5 Remote Customer Support Issues that Can Kill Your Business

In 2020, just about every industry experienced a massive shift toward remote service options. But the physical location of our customer support isn’t the only thing that has shifted: The expectations of consumers and B2B customers have also changed. A quality, frustration-free remote service experience isn’t a differentiator anymore - it’s par for the course.

Customers are no longer willing to tolerate the never-ending runaround from rep to rep, repeating the same problem description over and over, wasting away the hours on hold. That kind of experience is no longer acceptable, and customers now expect quality remote tech support from call centers and support lines. Companies that break out of that mold and provide positive remote customer support experiences have a considerable advantage over those who are slow to adapt to the new norm of remote support. 

There are many things far too many companies do that make the customer support experience a bad one. Avoiding these five pitfalls will go a long way to leveling up your business communication solution, allowing you to make your customers’ remote support experiences a positive reflection of your brand.

Causes of Negative Remote Customer Support

Bad customer experience can get expensive for many reasons. You may offer discounts or freebies to make up for the negative experience, or you may lose that customer altogether. How can you prevent negative remote support, ensuring a rave-worthy customer experience from start to finish? Simple: You attack the issues at the root.

Blitzz understands how meaningful your customers’ experiences are to your business. That’s why we always make sure we offer cutting-edge yet simple remote support solutions for live video assistance in the field. Schedule a free demo to get a sneak peek at how our Concierge Support software can solve your customer issues.

Without further ado, let’s examine the five top causes of bad customer experiences regarding remote customer support. 

#1 - Outdated Experience - Phone Only

Imagine your customer has a simple question. A quick point of clarification, or perhaps they need help unlocking their account or something similar. Is this customer going to be happy waiting on hold for half an hour to speak with a customer service agent about their problem? Definitely not. 74% of consumers will switch to a competitor after receiving poor phone-based customer support. 

Modern consumers are omnichannel. They expect to be able to interact with your organization via more than one medium. Companies across industries are finding new, innovative ways to connect with consumers, from email to chatbots to social media and more. 57% of customers prefer connecting with customer service digitally to connecting over the phone. In short, if you’re offering phone-only support, you will want to explore other channels. 

#2 - Slow Response Times

Ready for a hard truth? Fully satisfied customers don’t call your customer service line. Even if they’re pleased with your company in general, if they’re reaching out to your support staff, it’s because they are frustrated and have a problem that needs solving. If your customer support line takes forever to get in touch with them - like this man who was on hold for 15 hours - your frustrated customer will only get more frustrated.

There will be times when your support agents are swamped, and your customers will have to wait. There are ways to provide a positive experience in these situations. 33% of customers find waiting on hold to be the most frustrating customer service experience. So, if you have a high volume of calls, invest in a callback software that can hold the customer’s place in the queue and call them back when there is a support agent available. 

The trick here is to make sure that if you promise to call the customer back within a given time frame, you need to ensure that the customer receives a call back in that time. If they don’t, you’ll lose their trust before the support session even starts. 

#3 Being Impossible to Reach

This item is similar to the article above but even worse. Your customers want more than support from your business - they want to feel valued as customers. If your support line is impossible to reach, or if their emails to your customer service account seem to fall into a black hole where they receive no response, your customers will feel abandoned. 

You also need to ensure your support line isn’t just an endless cycle of “Press 2 for yes, press 3 for no” options. Your customers have unique struggles that they need help with, and your remote customer support should reflect that. Overall, Americans have lost faith in chatbots and automated menus for customer support. The effectiveness of customer service chatbots has fallen 28% in recent years.

In short, while a chatbot or an automated menu may be an excellent way to filter initial customer interactions to the correct member of your service team for assistance, your customer service solution shouldn’t start and end with bots. Your customers want to speak to a human.

#4 Not Solving the Issue

This one is kind of a no-brainer: If your customers come away from your support line without having their issues solved, they’re not coming away as happy customers. 27% of Americans said that “lack of effectiveness” was their chief complaint regarding customer service lines. Your support agents need to be equipped with the right tools to solve customer issues effectively. 

A big piece of this is related to failures of communication. Suppose your support reps are constantly using industry jargon your customers don’t understand. In that case, it will be frustrating, if not impossible, for them to work with the rep to solve their issue. A shared visual is often imperative to successful remote customer support. Investing in AI and AR for remote customer support is a quick and easy way to make sure your customers and your support agents are both able to get eyes on the problem and provide visual empathy, interacting to come to a resolution.

#5 Making Customer Service Difficult

It’s the responsibility of your customer service team to make your customers’ jobs easier. So why is it so common for remote customer support to make things so difficult? 

Download this software, install it, configure it… Oh, wait, you don’t have permission to install on your system? Is the IT guy in? 

Your customer doesn’t want a crash course in their application permissions - they want a solution to their problem. To avoid issues like this, you should strive to make interacting with your remote customer support application as simple as possible. Blitzz offers a simple-to-use, no-download-required interface for customers. All they need to do to log into the session is click the link in an SMS message. 

Yes, it really can be that simple. 

It's Hard to Track the Impact of Bad Customer Support

Is your remote customer support up to snuff? Often, it can be challenging to track. An estimated 91% of customers unhappy with their experience won’t waste their time complaining - they’ll just leave. Ultimately, it’s up to you to ensure that your business isn’t falling into any of these pitfalls.

One surefire way to level up your remote customer support is to invest in a tool like Blitzz. Blitzz Concierge boasts a download-free remote video support application complete with augmented reality and robust reporting features to help you solve customer issues fast on the first call. Schedule a demo today to see how Blitzz can make customer service easy and effective. 

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