Como Gerenciar o Suporte ao Cliente SaaS

Para fornecer suporte eficaz ao cliente para seu SaaS, você precisa conhecer seus clientes, oferecer canais de suporte adequados e fornecer à sua equipe as ferramentas e o treinamento certos. Este guia explica como construir um sistema de suporte ao cliente que resolva os problemas dos usuários.

Ao escolher os canais de suporte, pense no que seus clientes preferem. Você precisa saber como eles preferem receber suporte e oferecê-lo dessas maneiras.

Before you jump into choosing channels, take a moment to really understand your customer base. Think of it as creating a customer profile:

• Who Are They? Are your customers tech-savvy millennials who prefer to chat online? Or are they older professionals who might prefer a phone call? Understanding their age, comfort with technology, and preferred ways of communicating will guide your choices.
• How Do They Use Your Product? Knowing their pain points will help you match the right channels to their needs.Do they mostly use your software on their computers or on their phones? This can help you decide whether to prioritize mobile-friendly support options.
• What challenges do they typically face? What are the most common questions or issues they run into? Identifying customers’ pain points can guide you in choosing suitable channels that match their specific needs.

Now you can start defining the support channel. Let’s examine the available options to determine which ones might best align with your customer’s needs.

1. E-mail e sistema de tickets 

Considere usar esta opção de suporte para dúvidas que exigem explicações detalhadas ou que não são urgentes. Explicar o problema em detalhes facilita uma resposta mais completa e ponderada. Pense nisso como uma conversa escrita.

Prós: Explicações detalhadas, tempo para respostas ponderadas, documentação para referência futura

Desvantagens: Não é uma solução adequada para dúvidas urgentes.

Ideal para: This channel is suited for inquiries related to technical issues, feature suggestions, account management, and further communication.

2. Live Chat 

Focuses on addressing common questions and troubleshooting issues efficiently. This tool functions as a technical support resource, which provides troubleshooting guidance for customers encountering issues.

Prós: Troubleshooting can benefit from screen sharing, providing a method for visual collaboration and guidance.

Desvantagens: Dedicated personnel are necessary, and it may not be suited for all intricate challenges.

Ideal para: This option is suitable for addressing immediate inquiries, handling prevalent issues, and getting assistance with workflows.

3. Phone Support

While other forms of communication may be more suitable in some cases, a phone call can be a useful option depending on specific needs. Addressing intricate challenges that demand human judgment and insight may necessitate the exploration of this path. High-value clients often value personalized attention, which can be facilitated through rapport building. Especially crucial for billing support, where customers might have sensitive questions or urgent issues with payment processing.

Prós: There are various aspects of customer interaction to consider, including the potential benefits of a personalized approach, the significance of rapport building, and the complexities of problem-solving tasks.

Desvantagens: It is important to factor in potential upfront costs as they may depend on the specific infrastructure needs of a call center. While suitable for standard usage, extensive scaling for high-volume scenarios may require careful consideration.

Ideal para: Dúvidas sobre faturamento, clientes de alto perfil, problemas técnicos complexos que exigem explicações detalhadas.

4. Autoatendimento 

É aqui que entram sua base de conhecimento, FAQs e fóruns online. Considere implementar opções de autoatendimento para dar aos clientes mais controle sobre a resolução de seus problemas. Esse recurso pode aumentar a eficiência do usuário, otimizar as operações internas e contribuir para o desenvolvimento de uma base de usuários de suporte, mas os resultados podem variar.

• Base de Conhecimento: Uma coleção de recursos, abrangendo artigos, guias e tutoriais, acessíveis para recuperação de informações.

• FAQs: A list of frequently asked questions and their answers.

• Community platform: A forum designed to facilitate user interaction, information sharing, joint problem-solving, and peer support. While a balance in moderation, promoting engagement, and acknowledging valuable contributions is important, it is uncertain how these factors influence the community’s activity.

Prós: It has the potential to improve customer capabilities and contribute to the development of a strong network, although it might also reduce support needs.

Desvantagens: Documentation is important for addressing various issues, but its scope for addressing different problems might be limited.

Ideal para: Common questions, how-to guides, troubleshooting steps, and fostering user engagement.

A knowledge base is a place where customers find answers to their questions on their own. It’s a collection of information, like FAQs or troubleshooting guides. Although not a definitive solution, the organization may have an impact on the number of support tickets. This change would potentially offer the support team more free time for other duties, but there is no certain outcome. When creating a knowledge base, think of: 

• Clear Sections: Think of your knowledge base as a bookstore. Organize your articles into sections like “Getting Started,” “Troubleshooting,” “Billing,” etc. It’s crucial to provide customers with an easy way to navigate through the information available to them.
• Powerful Search: Certifique-se de que sua base de conhecimento tenha uma ótima função de pesquisa. Embora projetado para guiar os usuários para recursos pertinentes, a eficácia do serviço em auxiliá-los na busca por informações específicas depende de vários fatores.
• Recursos Visuais: Inclua imagens, capturas de tela e vídeos que ajudem as pessoas a entender.
• Navegação Fácil: Pense em um mapa do tesouro – você quer facilitar a navegação dos clientes pela sua base de conhecimento. Use um índice, breadcrumbs (aqueles pequenos links no topo que mostram onde você está) e links entre artigos relacionados para ajudá-los a encontrar o caminho.
• Keep It Fresh: Your product is always evolving, so your knowledge base should too. To maintain relevance to users’ interests, keep it current.
• Create a helpful content: write like you talk; avoid technical jargon. Employ language that is straightforward and avoids technical jargon to ensure broad understanding. Use the same tone of voice throughout your knowledge base. Aim for the style of a supportive discussion with a trusted friend.
• Predict Their Questions: Think about the problems your customers usually encounter and write articles that address those issues head-on.
• Connect the Dots: If one article is related to another, include links so users can easily find more information.

