Customer service and customer support are the two terms often used interchangeably, these two are not the same things. These two terms share many similarities, however, if you see the details of both, they are different. So, let’s break down each of these terms in this article to help you understand each term and how it is different from the other one.
What is Customer Support?
Customer support involves clear assistance for the customers experiencing technical issues. Customer support offers their customers help with troubleshooting technical issues. Whenever a customer is having any problem with the product or any service, the customer support provided by the company responds actively and tries to solve all types of queries of a customer. The help provided to customers includes product-related issues and their functioning. The agents responsible to support their customers use hard and soft skills to deal with them and are provided by mostly technical, eCommerce, and SaaS companies. School IT support is also a type of customer support.
What is the Role of Customer Support?
Customer support services usually include all kinds of assistance and guidance regarding installation, maintenance, upgrading, and troubleshooting of the product. All the services and products that require technical support from the company are provided by customer support agents. They have a deep knowledge of the products and services their company is offering. They also create articles related to frequently asked questions. The customer’s support portal includes troubleshooting guides, FAQs, feedbacks, and manuals to ensure the optimization of the end-to-end customer experience.
Apart from using hard skills, the agents should also have soft skills to be able to communicate with their customers effectively. CSAT, NPS, CES are some of the KPIs a company should consider while evaluating their customer support.
What is Customer Service?
Usually, customer service deals with simple issues that can be resolved quickly with one-time interaction. The agents dealing with customer service assist the customers to get more value out of the service or product they bought. It involves guiding the customer throughout the entire journey. Customer service providers are concerned about customer satisfaction in each stage. It does not require technical skills and agents mostly use soft skills. Customer service positions are available in any industry selling services or products to customers.
What is the Role of Customer Service?
This term is defined as customer care that includes assistance and guidance before, after, and during the sale of the service or product. It does not include technical or hard skills and is about supporting the huge non-technical queries of customers. It includes the interactions that enhance customer satisfaction and their relationship with the company and its products or services. However, customer support lies in customer service and is part of it. The agent offering customer service provides assistance, educates the customers, and offers them strategic advice to maximize their value.
These agents answer all the queries, collect feedback, and remain in touch with the customers. When a customer buys a product or service from the company, the relationship between the customer and the customer service department starts and lasts longer. These agents need to have a wide range of soft skills to communicate with their customers such as active listening, excellent communications, positive language, conflict resolution skills, and empathy for their customers. However, they do not need to have technical skills. Businesses should consider looking into the following things to evaluate their customer service.
- First contact resolution (FCR)
- Average handle time (AHT)
- Customer Satisfaction Score
- First Response Time
The Final Words
Customer support and customer service both are essential for the reputation of the company. To maintain the relationship with customers, automate sales and marketing, it is crucial for the company to pay attention to both sectors. However, these two terms are often confused with each other, it is important to differentiate between these two. To ensure customer satisfaction and a high-quality experience, a product or service provider should consider investing in both. Businesses can gain a noticeable advantage if they are able to provide both customer support and customer service. The agents working for companies need to have the skills of responding actively and engaging properly to keep their customers satisfied.