I think it's safe to say the only thing worse than having to reach out to customer support with a technical issue, is having to deal with a complex, disconnected support process. Nothing is more frustrating for a customer with a problem then when support is anything but frictionless. The more customers experience delays, added steps, or even multiple agents when getting support, the more likely they are to be irritated and look to other solutions.

We recently discussed how support organizations need to simplify their support experiences. A major step in avoiding friction is reducing what customers need to do to receive support and resolve their issue. Frictionless support demands lightweight, easy to use tools that show agents what a customer is experiencing with as little effort and delay as possible. A support process that leverages this level of access paired with fewer steps to resolution can prevent undue friction and delight even upset customers.

Lightweight Tools to Simply Support

Remote support should not require users to install heavy software or reconfigure their machine to get help. If a customer needs to spend any significant amount of time just getting prepared to get support, their experience is far more likely to be a negative one.

A user-experience-first remote support tool should allow support agents to see what a customer is doing and troubleshoot a machine live, but should not take more than a minute to download and launch. Once connected, the remote support tool can drastically speed to the time to a solution and cut the number of steps needed to resolve an issue. Each benefit drives away friction.

A Simple Support Plan to Reduce Steps to Resolution

Friction in support comes from both complexity and slow time to resolution. Having a slow, inefficient support process with too many steps to get to help can lead to this kind of friction.

Support should aim to reduce the steps needed to resolution, cutting out redundancies, unneeded diagnostics, and even earlier support tiers. A process based on automation, with key diagnostic data and errors already shared with the agent, can further limit the number of steps a customer needs to take to find help. With the use of lightweight remote support tools to further clarify the issue and directly address it, support can be reduced to only a few interactions. The resulting support process should be simple, free of unwanted diagnostic or escalation steps, and straightforward for agents and customers.

Data to Prevent Duplicate Questions

Support cannot wait for customers to share data that can be gathered automatically and far in advance of a call. Key diagnostic information – from operating system and machine type to past usage and error codes – can be automatically reported and aggregated to present to the agent before support even begins.

Your support tools should pull key information from users before support interactions, enriching the support experience with data. Agents should also be able to view this data alongside tickets and customer records, putting the right context on their conversation. This approach should also be automatic – asking a customer for even easier information can be frustrating and viewed as friction.

Support can be complex, but it doesn't have to be. To see how simple remote support can be, give Rescue a try.