Why Customer Support Is A Brand Issue

If you’re a marketer, maybe you can relate to the following situation.

You’ve poured your heart and soul into a campaign: from research, ideation, creative execution, stakeholder approval, audience building, and, finally, launch. You’re so excited to see the work out in the world, and how people respond.

So you monitor your company’s social media channels or email nurtures, checking for responses, eagerly awaiting the praise and admiration for your brand that you and your team believe the work deserves.

And yet, the first responses are:

“I’ve been trying to cxl my subscription give me my money back you thieves” — @randomtroll273

“No one is responding to me I’ve emailed 8 times sToP stEaLiNg” — @unhappycustomer12

“y’all are frauds i can’t get your product to work” — @maybeitsusererrorbutwhostosay

You get the point. Your company’s brand is the sum of many parts, but your business’s customer support model and efficacy is often overlooked as a key piece. You can craft the most beautiful, on-message, well-targeted marketing campaign, but building that Jenga tower of good will can topple over with a few critical piece-removing missteps. 

According to Zendesk, 50% of customers will switch to a competitor after one poor customer service experience, and 80% will after more than one. On the flip side, 75% of customers are willing to pay a premium towards brands that provide a good customer experience.

And these aren’t just about a handful of purchases. Providing excellent customer support and service over time — and developing a reputation for that — increases customer loyalty. Like any effective brand campaign, the quality of your customer support can go viral, in either direction: bitter customers whining on social media where lurkers far and wide can see the complaints, or enthusiastic customers vouching for the experience your company provides to friends and family, and even influencing positive reviews for the many eyeballs of your target audience.

So, as a marketer, you may be asking, “how can I help if I don’t work in Customer Support?” Fair question. Your customer support team is probably underwater right now, due to the volume of online purchases and support requests since the pandemic started. What you can do is suggest solutions that free up your customer support team and allow customers themselves to self-serve their own issues. Some solutions include AI chatbots, automated nurture campaigns, and more.

At Yext, we believe that AI search is at the heart of a modern customer support model. When customers and agents can quickly discover relevant and helpful information themselves, everyone wins.

There’s a ton at stake with the quality of your customer experience, including brand perception. But your customer support team isn’t alone.

To share and learn more about Yext Support Answers, click here.

The original version of this page was published at:  https://www.yext.com/blog/2021/08/why-customer-support-is-a-brand-issue/