Customer Support vs. Customer Success
In today’s highly advanced and fast-paced business world, you probably have come across the terms “Customer Support” and “Customer Success.” But are both the terms referring to the same thing?
No, they are not. Although customer support and customer success are two different concepts, they are both equally important when it comes to the success of your company or brand. The main difference between them is that one is product-related, whereas the other is consumer-related.
That said, both customer support and customer success departments work to achieve the same goal but use different approaches. For instance, Xfinity’s customer support reps educate its customers about its various services. While the customer success department tries to determine what internet speed the customer wants and if they need to bundle services too.
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Anyway, in this article, we will be sharing what both customer support and customer success mean, and the differences between both terms.
What is Customer Support?
Customer support is the one thing that continually evolves as time goes by and as the business grows. Customer support is the process of helping a customer overcome a problem they might be experiencing when asking about your company’s product or service.
It also refers to customer support reps trying to help customers find a better way to use your product or services. The best customer support is always when your customer is offered help in a timely manner, and when you are empathetic and understanding of the needs and wants of your customer.
Moreover, custom sports teams should have an in-depth understanding of the product or service your company sells, and are genuinely trying to offer the best service to the customers. These professionals should have it in them to encourage customers to ask questions and share the challenges they might be facing with the product or service.
What is Customer Success?
Customer success solely focuses on what success actually means for the customers. As a customer success rep, it is important for you to work alongside the customers, to help them achieve success in their journey with your brand itself.
For instance, most customer success teams do a competitive analysis to understand how existing and potential customers use the products or services and when they might need some form of help or intervention.
This also depends on your company size and how big your customer pool is. There are many things you can do to better understand what your customer needs, such as through emails, self-help content, face-to-face sessions, or scheduling a meeting with a designated account executive.
All of this should help the customer success team understand what the customer hopes to achieve with your company. Moreover, this will also allow you to offer the specific kind of product that the customer needs, and also create new features which may appeal to them further.
Differences between Customer Support and Customer Success?
Although you probably now understand the difference between customer support and customer success, let’s look at the two key differences between them:
Approach
Customer support works in a more reactive approach. In other words, customer support teams offer help to customers who ask for it. For instance, a customer support rep might receive an email from a customer experiencing issues with a certain product. The rep would then either respond to the email or direct it to the relevant customer support team.
On the other hand, customer success offers proactive support to the customers. In other words, customer success teams provide customers with the resources they need to hopefully avoid having to call for customer support. For instance, a customer success team may offer customers a training session on how to use and troubleshoot a particular product if any issues were to arise.
Skills
Customer support reps tend to come across angry and rude customers who need help to resolve difficult and sometimes, concurrent problems. Although customer support professionals should have some form of technical understanding of the product or service they offer, they also need to have empathy and maturity to handle stressful interactions.
Whereas, customer success reps need to have a much more in-depth understanding of the customer’s needs and issues they might experience with the product or service. These professionals need to be able to think strategically, proactively and know how to conduct data analysis.
All in All
While both customer support and customer success teams have different yet similar responsibilities, they both aim to offer customers a great customer service experience. It is important for a company to understand that it needs to establish separate teams for both purposes. This will have a more positive impact on both customers and business.
As you work to ensure that your customers receive the best kind of help, you will encourage loyalty from your customers.
