The State of Support Services 2015

The results of TSIA’s Support Services Benchmark Survey continue to reveal the hard truths about delivering technical support in 2015. Customers want more options than ever from their support providers and they want to expend less of their own effort in resolving issues. Customers are proving to be more loyal than ever before—if they feel like their support provider is listening to them and addressing their needs. While it sounds deceptively easy—ask them what they want, and give it to them—the reality is much more challenging.

Support teams are now faced with the task of figuring out how to engage with customers in more proactive ways across more channels than ever before. Customers may expect to have periodic issues with your product, but they don’t want to expend much effort to help you solve that problem. And while you’re busy focusing on your customers in 2015, you will be forced to have an even bigger emphasis on streamlining your internal tools and processes. Most support organizations already run lean and efficient operations, so how can you improve an already highly functioning organization and generate incremental revenue in the process?

2015 will be a challenging year for support services, but Pacesetter companies will embrace and overcome these challenges, often by investment in analytics, proactive support programs, customer engagement strategies, and knowledge management—all areas proven to improve the customer experience and reduce the level of customer effort.