Not that many years ago, customer support meant one thing for most people: picking up the phone and contacting a call center. Times have changed a great deal since then. In this article, we will take a look at some of the ways you can connect with Service Objects, and why this is important.

Why multi-channel support has grown

There are two main reasons that we live in a multi-channel world of customer support. First, customers like you want more touch points than ever with the businesses that serve you. You carry smartphones in your pockets and purses, you use tablets to do business in remote locations, you interact through keyboards and screen shares as well as your voice. And you are busier and want more instant gratification than ever: for example, recent statistics show that customers expect responses to their emails within an hour, and will wait no more than eleven minutes on hold.

Second, technology has changed dramatically in just a few years. Systems for managing customer support relationships used to be large, expensive, and seemingly require a cast of thousands to implement. Today, inexpensive cloud-based technology has made the implementation of any support channel – and, if needed, every channel – a much more seamless experience. So it is easier than ever for firms to offer tools such as chat, email, phone and web-based support.

These trends continue to accelerate, and they affect your business as well as ours. This summary cites figures from the Aberdeen Group showing that implementing multi-channel support nearly triples your rate of customer retention, as well as a Walker survey showing that customer experience will soon overtake even price and product as the key brand differentiator. It is a new world for businesses, where customers are in the driver’s seat more than ever, and better access to support is a critical part of this relationship.

How you can connect with us

As a provider of real-time, mission-critical data validation tools, responsive multi-channel access to our technical professionals is a cornerstone of what we do. Our technical support is available 24/7/365 if needed, with a response time that is normally 15 minutes or less – or even sooner for urgent issues.

This includes telephone support with a goal of zero wait time, online support requests via email or our web portal, and access to us via live chat – right in the lower right-hand corner of any of our web pages. We also are responsive to requests for technical advice, customer service or sales assistance via our contact web page.

In addition to live technical and product support, we also offer a rich set of online resources to our customer community, including the following:

• Our website (ServiceObjects.com) is a portal for a wealth of company and product information, including live demos of our products, technical and programming documentation, downloadable white paper reports, and much more.
• A complete set of online developer guides document the implementation and usage of our products for prospects and customers alike.
• We also offer an extensive series of blog articles on product issues, industry trends and technical advice, searchable by topic – one of which you are reading right now!

We are proud to offer a level of service that has led to best-in-class customer service NPS scores for over five years and counting. Multi-channel support is a big part of this and will continue to be in the future.

Have you noticed that more of us are talking with inanimate objects lately?

When we ask Siri for directions on our smartphone, command Alexa to order more toilet paper, or tell Google Home to play Ed Sheeran’s latest album on repeat, we’re becoming part of a trend: engaging bots that seem almost-but-not-quite human.

We understand the attraction businesses have to bots. They are inexpensive, ubiquitous, and great for getting the weather in Phoenix or a link to a specific web page. But bots are increasingly making their way into more and more areas of our lives nowadays, including sales and customer service. For example, according to this article automated chatbots are the future of technical support, and nowadays there is even an entire magazine devoted to them.

This is where we draw the line, however. When you contact Service Objects, you will never deal with a disembodied piece of artificial intelligence. If you visit our website during business hours, for example, you will discover that you are greeted with a chat screen manned by a real, live human being.

Live technical support: Someone’s always home

Our highly-rated technical support is 100% live people too. Call us during regular business hours, and we’ll normally get someone on the line with you within 15 minutes – sooner if your issue is urgent. And when problems strike off-hours, production customers can reach a member of our Quick Response Team 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Why we like the human touch

Nothing against automation – that is our business, after all – but here is why we insist on using live people for our sales and support:

• First of all, we are not typical sales people. Sure, we enjoy people purchasing our products as much as anyone. But to us, you are not another data point in our sales funnel – we want to get to know you, learn about your specific needs and challenges, and brainstorm unique and cost-saving solutions. With no sales pressure whatsoever.
• Second, support is the lifeblood of what we do. Our products are classified as services, and we take seriously what that word means: being of service. A large part of our reputation revolves around providing industry-leading customer support for our products, and in our view this starts with having access to live, knowledgeable people.
• Third, bots are only human (pun intended). Stories about misinterpreted automated queries abound online, while Siri reportedly struggles with everything from decimal points to Texas accents. There is even a joke going around that when Amazon.com purchased the Whole Foods Market grocery chain, it was due to a misinterpreted Alexa command given by their CEO Jeff Bezos. Bot errors may be funny, but not when they happen to our customers.

Data quality and real people: A good combination

We’ll still keep using bots for things like talking to our GPS, or asking Siri when Harrison Ford was born. But when data quality is your business, and you are selling mission-critical products with a 99.999% uptime record, we believe that only real people will do. We personally feel the same way about sales and service as we do about food and recreation – we prefer natural to artificial. And if you work with us, we think you will too. We look forward to hearing from you, feel free to contact us or give us a call at 800.694.6269.