Why (and How) You Need to Use Phones for Customer Support

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Your customers expect to be able to reach you through various channels—and relying solely on email for customer support can lead to frustration and negatively impact how people feel about your brand. That’s why you need to adopt a seamless omnichannel customer support strategy that allows your customers to reach you via various channels, including one of the most effective: the phone.

This is no easy feat, especially at first. You may have to temporarily sacrifice the efficiency and reliability of your established customer support channels to spearhead new ones. 

Nevertheless, using phones for customer support remains crucial to customer satisfaction. The phone channel plays a large part in providing a positive and effective customer support experience. It’s an indispensable channel, and technology has evolved to ensure it remains relevant and efficient within an omnichannel approach.

This article shares everything you need to know about omnichannel customer support, why you need to be using phones for customer support, common pitfalls, and best practices. 

What is an Omnichannel Approach to Customer Support?

An omnichannel approach to customer support integrates multiple communication channels—such as phone, email, chat, and social media—into one cohesive system. This strategy ensures a seamless and consistent customer experience, regardless of the channel they choose to use. 

Phone support plays a vital role in an omnichannel strategy, as it complements other channels by providing immediate, personalized assistance that can resolve complex issues more efficiently than email or chat alone. While email and chat are excellent for quick responses and follow-ups, phone support offers a direct and human connection, which is crucial for urgent or complex inquiries. 

You can implement advanced cloud-based tools like Aircall to offer customer support as a service (CSaaS) and optimize your omnichannel customer support strategy. By integrating phone support with other channels, you can provide a comprehensive support system that keeps customer data connected across touchpoints. 

Why Should You Be Using the Phone for Customer Support?

“Despite the rise of digital communication channels, phones remain a vital tool for customer support,” states Richard Dalder, Business Development Manager at Tradervue. “They offer the advantage of real-time, personal interaction, allowing for immediate issue resolution. From my experience, customers often prefer phone support for complex issues that require detailed explanations or immediate answers.”

In fact, 72% of people who contact customer support do so over the phone. But the emergence of omnichannel strategies doesn't diminish the phone's importance for customer support; in fact, it underscores it. 

Customers have high expectations for phone support, and integrating it seamlessly with other channels can be transformative for your customer service success. Tack-on benefits include reduced customer churn, a more personalized customer experience, increased accessibility, faster resolution times, enhanced brand loyalty, and higher customer satisfaction.

“Phones are still an important way to help customers because they are quick and personal. Unlike emails or chat, phone calls let you get feedback and explanations right away, making it less likely that you'll get something wrong.”

-Jen Seran, Director of Business Operations at Stallion Express

How Using the Phone for Customer Support Benefits Your Customers and Your Business

Using the phone for customer support is necessary, but it comes with its challenges. For one, training your customer support team for effective phone support requires time and effort. However, strengthening your phone channel is definitely worth it, given the benefits to your customers.

To keep up with demanding customers and growing competition, your customer support strategy must incorporate multiple channels.. While non-voice channels are expanding, they often remain under-utilized or unsatisfactory. Many companies lack the time, resources, or motivation to manage these channels well. Therefore, ensuring your phone channel is solid and efficient is crucial, especially since the tools are readily available to help you achieve excellence.

Here’s how phone support can benefit your customers and, in turn, your business.

Speed

Customer expectations around response times are clear; they want fast replies on the channel of their choice. And customers tend to choose channels based on the speed of reply they desire and how complicated their question or request is: 

• 40% of customers choose a channel based on the complexity of their issue, though 69% want to resolve issues on their own.

• 63% of customers start with a search on a company’s online resources, but only 28% of companies offer a knowledge base. 

When self-service fails, phone support is the next best thing. Your phone channel often serves as a fallback when other channels fail, which is why optimizing it is so crucial. 

To ensure speed and efficiency, aim for first call resolution, which is closely tied to customer satisfaction. Structuring your support funnel to encourage phone calls for serious or complex issues allows for quick resolution. 

Tips for speed:

• Make first call resolution a key performance indicator for both support and technical teams to incentivize excellent performance.

• Ensure your phone support channel has the resources necessary to handle issues swiftly 

Simplicity

The phone channel should be more than just a safety net; it should help simplify the customer support experience. A prominently displayed phone number on your website can prevent customer frustration, as you can increase customer satisfaction by lowering customer effort. 

So use available tools, features, and integrations to make your phone channel streamlined, efficient, and easy to navigate.

Tips for simplicity:

• Click-to-call feature: Allows customers to get in touch with a simple click.

• Automatic call-back feature: Adds customers to a waiting list, letting them go about their day rather than wait on hold.

Long wait times are listed as one of the most frustrating aspects of a bad customer service experience, making a call-back feature a great way to improve customer support during busy periods. These features are perfect examples of how VOIP phone technology can help you provide.

Growth

The phone's potential for empathy makes it a great asset for your customer service efforts over the entire customer life cycle. Other features like call monitoring and data collection offer growth opportunities by helping you optimize and scale your customer support operations.

