You can ask your customers to log into a FAQ system or use help-desk tickets, but they probably will not. Static
FAQ, Q&A, and categorized topics do not work for multi-channel support centers, with social media, because of the simple fact that consumers prefer instant responses to searching through hierarchical categories.
Rather than help-desk tickets, instant answers are now the social game-changer. Twitter delivers instant and short messages. Facebook has grown beyond social media by launching a
Facebook support app API for third-party applications to instantly bring discussions to its customers’ business pages. Customers are not waiting to speak to representatives. Instead, they move to sites with web-support centers. Companies are responding in kind, and some airlines even offer free access to their web-support center while charging consumers that insist to talk with their agent.
“Instant” seems to have become more important than “accurate.” Instant answers keep customers on the websites longer when they are merely accurate; categorized topics will not. However, providing both instant and accurate answers will lead to the best results. nanoRep provides instant and accurate answers throughout your site and in all your support channels. Your customers don’t have to leave the product page or use help-desk tickets to get answers to their questions.
After all, because it is not instantaneous, the common email-to-help-desk ticket system neither provides
scalable support nor reduces website abandonment. More representatives are hired, in order to answer each escalated ticket quickly. Traditional web-support centers offer complex trees that generally end in another “Contact Us” page with 20 fields just to post a question. This is neither instant nor accurate, and, with significant service-level quality deterioration, website-abandonment numbers continue to grow beyond 90%. First-call resolution cannot be satisfied without instant answers.
It’s hard to satisfy customers if you don't understand them. However, you will win their loyalty if you let them ask their questions in free text and in real-time, rather than in help-desk tickets. Their inquiries are your opportunity to convert them into loyal customers, and satisfied customers generally return for additional online purchases.
Now that you understand the importance of instant answers over help-desk tickets, consider this question: What is your ultimate goal: To instantly reduce the number of queries, or to manage them one-by-one in a slick CRM solution?