In the modern business landscape, the quality of customer support can make or break an organization. With legacy B2B support systems, many organizations find themselves mired in inefficiencies, lack of actionable data, and a disconnection between support teams and customers. Let’s explore some of the most pressing pain points of these legacy systems and the actionable steps your team can take today to address them.
1. Inefficient Processes and Manual Overhead
Older systems often don’t offer automation or lack integration capabilities. This often leads to support teams spending unnecessary time on manual tasks rather than focusing on customer problems. These inefficiencies in processes not only lead to increased operational costs but also negatively affect customer satisfaction. When customers have to wait longer due to manual procedures or redundant tasks, it reflects poorly on the brand. Over time, this can erode trust and loyalty, leading to lost customers and decreased revenues.
Furthermore, Support agents become overburdened with manual tasks that a modern system could simply automate. This prevents them from focusing on more complex issues that require human intervention. Over time, this can lead to agent burnout, increased error rates, and decreased job satisfaction.
Instead of continuing to rely on older systems with static SLA’s, consider moving to a newer platform with dynamic SLAs. Dynamic SLAs, like those offered by Supportbench, adjust based on the specific context of each customer case, such as upcoming renewals, ensuring more tailored and efficient support.
Additionally, modern systems use AI to streamline tasks like sentiment analysis and KB article creation. This reduces the manual load on agents and ensures quicker responses. And of course, you must ensure that your support platform synchronizes with other vital systems, like Salesforce, to centralize information and reduce manual data entry.
“In this digital age, speed and efficiency are the currencies of customer service.” – Shep Hyken, Customer Service Expert.
2. Lack of Actionable Data and Insights
Legacy systems do not often provide comprehensive data or lack intuitive dashboards for interpretation. Without access to actionable data, organizations operate in the dark. This lack of insights means missed opportunities for process improvement, revenue growth, and customer retention. It’s akin to navigating a ship without a compass—you may keep moving, but not necessarily in the right direction.
And, Support teams without clear data can’t identify recurring issues, measure their performance accurately, or justify requests for additional resources. They might also face difficulty in personalizing customer interactions or predicting future support trends.
Instead, consider prioritizing data visualization. Fresher Support systems, like Supportbench, use customizable dashboards, that helps teams visualize and act on data instantly. You can also certainly employ AI-driven insights, by using sentiment analysis, intent detection, and emotional scoring to get deeper insights into customer interactions. And of course, it would help so much to adopt KPI scorecards to keep track of organizational level KPIs to ensure you’re always working towards your goals.
According to Forrester, businesses that effectively leverage their data can see a 10% increase in annual revenue!
3. Dependency on IT for Maintenance and Configuration
Many commonly used systems require constant IT involvement, leading to delays and lack of agility in customer support. But a high dependency on IT means longer downtimes during system outages or when making necessary configurations. This delay disrupts service delivery, frustrating customers and potentially resulting in lost business. Moreover, it ties up IT resources that could be deployed for strategic initiatives.
And, for support teams, this dependency translates into a lack of agility. They can’t make swift changes to the system to accommodate new support channels, implement new features, or tweak processes. This stymies innovation and can cause support services to stagnate.
Instead of sticking with these older solutions, choose self-reliant systems like Supportbench. Newer systems built for the B2B are designed so that IT teams aren’t necessary for configuration or maintenance. Additionally, you can opt for cloud solutions. Cloud-based platforms offer flexibility, automatic updates, and scalability without heavy IT involvement.
Gartner predicts that by 2025, over 80% of enterprises will have migrated to cloud solutions, abandoning traditional IT infrastructures.
4. Disconnection Between Agents and Customers
The lack of a unified view of customers can lead to disjointed experiences and frustrated customers. A disconnected customer experience leads to dissatisfaction and can prompt customers to switch to competitors. The absence of a unified customer view means missed cross-sell or up-sell opportunities and can tarnish an organization’s reputation.
For Support agents, a lack of customer context means every interaction starts from scratch, with no knowledge of past issues or preferences. This lack of insight can make issue resolution longer and more cumbersome, leading to frustration for both agents and customers.
Instead, you can try implementing 360-Degree Customer Overviews to gain a comprehensive understanding of each customer’s journey, needs, and feedback. It might also be helpful to employ customer notes in order to empower agents with these real-time notes and information from CSMs, ensuring personalized interactions. Most certainly, focusing on customer health scoring will allow you to monitor the overall health and happiness of your customers for proactive support.
“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” – Bill Gates, Co-founder of Microsoft.
5. Inability to Adapt to Modern Customer Needs
Customers today expect real-time support across various channels, which legacy systems might not provide. In fact, today’s customers expect swift, multichannel support. If an organization’s support system can’t evolve with these expectations, it risks becoming obsolete. This inability to adapt can result in decreased market share and relevance.
Support teams using outdated systems face the brunt of customer frustrations when they can’t offer support on preferred channels or in real-time. This mismatch of expectations vs. capabilities strains relationships and makes the role of support agents much more challenging.
Instead of sticking with the usual systems, consider adopting multichannel support. Then you can integrate chat widgets, email support, and knowledge base access through website widgets for an omni-channel experience. Also, newer B2B systems have personalized customer portals with advanced admin features.
By 2024, companies that provide an integrated multichannel customer experience will outperform their competitors by 25% in satisfaction metrics (source: Gartner).
Bringing it All Together: The Supportbench Advantage
In addressing the pain points associated with legacy B2B support systems, it’s clear that the solution lies in modern, innovative platforms that prioritize seamless customer support, data-driven optimization, and scalability. And while these pain points initially manifest in the support department, their ripple effects extend throughout the organization. Legacy B2B support systems, with their inherent limitations, can prevent organizations from realizing their full potential and risk relegating support teams to a constant firefighting mode instead of allowing them to be strategic partners in organizational growth.
Adopting a platform like Supportbench not only alleviates these pain points but positions your support department as a strategic asset, paving the way for unparalleled growth and customer satisfaction. As the future of customer support evolves, it’s paramount to align with solutions that not only solve today’s challenges but are also poised to address tomorrow’s needs. By prioritizing the well-being of both the customer and the support team, businesses can truly make the transition from reactive support to proactive relationship building, turning challenges into opportunities for growth and innovation. Remember, the goal isn’t just to have a support team; it’s to have a support team that’s seen as heroes in your organization. And with the right tools and strategies, that vision is entirely achievable.
