Tayyib Parrish 
Customer support best practices are integral to customer success and loyalty. A great product may bring customers in, but outstanding customer support will keep them loyal customers.
Support services should be easy and accessible – think clearly labeled contact forms, live chat options and intuitive support portals – with all inquiries collected in one convenient place for tracking and analytics.
1. Create a multichannel support strategy
Excellent customer support can keep customers coming back. By creating a multichannel support strategy, your team can meet customers wherever they may be located.
Provision of multiple communication channels will increase the efficiency of your support teams, ultimately decreasing ticket volume and improving overall customer experience.
Encourage collaboration between your support team and other departments by organizing meetings and brainstorm sessions. This allows support representatives to provide insights into user needs that may inform product development decisions. Involving your users in product updates and service interruption notifications also reduces frustration due to sudden changes.
2. Offer self-service options
Self-serve options like knowledge bases and community forums enable users to resolve issues independently, building their confidence with your product and decreasing support requests in the long run.
Support teams represent SaaS products directly to customers, so it is crucial that they are well-trained and equipped with all of the tools required for outstanding service delivery. Encourage collaboration among team members so they can build expertise while sharing best practices.
Regularly solicit user feedback and observe their use of your product can yield invaluable insights into ways you can enhance it further.
3. Create a knowledge base
Establishing a knowledge base is an integral component of any SaaS customer support strategy, enabling customers to find answers without calling an answer line or waiting in queue for support.
Knowledge bases can range from FAQs and video tutorials to product documentation. It is crucial that your company recognizes their most frequently asked questions, then compose articles that provide helpful, clear answers.
When faced with a question from their customer, customer service agents should first search their knowledge base for an article that answers it. If none exist, employees must write their own.
4. Create a support portal
An effective SaaS company also provides users with an easily navigable help center that offers answers and solutions. MailChimp’s comprehensive help center includes solutions ranging from setting up accounts to creating campaigns and targeting audiences.
Support teams often interact directly with customers, giving them a deeper understanding of their needs and challenges. Build a stronger connection between support and other departments by including customer service reps in product team meetings, providing customer feedback (such as Net Promoter Score or customer success survey responses) for review, and cultivating cross-department relationships – ultimately yielding a cohesive customer support strategy.
5. Track customer success metrics
As a SaaS provider, it’s imperative that customers can easily reach support. Incorporating contact us buttons and live chat tabs on the website, as well as clearly listing office hours to make getting in touch easier for visitors.
Measuring customer success metrics is vital to making sure that your SaaS product meets customer expectations and needs. Metrics like Net Promoter Score (NPS) and First Contact Resolution (FCR) provide valuable insight into how well customer support staff is doing their jobs.
Customer satisfaction scores, ticket trends and other analytical metrics can provide invaluable insight into customer pain points and ways to enhance your product. Adopting a customer-first mindset enables you to gather feedback more effectively and identify areas for enhancement.
6. Collaborate with other departments
Proactive customer support involves proactively recognizing and addressing customer issues before they escalate, with the aim of decreasing churn and increasing revenue.
Build relationships among your customer support team and other departments can help your customer support team overcome issues quickly and enhance user experiences. Regular briefings ensure all teams know about new products or features released, outages in services, customer successes or disappointments that might impact support services.
Customers who feel cared for are more likely to explore additional features and expand their loyalty towards a brand. A strong customer support strategy can provide your SaaS business with the optimal experience for its users and promote increased retention.
