I recently heard someone refer to today's society as information-rich and attention-poor. I don't think many would argue that fact. In the customer service world, consumers have a bewildering variety of alternatives at their fingertips. If they aren't happy with your product or service, they will move on. Perhaps, the only time you have their undivided attention is when they have a problem. It's in those support moments that your team's response can make or break their loyalty. So much so, that according to Gartner, 89% of companies expect to compete based on customer experience.

Here are a few tips on how you can build a support experience that builds trust and long-term loyalty.

1. Be always-on

Whenever customers need help, no matter the hour, they expect support to be available. Smartphone apps have raised the bar for all industries because when consumers can instantly order pretty much anything with a few simple swipes they have less and less tolerance for waiting on hold. To them, these apps and your service are no different and you're held to the same standard. Be a presence your customers can rely on.

2. Deliver more first-call resolutions

Few customers are happy about their situation when they reach a support agent.  They've reached the agent because something is broken and they need it fixed. The more consistently your support team can deliver first call resolutions to help them get back to their lives, the greater shot you'll have at earning their loyalty.

And the weight of first-call resolution doesn't need to be fully on the support agents. Most customers don't care how they are supported as long as their problem is resolved. Pushing simple, repetitive queries to smart self-service systems like chatbots or smart virtual assistants can help free-up support agents to spend time on higher-value more complex customer queries.

In addition, understanding your customer journey --did they try to self-serve already? Did they post to social media or a community trying to find an answer? Being able to mine that information and making it accessible to a support agent can help not only increase first -call resolutions, but also ensure the customer doesn't have to repeat themselves on who they are and the issue they are having.

3. Offer fast resolution

Customers value their own time above all else and it's critical for agents to show an equal level of interest. When customers are put through the ringer of having to look up their account number, wait on hold, and solve their own problems, they don't feel their time is being valued.

When planning support strategies, prioritize fast resolutions over cost. As Benjamin Franklin succinctly put it, “The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten." Customers prefer to move on with their lives and Accenture finds that 45 percent of them will even happily pay more for better service. When selecting tools, agents, and procedures, invest in the teams and software that allow you to reliably offer lightning fast resolutions and work backward from there.

4. Hold a steady connection

You can have the greatest support team on Earth, but your entire organization's efforts will be judged based on the quality of a single support interaction. If the session is interrupted, lags, or the call is grainy, it'll leave a negative lasting impression. In a world of countless technologies it pays to invest in a high quality remote support solution that reliably makes great first impressions.

By building trust in the moments when your customers need you most, you increase customer loyalty with not only the specific product or service they're using, but with your organization as a whole. This will lead to a higher customer lifetime value and set your company up for success in the years to come.

Want to know more about which features your remote support tool should have in order to deliver reliable support? Check out our buyer's guide.