Your business is incredibly important to you. You spend so much time and effort on it because you want to enjoy the success that you know it can have. As such, you’ll only ever want what’s best for it and consider every business decision carefully. 

Your online customer support team is no different, and they can truly make or break your business. But fret not, because we’ve created a thorough guide to help you with this difficult and complex decision!

All about online customer support teams

An online customer support team is a team of customer service and support specialists that aren’t limited by service times or geographical location. They work 24/7 to ensure that customers never go unattended or unsatisfied. 

In the current climate of online shopping and massive demand for quick online service, the importance of an online customer support team cannot be understated!

What makes a great online customer support team

Some of the key qualities that your online customer support team must have:

• The ability to live chat with customers – customers can have a good idea of how long they will be waiting, as well as the ability to have a conversation to address their problems.
  
• An excellent knowledge base – the customer support team must know your business inside and out so they can address whatever concerns the customers have.
  
• Excellent communication – the customer support team must be able to communicate clearly, concisely, and effectively. They need to be able to tell the customer exactly what they need to hear in as few words as possible, and in a way that the customer will understand.
  
• An excellent command of accountability – accountability is an art. It isn’t the same as groveling or being spineless.
  
• Empathy – the customer support team must be able to understand why the customer is unhappy and be able to respond sensitively. 

How to choose the right online customer support team

Customer service is a huge part of your business. It’s the way that your business interacts with your customers, and reflects your company’s identity, goals, and beliefs. The process of choosing the right online customer support team to outsource to or even hiring your own team has to be a very thorough one. 

When choosing your team, ensure that they:

• Understand and align with your business identity, goals, and beliefs. 

Since they will be representing you, you have to make sure that your employees know your business identity, goals, and beliefs intimately. They have to understand why they are that they are as well, so that they can reflect this in their interactions with customers. 

• Understand your business

Your team has to understand how your business works in order to avoid misinforming customers. This doesn’t mean that your customer support team knows what you’re spending your pocket money on, but rather that they know the hierarchy, who to speak to if they need more information, and things similar to this. 

• Are well-versed in communicating on and using the channels that you will be offering your customer service on

Your customer support team can be the best in the world at communication, but it won’t mean anything if they have no idea how to use an email app, or Twitter, Facebook Messenger, or whatever platform you’re offering customer support on. 

• Have excellent customer service skills

This goes without saying, but ensure that in your interview or vetting process you have a demonstration of how they would handle certain situations. 

• Recognize that customer support, service, and success are distinct

Each are strategies for different lengths of time, and as such have vastly different styles and approaches.

How we can help you

SheHelps is a done-for-you customer support and community management agency. We manage all of the day-to-day customer support for you and as such, know a thing or two about excellent customer service and support!

We can offer you integrated customer support, live chat capabilities, phone support, and community management, especially for online businesses. And the best part is that it will all be done for you.

We have all of the qualities and abilities that we’ve covered in our guide above and more. We act as your advocate on the ground and take care of your every customer, 24/7. You’ll never have to worry about your customer support again!

Get in touch with us today if you’d like to get back your precious time and invest it in growing your business, all while enjoying world-class customer service that boosts your productivity and efficiency in a scalable system.