A solution for streamlining customer support operation

[Hoang Tran]

Hi all,

I am a software engineer by trade. I have recently had some interests in customer support area. I've seen countless issues like handling difficult customers, refund/return requests, lack of quality/support in agents' response, etc...

I am thinking about to develop an end-to-end solution as an useful tool for entrepreneurs/business owners to streamline their customer support, so they can focus on more important areas in their businesses. I am curious about what are the most challenging issues in your customer support operation. What are the solutions you're using for those issues? Are they effective enough?

With your inputs, hopefully I'd come up with something useful for you all.

Have a great day,

Hoang

 

[cjd]

First issue - customer support is not done with software, it's done with people. Well trained, well paid, interested, motivated, enabled people.

 

[Hoang Tran]

First issue - customer support is not done with software, it's done with people. Well trained, well paid, interested, motivated, enabled people.

I couldn't agree more with you. In reality, it's hard to find those people. Oftentimes, I come across exhausted, inarticulate and just-do-my-job attitudes. One time I raised an issue with Virgin Media customer support line and had to wait more than an hour for my turn. When it was my turn, I still have to wait between 3-5 minutes for each of their replies. The whole process takes me approximately 1.5h to sort out one simple account issue (downgrading my monthly plan). What if there's an automation system that can handle such simple/repetitive queries?

 

[fisicx]

What if there's an automation system that can handle such simple/repetitive queries?

There are already lots of tools that automate many tasks.

If you want to launch your product you will need far more cash for marketing than you do for development.

 

[cjd]

The entire problem with support is that companies treat it as a cost centre, they do everything they can to lower costs.

So they treat their staff like battery chicken, pay them as little as they can, force them into scripts, remove all possibility of acting independently and understaff so that they’re constantly under pressure. The worst ones outsource to Asia.

Support can be a customer retension and attraction strategy, but it needs real human values.

 

[Socio South West]

Your question is answered perfectly IMHO by @cjd

If you want to free time for business owners to concentrate on core tasks and product development, quality human customer support is vital.

Someone will doubtless say AI is the way to go.... but that takes time to develop and train, but also relies on the customer having the breadth of mind and language skills to be able to rephrase questions to get the answer they are seeking.... if its there....

Nothing like a well trained human mind and voice with a sympathetic and patient approach for the best Customer Support.

 

[Hoang Tran]

There are already lots of tools that automate many tasks.

If you want to launch your product you will need far more cash for marketing than you do for development.

Can you tell me more about the tools that you know?

 

[Hoang Tran]

The entire problem with support is that companies treat it as a cost centre, they do everything they can to lower costs.

So they treat their staff like battery chicken, pay them as little as they can, force them into scripts, remove all possibility of acting independently and understaff so that they’re constantly under pressure. The worst ones outsource to Asia.

Support can be a customer retension and attraction strategy, but it needs real human values.

They don't see values of investing in excellent customer service, which potentially improves customer satisfaction/trust. So they are more likely to do more businesses in future. On the other hand, the customers don't deserve poor customer support and they should have their problems sorted out asap as they are the lifeblood of any businesses.

 

[Hoang Tran]

Your question is answered perfectly IMHO by @cjd

If you want to free time for business owners to concentrate on core tasks and product development, quality human customer support is vital.

Someone will doubtless say AI is the way to go.... but that takes time to develop and train, but also relies on the customer having the breadth of mind and language skills to be able to rephrase questions to get the answer they are seeking.... if its there....

Nothing like a well trained human mind and voice with a sympathetic and patient approach for the best Customer Support.

Good point on AI. I think there needs to be a system to verify the AI responses and track/measure when it goes wrong. Only by then, we can trust it to do tier-1 (simple, repetitive & mundane) queries. If the AI encounters difficult/sensitive issues, it should escalate to human representatives.

From my personal experience, I encounter a decent representative in one out of my 20 calls, so most of time the experience feels like talking to a robot who is programmed to handle my questions using their business procedures.

