one thing we want you to take away from this report, it's that customer support isn't going anywhere, and it continues to get more complex. Having the right processes and tools to supercharge your team is the only way to adapt quickly to these changes.
In this report, we’ll take a look at:
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Between August and September 2022, we surveyed 272 respondents who work in customer support and IT. They were all decision-makers or influencers in the support software buying process.
Industry mix:
Tenure:
Department:
Role in support software buying process:
Company revenue:
Full-time employee headcount:
Full-time agent headcount:
Average number of support tickets each day:
Findings are supplemented by analysis on a dataset of over 30,000 companies that tracks support tools used over time.
For individual agents, not having enough time to find information is a major roadblock.
Lack of preparedness for customer questions is cited as the number-one issue teams face today, with 50% of respondents highlighting it as a top difficulty.
This is unsurprising. When asked what day-to-day issues individual agents run into, many highlighted that it takes too long to find information (51%), they don't have enough time to do their own research (43%), and it takes too long to check with other individuals in the company (37%).
One thing is clear: Agent time is a constraint. As such, companies must be highly efficient and coordinated in dealing with customer issues.
69% of respondents noted that having a cohesive team that works together is a top trait in an effective support org. 58% noted both having hands-on training and using great software as other top characteristics.
Combining these factors: A supportive team culture, training, and the right software all come together to minimize the chance that agents will be underprepared.
This can even help in other ways as well: 90% of customer support pros say their customer support software significantly or somewhat impacts their team's happiness.
Self-service, automation, measuring customer outcomes, and providing personalized experiences are primed to become trends that reshape the support industry.
As a result, companies are preparing for these trends in a variety of ways.
56% of those surveyed noted that they will be upgrading their software to prepare. However, organizations are also building out internal materials and processes (55%) and training agents on new activities (52%) in anticipation of the shift toward these trends, which will require new ways of working.
Support teams are seeing immense value in live human-supported chat and are likely to continue leaning into traditional channels over social and bots.
Knowledge bases are likely to continue growing as an important channel for SaaS companies to better support their customers.
And when the experience is poor:
Unsurprisingly, a massive challenge is keeping track of customer information — a problem exacerbated by poor software.
While large companies struggle to keep track of customer information, smaller ones don't have enough resourcing to build out customer materials.
Companies often feel pressure to bring on their first support tool as they begin to approach 20 employees. Before they do so, they may notice disorganization, which can manifest in issues like multiple employees responding to one customer question or a lack of coordination on who responds to what. Employees typically start to find it hard to keep track of all customer tickets.
Simultaneously, leaders will also start to demand the ability to analyze support data. Examples include stats on the level of service being provided and whether customers are satisfied.
These are signals that often prompt a company to buy their first tool, which may serve them well in their early stages. However, with growth, companies often then require enterprise-grade tools and switch again.
90% believe the buying process could be easier by being able to:
Our findings paint a bold future for customer support — a future only achievable through the power of software.
Here at TestBox, we're passionate about changing the way you buy software, whether it's customer support or other mission-critical tools.
We put you in the driver's seat by letting you test different products side-by-side — for free. Let us help you on your next evaluation: experience the future of software buying with TestBox.
Start testing and comparing how software could help your team in seconds.
Oh and did we mention it’s free? Because it is.