Tips for growth:

• Conduct surveys on your website, over email, and via phone to collect data on customer habits and expectations.

• Use the phone to ask for feedback after resolving a customer’s issue, using the opportunity to gain detailed insights.

Gathering this feedback allows you to make data-driven decisions that benefit your business. This method ensures customers don’t feel their time is wasted and can provide valuable insights directly from the source so you constantly improve your approach.

Empathy

Empathetic customer support is key to building strong, lasting relationships with your customers, ensuring they feel valued and heard. The phone remains a preferred channel for customers in part because it allows them to interact with a human that’s capable of empathizing with their situation, rather than dealing with an AI chatbot or async email response. 

So encourage your agents to be empathetic in customer support to increase customer loyalty.

Tips for empathy:

• Provide proper training for support staff.

• Encourage them to make the customer’s issue their own to demonstrate they aren’t just another number.

Using the phone for support can even allow your business to turn around a dissatisfied customer. It conveys more investment and attention than other channels, providing a solid shot at converting a disgruntled customer into a potential brand ambassador.

“Imagine a customer calling a furniture store after receiving a damaged item. A phone conversation allows the agent to understand the customer's frustration through voice cues and empathize with their situation. The agent can then discuss resolution options in a real-time conversation, potentially offering a discount or replacement item to address the customer's concerns more effectively than through text-based communication.”

-Philip Portman, Founder and CEO of Textdrip

Common Pitfalls to Avoid When Using Phones for Customer Support

Avoid these common mistakes when using phones for live customer support:

• Impersonal interactions: Avoid scripted, robotic responses. Customers appreciate a personal touch that shows genuine concern and empathy.

• Not collecting support staff feedback: Failing to gather insights from your support team can lead to missed opportunities for improvement and innovation in your customer service processes.

• Inconsistency across support channels: Ensure a uniform experience across all channels. Inconsistent support can confuse customers and reduce their trust in your brand. 

• Failing to quickly put customers in touch with the right person: Long wait times and multiple transfers frustrate customers. Use smart routing to connect them to the appropriate agent promptly.

4 Best Practices When Using Phones for Customer Support

Implementing customer support best practices is essential for maximizing the effectiveness of your phone support. Following these guidelines ensures your team delivers exceptional service that meets customer expectations and builds loyalty.

1. Use an integrated phone system with advanced features

A customer communications platform like Aircall can significantly enhance your customer support efforts. Features such as click-to-call and automatic callback improve the customer experience by making it easier for customers to quickly reach exactly who they need to. 

For example, if a customer is browsing your website and has questions about a product, they can use the click-to-call feature to instantly connect with a support agent without leaving the page. If your phone lines are busy, the automatic callback feature can save them from waiting on hold by placing them in a queue and calling them back as soon as an agent is available.

Aircall’s customer communications platform helps your customers reach you how and when they want to—boosting loyalty and satisfaction. Try for free

2. Minimize call wait times

Fast response times are critical in meeting customer expectations and maintaining loyalty. Using a tool like Aircall helps minimize call wait times, positively impacting customer experience and their opinion of your brand. For example, skill-based routing ensures that customers are quickly connected to the right agent, speeding up resolution times and increasing satisfaction. 

3. Provide your agents with adequate training 

Ensuring your employees have the training they need to handle phone interactions effectively is key to providing an exceptional customer experience. Here are some techniques to train your agents in customer support best practices:

• Follow good telephone etiquette like answering calls promptly and always asking before putting customers on hold or transferring them.

• Use the five C’s of communication: clear, complete, concise, concrete, and correct.

• Practice active listening, asking clarifying questions if necessary.

• Engage in small talk to build a rapport, but not too much to unnecessarily drag out the call.

• Offer a follow-up if needed and provide contact information and instructions for further assistance.

4. Use call analytics to track key metrics and KPIs

Tracking performance metrics is crucial to identifying areas where your team needs additional support or tools. Aircall’s analytics features provide insights into relevant KPIs, helping you make data-driven decisions to improve your customer support.

Identify which agents need more support with Aircall’s analytics features

Cloud-Based Phones: A Pillar of Omnichannel Customer Support

A single customer support channel is no longer viable for most businesses. Nevertheless, the phone remains a staple in any multi-channel strategy. Phone support allows for immediate, personalized interactions, leading to quicker issue resolutions and higher customer satisfaction. It also ensures accessibility for a broader audience, including those less comfortable with digital communication.

A specialized cloud-based customer communications platform like Aircall is key to successful omnichannel support. It integrates with other channels to ensure a unified customer experience, and advanced features like click-to-call, automatic callback, and smart routing  reduce wait times.

Aircall also gives you access to real-time analytics so you can continuously improve and scale your customer support efforts to match your business growth. Ready to see the benefits for yourself? Try for free!

Leverage the power of phones for an omnichannel customer support strategy
Aircall’s customer communications platform helps your customers reach you how and when they want to—boosting loyalty and satisfaction.
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Published on November 3, 2016.