 

[cjd]

Most systems are designed to hijack customer calls and send them to online resources as though customers don't know that those resources are generally useless. They're currently pretending that there are good alternatives to talking to someone but that's rarely true.

AI will eventually get good enough to be a partial substitute but it's further off than people think.

 

[fisicx]

@Hoang Tran - maybe a better approach would be to fix the issues that led to the need for customer support. If the business is good then there should be no requirement to get help.

 

[Hoang Tran]

Most systems are designed to hijack customer calls and send them to online resources as though customers don't know that those resources are generally useless. They're currently pretending that there are good alternatives to talking to someone but that's rarely true.

AI will eventually get good enough to be a partial substitute but it's further off than people think.

How further off do you think for AI agents which can speak with generated voice, have ability to search internal/external resources and collaborate with human agents?

 

[Hoang Tran]

@Hoang Tran - maybe a better approach would be to fix the issues that led to the need for customer support. If the business is good then there should be no requirement to get help.

Sadly no businesses can do just that.

 

[fisicx]

Sadly no businesses can do just that.

Yes they can. It’s not easy but it is possible. For the odd necessary enquiry have email and phone support.

 

[cjd]

How further off do you think for AI agents which can speak with generated voice, have ability to search internal/external resources and collaborate with human agents?

Years, if ever.

 

[Deleted member 360015]

Try Freshdesk

 

[Hoang Tran]

Try Freshdesk

It comes across with out-of-box AI features. Have you found any of these useful for your business ?

 

[Hoang Tran]

Yes they can. It’s not easy but it is possible. For the odd necessary enquiry have email and phone support.

Chances are waiting for support via email/phone can take ages

 

[Hoang Tran]

Years, if ever.

I think technology is here now. OpenAI Advanced Voice model can now fetch external sources, do web searches, take human inputs before making their final response. In such way, their responses are personalised and enriched with up-to-date information.

 

[fisicx]

Chances are waiting for support via email/phone can take ages

All depends on how your business is set up. I check emails every hour and reply to questions. Takes a couple of minutes.

 

[fisicx]

I think technology is here now. OpenAI Advanced Voice model can now fetch external sources, do web searches, take human inputs before making their final response. In such way, their responses are personalised and enriched with up-to-date information.

And the responses are generally rubbish. Anything other than general support means going round and round in circles.

 

[Hoang Tran]

And the responses are generally rubbish. Anything other than general support means going round and round in circles.

Show me an example of rubbish response.

 

[fisicx]

Show me an example of rubbish response.

Just about any reply to a technical or very specific question. Almost always the response just refers you to the website.

Post a link to an AI chatbot you recommend and I’ll show you a rubbish response.

 

[fisicx]

An example of a support emails I had this morning:

"We brought a custom version of your plugin a while back and need an additional setting to ask if they currently pay a termination fee. Is this something you can add for us? The plugin is used on xxxx website."

And

"Can we use the nordstrom API to get energy costs and display the results on your plugin."

Neither of these could be answered by any sort of chatbot without access to the plugin source code.

 

[cjd]

I think technology is here now. OpenAI Advanced Voice model can now fetch external sources, do web searches, take human inputs before making their final response. In such way, their responses are personalised and enriched with up-to-date information.

Sounds like that was written by AI ...

It's getting pretty good at answering straightforward questions where the information is on the website. I've just put a fairly involved but essentially straightforward enquiry through ChatGPT and it made a decent stab at it, but it wasn't good enough to use without human intervention.

This kind of thing will get better (so long as the website content also improves) but these kind of enquiries are only a small percentage of the ones we get. Many require more information from the enquirer and/or physical intervention at the moment it can't deal with any of that. It also can't deal with the complex or unusual enquiries that have to be investigated or sent to second line support or anything that's just a little bit whacky.

It also doesn't feel human - it feels cold, humourless and robotic, people like human it's our USP.

 

[Russ Michaels]

The best solution is a good CRM/ticket system, of which there are dozens. You would literally be reinventing the wheel with no hope of competing against the existing products unless you have a huge marketing budget.