How to Reduce Customer Service Costs by Optimizing Support

During a tricky economic time, ecommerce companies are looking for ways to save money and are eyeing up their support centers as a potential place to tighten their belts. But brands that know how to reduce customer service costs effectively don’t do so by taking away capabilities, which often negatively impacts customer experience.

Here’s how to execute excellent customer service at an affordable, scalable rate and how the right support platform can make all the difference in creating a truly effective in-house solution.

How Can You Improve Customer Service Without Increasing Costs?

You can improve customer service cost-effectively by streamlining communications across channels, cutting out repetitive tasks, and ratcheting up your self-service.

5 Steps to Reduce the Cost of Customer Service and Still Deliver Quality CX

READ MORE

4 Methods to Reduce Customer Service Costs

The importance of customer retention and strong customer relationships can’t be overstated. These strategies are more profitable than trying to drive new customer acquisition. As a result, any effort to reduce costs in customer service should only be done in the interest of making retention-driving strategies more effective.

1. Streamlining communications

Streamlining communications with shoppers into singular channels and emphasizing conversations over ticketed systems means fewer agents are needed to handle the same volume, which ultimately cuts costs. This level of personalization also creates stronger relationships and garners more revenue over time.

Though adding more channels may seem like another cost, you can use technology to consolidate access to these communications. This makes it possible to achieve omnichannel success and ensure revenue growth at an affordable rate.

WHY GLADLY

Brands are switching from ticket-based platforms to Gladly.

Brand Comparison

2. Ditching ticket-based customer service platforms

Every customer service professional is familiar with the ticket-based approach to service. In this legacy model of customer service, support software produces individual tickets or tasks for customer service agents based on each customer outreach to a brands’ support team. It creates a redundant situation where agents are chasing down repeat answers, which eats into their valuable time.

By switching to a conversation-first approach, ecommerce brands can save time for their agents and minimize customer frustrations. Zeus Living saw firsthand what moving from a ticket-based system to a customer-based platform can do for your bottom line. The property management company specializes in providing long-term stays in fully furnished homes and used a ticket-based system for several years. Because of this, any service and maintenance requests submitted by residents were entered into the system as single tasks, instead of being bundled by property.

Once Zeus Living’s company leadership saw the benefit of having a resident’s full support history in a single place, their customer service team was able to save 30% on their CRM costs.

“We were able to better recognize the value of combining both teams because of Gladly and that helped define the structure that we now operate under.”

Liz Master

Director of Customer Success

3. Cutting out repetitive tasks

Take the pressure off your support team through automation that makes their work more efficient. With less time spent on sifting through historic data or responding to simple questions, you’ll save by solving service issues at a much faster rate.

Your support center needs a system that makes all customer information clear and accessible at any point in a conversation. The longer and more arduous interactions become, the more money you’ll lose from dissatisfied customers. As Gladly’s 2022 Customer Expectations Report found, shoppers will leave a brand after just two bad service experiences.

Automation Integrations with Gladly

Gladly, a customer-centric service platform, offers a multitude of seamless AI and automation-focused integrations. The platform combines with the strengths of some of the top AI & automated chatbot and voice software providers to create a comprehensive and powerful customer support experience:

• Thankful
• Ada
• Netomi
• Flip

By leveraging these partnerships, Gladly enables businesses to improve both the agent and customer experiences by automating routine inquiries, suggesting personalized responses, and ultimately, providing radically personal customer service.

4. Improving self-service

Customers want a solution and feel that self-service should allow them to handle most of their issues. Service leaders think 20% to 40% of live volume can be converted to self-service, a huge potential cost-saving area.

Meet these shoppers where they are and provide self-service options that are accessible and informative. This means intelligent knowledge bases that update across channels and tackle the most common customer questions.

PRODUCT

See how Gladly's self-service feature can empower your customers

Learn more

The Right Tools to Reduce Customer Service Costs

Once you know how to reduce customer service costs, find a service platform that can do all of the above using a scalable pricing structure. With Gladly, ecommerce brands tap into cost-saving tactics that maintain quality service and grow at the pace of their businesses.

This comprehensive technology foregoes tickets for a conversation-driven system that streamlines all facets of a support agent’s daily tasks while providing intelligent self-service tools that take work off of their plates. Beyond function, the pricing structure works at a flat rate per agent, regardless of the size of the business, making the costs of growth transparent and easy for businesses to plan over time.

DEMO

Experience the first all-in-one customer service platform

Sign up