If your product won’t let them log in? They speak to technical support. A module or feature isn’t functioning as it should? They speak to technical support. For your clients to get the most out of your product, any inquiries about it (such as how to install it, how to configure it, etc.) must be addressed by technical knowledge.
Customers will eventually cease using your product if you don’t have a tech support team to address these inquiries. Additionally, this raises turnover rates. Said technical support is essential to the overall success of a product-based organization. However, there is a problem with technical support. It is pricey!
In actuality, it costs 100 times more than self-service channels. You can waste money whenever you can’t figure out a tech support issue. Even worse, you run the danger of losing clients.
If you run a subscription-based firm where one consumer can subscribe to tens or even hundreds of user licenses, this becomes much more important. Here, failing to provide a positive experience can be highly expensive.
High-quality technical support is, therefore, crucial.
We have developed the best tech support handbook to assist you and your team. This article will explain what technical support is, why it’s essential, and how it works. We’ll also offer advice and pointers to assist your company raises the bar on the technical support you offer.
Let’s begin straight away! Technical Support: What is it? Product-focused businesses employ technical or “tech” assistance as a channel of customer interaction to ensure that their customers get the most out of their goods. This goal is to resolve technical issues, including installation, login, and other technical challenges that can negatively affect the user experience. Usually, this is accomplished by live chat, email, phone, or knowledge bases.
However, isn’t customer support merely another name for technical support? Okay, no. And here is why:
The Distinction Between Customer & Tech Support
It’s simple for people to picture contact center employees handling angry customers who want to vent their annoyance about overpayment and delivery problems when they hear the term “tech support.” Your customer support team, not your tech support team, will handle these kinds of problems.
The way that tech support handles issues is where it differs
Tech support staff handles user problems, installation failures, and other technical issues that prohibit customers from using your product. Tech support focuses on assisting users in getting the most out of a product.
According to a survey by The CMO Council, the best way for businesses to enhance customer product ownership experience is by offering more significant technical guidance and support.
You can assist clients in using your product by concentrating on offering them better technical guidance and assistance.
The number of support levels is another apparent distinction between customer support and technical assistance. Few tires exist for customer support. A customer service representative is the initial point of contact; the customer support manager is the second.
There are 5 tiers of support for tech support. The five tiers of technical support. Tech support is challenging. It might be done via email, live chat support, knowledge bases, or even the phone, depending on the demands of your consumers.
A well-organized tech support system will be divided into 5 distinct levels and available on various platforms. Pre-support, self-service, first line, second line, and, in emergencies, the third line of support are included in these five levels of support.
1. Pre-support
Before the invention of the Internet, people would consult an owner’s manual or contact their relatives and friends if they had a query about a product. Your users will now “Google” it.
And as a result, the majority of your clients will hunt up information online before contacting you. Some of your customers will be fierce defenders of your goods and provide fantastic advice on making the most of them and assisting other customers in troubleshooting issues.
Great, isn’t that right? On paper, yeah. But it’s crucial to remember that for every positive review, there may be countless negative ones from unhappy customers eager to complain online since their concerns weren’t resolved.
Online forums, social media, and website comments should be your first defense. To steer people toward your tech support system and maintain customer satisfaction, your business should actively seek out these avenues.
2. Self-service
The next level of technical assistance focuses on empowering customers to self-serve and is run through knowledge bases, wikis, and FAQs. This is a quick and straightforward substitute for many customers who would instead not call a help desk and wait for an email reply.
The most frequent issues may be handled by providing a self-service level, freeing up first-line support for more complicated issues.
3. The initial line of defense (human contact)
Sadly, not all questions can be answered by FAQs and information bases. A live person may occasionally be required by your users. First-line assistance is frequently the customer’s first point of contact with your business. First-line assistance focuses on the most frequent inquiries (which you can record, learn from, and use to update your knowledge base).
Regarding the product or service, tech support staff at this level have a basic to general grasp, but they might not always have the expertise needed to resolve complex problems. However, the objective for this group is to resolve 70–80% of user issues before determining that it is essential to escalating the matter to a higher level.
Email help will resolve the majority of concerns in this case, but as problems get more complicated, consumers will start looking for phone assistance. According to the data from the AMEX Consumer Service Barometer report below, the more challenging the problems, the more likely they will wish to speak with a live tech support agent.
4. line of defense (Complex issues)
The problems are currently getting more complicated. Especially considering that end customers are becoming more computer-savvy every year.
In fact, according to 73% of tech support managers surveyed by the New York Times, the complexity of support calls is rising due to customers’ increased technological sophistication and ability to handle more straightforward problems on their own.
Accordingly, the 25–30% of tech support inquiries that couldn’t be resolved in first-line support come up here in the second line and are far more challenging. Staff members must have in-depth product expertise to manage these support inquiries, provide technical advice, and assist consumers in finding a solution over the phone.
But occasionally, even simple requirements call for significantly more knowledge.
5. The third line of defense (custom support)
For most clients, this is the apex of tech support.
Third-line tech support is likely to be controlled by a designated super user or even someone from your R&D department as it deals with exceptional cases that levels of pre-support to the second line could not handle.
Typically, when a customer problem reaches the third level of tech assistance, it has gotten so complicated that a specialized solution is probably required.