A equipe de suporte é a linha de frente da sua empresa. Quando os clientes entram em contato para obter ajuda, seus agentes são os que fazem ou desfazem a experiência. Treinar a equipe é uma das poucas coisas que você pode fazer pelo seu negócio.

Domine seu produto. Seus agentes precisam conhecer seu produto de dentro para fora:

• Treinamento Aprofundado: Ofereça a eles um treinamento abrangente sobre cada recurso, cada função e todos os detalhes técnicos que eles precisam saber.

• Stay Updated: When you add new features or make changes, make sure your team is the first to know.

• Get Hands-On: Encourage your agents to actually use your product. The more they interact with it, the more they’ll grasp how it affects customers.

Building soft skills. Technical knowledge is required, but soft skills enhance interactions.

• Comunicação: Teach your team to communicate clearly and professionally, whether they’re on the phone, in a chat, or writing an email.

• Common customer challenges: Investigate these problems to aid in offering better advice and assistance.

• Cultivating critical thinking: Incentive a capacidade dos indivíduos de identificar e resolver problemas de forma proativa.

• Resolução de Disputas: Equipar sua equipe com o treinamento necessário para lidar com desentendimentos pode potencialmente evitar que pequenos problemas se transformem em conflitos maiores. O treinamento pode não mitigar significativamente os efeitos na dinâmica da equipe e na produtividade geral, mas tem o potencial de diminuir a intensidade desses impactos.

Ferramentas e Processos.

• Sistema de Tickets de Suporte: Forneça instruções claras e treinamento sobre o uso do sistema de tickets de suporte para o tratamento eficiente das consultas dos clientes. Rastrear problemas e mantê-los sob controle é crucial para garantir que nada seja negligenciado.

• CRM (Customer Relationship Management): If you use a CRM, show your team how to use it to personalize their interactions with customers. They have access to all previous interactions with the customer and other pertinent information.
• Enable team communication: Implement communication tools and processes that simplify internal and interdepartmental communication.

Think of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) as promises you make to your customers. These SLAs provide an estimate of response and resolution timeframes. How to set SLAs:

• Organize support requests by category and priority.

Think about the different types of issues your customers might have. Requests vary in urgency, ranging from critical issues requiring immediate attention to inquiries about minor features.

Label these issues as “critical,” “high priority,” “medium priority,” or “low priority.”

• Set realistic timelines:

Tempo de Resposta: Decida a rapidez com que você retornará aos clientes para cada tipo de problema. Busque respostas rápidas, especialmente para problemas críticos.

Tempo de Resolução: Descubra quanto tempo geralmente leva para sua equipe resolver cada tipo de problema. Seja honesto e estabeleça metas alcançáveis.

Faça Alguma Pesquisa: Peek at what other companies in your industry are promising. You want to be competitive, but also realistic about what your team can handle.

• Tell Your Customers What to Expect:

SLAs should be readily accessible to customers. Put them on your website, in your help center, and even in automated emails that customers get when they contact you.

• Monitor your progress to gauge your overall advancement and identify areas for further improvement:

Use your support software to measure how quickly you’re responding and resolving issues.

Regularly check reports to see if you’re meeting your SLAs. If not, figure out why and make changes.

The best way to know if your support is working? Ask your customers! Their feedback might be useful for understanding how people experience your service. How to collect feedback:

• Pesquisas Rápidas: Depois que um cliente conversar com sua equipe ou enviar um e-mail, faça algumas perguntas sobre a experiência dele. Seja breve e direto.

• Formulários de Feedback: Coloque um formulário em seu site ou dentro do seu produto onde os clientes possam compartilhar suas opiniões. Faça perguntas específicas como: “Quão fácil foi encontrar o que você precisava?”

• Mídias Sociais: Keep an eye on what people are saying about your product and support on social media. Respond quickly to any negative comments.

If your customers love social media, chat with them there. If you have a lot of customers, use a tool like SurveyMonkey to send out surveys.

For really in-depth feedback, consider chatting with some customers one-on-one.

Getting feedback is just the start. Now turn them into action.

• Analyze the Data:

The time required to resolve issues: look at the average time for different types of issues. 

Are customers happy? Check those survey results and any other feedback you’ve collected.

Could you provide the number of support requests you’ve received recently? Is this number going up or down?

• Fix What’s Broken:

Identifique ineficiências: Examine seu processo de suporte para identificar quaisquer fatores que causem atrasos.

Otimize os Processos: Atualize seus procedimentos para acelerar as respostas e soluções.

Considerações sobre automação: Determine se as ferramentas de automação podem ajudar no tratamento de tarefas repetitivas, permitindo que sua equipe dedique total atenção a iniciativas mais exigentes.

• Eduque sua Equipe:

Treinamento Contínuo: Forneça regularmente à sua equipe atualizações sobre os recursos do produto e as melhores práticas de suporte.

Knowledge Distribution: Foster knowledge exchange through team collaboration and exchange of tips and tricks.

Act on Feedback: If customers are asking for a specific kind of help, make sure your team knows how to provide it.