Customer Service & Support Software

Customer service and support (CSS) software is used by an organization’s customer support department to track and manage service issues. It supports the day-to-day activities of support agents whether on the phone, over the web, through e-mail, by Facebook and Twitter, or even face-to-face.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

What is CSS Software?
What Type of CSS Buyer are You?
The CSS Vendor Landscape

Market Trends You Should Understand
Benefits & Potential Issues

What is CSS Software?

Customer service and support software streamlines documenting, resolving, and reporting of customer issues, and it automates common support activities. Ultimately, it improves agent productivity and performance and increases customer satisfaction. For example, it provides tools like automated trouble ticket generation which tracks every request that comes in, whether over the phone, through email, or by another channel. System rules enforce business processes that prioritize and route requests to the correct agent. Knowledge management programs give service agents access to troubleshooting material so that they can effectively resolve common support issues or quickly escalate problems. Other features include computer telephony integration (CTI) and email management.

CSS system providers evolved from stand-alone trouble ticketing systems. Stand-alone systems such Zendesk and PhaseWare Tracker are available and of great benefit to smaller companies or specific departments. CSS is also available as part of broader CRM suites from vendors such as Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Salesforce.com or Goldmine CRM. Finally, CSS systems are also available as part of enterprise suites such as Oracle or SAP. Customer service and support systems may be integrated with other enterprise applications such as service dispatch (to enable on-site repairs), inventory and cataloging (to ensure that exchange parts are in stock), and sales force automation (SFA) (to inform the sales rep of critical or chronic issues and maintain a single point of contact for the customer).

What Type of Buyer Are You?

When beginning your software comparison, keep in mind that different organizations have different drivers and requirements. They typically break out as follows:

• Enterprise buyer: These buyers work for organizations that have invested in or are considering an enterprise resource planning (ERP) suite. They value the vision of a completely integrated software system across all departments and business units. They will typically purchase CSS from their ERP software vendor. 
• Field service buyer: These buyers work for large firms that deliver service at the customer location. They will benefit from multi-channel management systems, good escalation, and possibly multiple language support. These buyers will also look for strong client data integration with other applications.
• High-volume call center buyer: These buyers work for organizations that provide service and support through a high-volume call center. The agents may be located in a central call center, regional call centers, or distributed across a wide area. Usually the organization will have the software on-premises but may provide web-access to users at remote locations. 
• Small business CRM buyer: These small businesses want to evolve beyond contact tracking capabilities of products like Microsoft Outlook and want to add to enhance relationships with strong service and support. Typically these buyers are looking to add basic trouble ticketing and interaction tracking on top of contact management.

The Software Vendor Landscape

Market Trends You Should Understand

• Tighter integration with enterprise systems. The major trend in CSS software is tighter integration to other enterprise systems. The goal is to reduce the number of times a customer has to call after raising an issue until the the issue is resolved. A well-integrated CSS can draw information from various legacy systems, giving the agent a single view of the client’s complete history.
• Expanding communications options. A key trend is expanding communications channels beyond phone and email. Internet-based chatting is widespread. Use of social networking services Facebook and Twitter to communicate with customers and to update issue status is growing. 
• Web self-service. Many CSS solutions support frequently asked questions (FAQs) and knowledge-based troubleshooting systems that allow customers to address common problems on the web, without having to wait for help from a human agent. Some CSS systems provide artificial intelligence (AI) to augment the self-help system. The AI responds to requests from an internet chat or by voice recognition over a telephone, and helps resolve the issue or to escalate it to the correct human agent.

Benefits & Potential Issues

A well-implemented CSS system increases customer satisfaction, empowers agents, and provides transparency and reporting to management on the customer support process. At a minimum, a CSS system should yield:

• Increase accountability. By documenting every contact, a CSS system allows management to see which agent handled which problem and provides agents with on-going feedback as to their performance.
• Improve coordination of accounts. When paired with SFA, a CSS system allows both the sales and the service organizations better transparency into the customer’s data. This can yield benefits such as letting sales representative know of any outstanding issues before making a customer call, or letting an agent know that repair parts are already ordered so that a customer does not double order parts.
• Better asset management. A CSS system that fully integrates with a service dispatch system will allow service reps to be more efficiently assigned. Similarly, integration with the inventory management system will allow agents to confidently confirm to the customer that repair parts are in stock. 
• Improved infrastructure scalability. Customer self-help systems handle simple issues, allowing customers with more complex problems faster access to agents. By implementing an effective CSS system, a growing company can expand at a faster rate while maintaining or improving customer satisfaction.
• Reduce time required to resolve issues. CSS systems reduce the amount of time required to resolve a customer issue. This means that the same number of agents can address more issues or the same customer load can be handled by fewer agents.

There are two main sources of potential issues with a CSS system. The first is that agents will see the system as a threat, instead of an asset (i.e. the first step in cutting or outsourcing jobs. The second is that customers will have a more difficult time getting resolution because their usual agent now has to follow “procedures” to resolve an issue instead of just making a phone call. The first issue can be addressed through proper training and employee education. The second is mitigated by implementing business processes that keep the customer’s experience at the forefront.

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