Innovate your customer service with embedded support

Imagine walking into a grocery store and not being able to find your favorite brand of coffee. You look around for an employee to help you, but no one’s out on the floor. Frustrated, you look up and see a sign that says, “Help Desk – Third Floor.”

At that point, you’re probably pretty annoyed. You now have to pause your shopping trip, find the elevator, get upstairs and locate someone who may or may not be able to help you. Wouldn’t it be so much easier if help were nearby? Of course it would. And in most grocery stores, a clerk or store employee is always within reach.

Though this limitation would be unlikely in a real world shopping experience, customers often find themselves in this exact situation online. Whether buying clothes, playing a game, or booking a flight, too often customers have to leave what they are doing to seek help in a different channel.

According to Matthew Dixon, author of The Effortless Experience, “Companies should focus on making service easier, not more delightful, by reducing the amount of work required of customers to get their issues solved.” Thus, the growing demand for customer support that’s embedded into the online experience.

Embedding support creates a better customer experience by:

Making it easy to solve the problem
Customers don’t expect friction when they’re asking for help. In fact, for 69% of customers, a good customer service interaction happens when their problem is resolved quickly. As businesses have evolved to better meet customer needs with instant, transparent, and personalized transactions, customer service needs to meet those same requirements. Resolving issues quickly is much easier when support is embedded into the experience.

Providing proactive support
Truly innovative companies make their support a proactive instead of reactive process. With embedded support, agents have additional context—like what type of subscription a customer has, the app version they’re using—to help resolve an issue faster and more efficiently. With this wealth of information, support agents don’t have to submit customers to awkward questions. The agent can focus on the problem at hand and the relationship with the customer instead of trying to gather context.

Personalizing customer service
To really meet a customer where they are, a business needs a full understanding of the customer contacting them. This often means referencing data from different sources, including the customer’s social profiles and the businesses’ back-end CRM or payment systems. Well-built integrations through embedded support is the only way for a brand to see the complete picture of a customer.

Digital customers no longer accept being treated like transactions instead of people. Truly innovative online brands recognize the need to surround their customers with the same accessible, personalized support they might find in a brick-and-mortar store. By embracing embedded support, businesses can effortlessly kindle proactive, delightful relationships with their customers.

Brands can innovate customer service by designing it into the product or app experience with Zendesk’s Mobile SDK and web widget. Learn more about Zendesk Embeddables