This post is from Instawares Restaurant Business Blog, an online publication that helps restaurant owners market their businesses.
The growth of mobile technology and social media has changed the relationship between businesses and consumers. Today, people can interact with your company anywhere and at any time, and that makes customer service a crucial factor in competing for new customers and maintaining customer loyalty. With this is mind, here are nine powerful customer service apps to support the growth of your small business.
Brandify
Monitoring your brand’s reputation is an important first step in improving customer service. Brandify lets you identify your company’s strengths and weaknesses, making sure you hear what your customers are saying about your brand. Its Data Dashboard brings together multiple online channels, revealing where you show up online, and its recommendations can help you find new marketing avenues. Brandify is an effective way to keep your team up to date with customer feedback on a daily basis.
ScheduleMAX
SceduleMAX is an online app to help your small business schedule appointments more efficiently. Aimed at service-based companies, the software is easy to set up and enables your customers to schedule appointments on any mobile or desktop device, meaning they will never have to wait on hold again. The software even sends your customers reminders of upcoming appointments.
LiveChat
An increasing number of companies are turning to real-time chat applications to enhance their customer service. Use LiveChat to offer more personalized support by knowing which web page your customers are on when they ask for help. You can handle multiple chats, see information about queued visitors, and it also helps you gather customer satisfaction data.
Parature for Facebook
Social media is changing the face of customer service in terms of response times. The Parature Facebook Portal gives your business a 24/7 customer service and support presence from within your company’s Facebook page. Interested consumers never have to leave Facebook to find out more about your products and services, and they can look through FAQs or submit a help desk ticket at any time, helping you respond to questions immediately.
Desk.com
This all-in-one customer support app has many useful features to help your small business. As consumers use so many different communication channels, Desk.com lets you set up one universal inbox that can include Facebook, Twitter, phone, email, chat, and discussion boards. With live chat and many different features, Desk.com will keep your entire team in the loop, and its mobile app means you can stay in control of customer service issues wherever you are.
Get Satisfaction
Get Satisfaction is an online platform where customers can interact with each other and your company simply by asking questions, submitting ideas, and sending negative or positive feedback. As a small business owner, you have the opportunity to send official responses to any content on the site and then users can rate how well you resolved any issue. Giving your customers the power to communicate in this way is a great way to strengthen brand credibility.
Help Scout
Unlike many help desk apps, Help Scout does not require your customers to set up an account or manage support tickets in a complicated system. Help Scout is a simple email support system that enables your team to collaborate easily on customer issues, set up automated email responses, and track customer history. Messages to your customers look like regular email, but your team can easily track customer conversations and add confidential notes to a case.
Nextiva
Nextiva is an all-inclusive cloud-based communication system for small to larger organizations. If you have employees working in different locations, it’s a cost-effective way to improve the quality of your customer service. There are different packages to choose from, but there are plenty of features for small businesses in even the basic plans. Established company phone numbers can be transferred to the new system, and you can even get customized reports of telephone statistics via email.
Kayako
Kayako is one of the leading customer support applications, helping small businesses provide a better service for their customers with many helpful features. The software includes email, support tickets, self-help features, and live chat. Its powerful customer service tools let you work on the go and manage customer enquiries all in one place. To appreciate the scope of its features, it really deserves further investigation.
Improving customer service with new technology can boost your brand image, drive sales, and even lead to greater job satisfaction for your employees. If you care about your customers and the growth of your small business, why not try out some of these powerful tools? After all, great customer service adds extra value to the products and services your customers are buying.