I recently read that 42% of company executives say that their support operation budgets have been decreased in the past year while 38% say theirs have stayed the same. However, 78% said that their support call load has remained the same or increased. When you need to do more with fewer (or at least no increase in) people and a decrease in funding, where do you turn?

Any way that a customer can help himself makes him happy quicker. Enter the knowledge base that the customer can access. Just make sure that each solution and question has enough tags on it that it can easily be found. Self-service knowledge bases are the second most-offered support channel. Two-thirds of all companies offering customer support now have customer-accessible knowledge bases.

Web based tools offer flexibility and worldwide usability in diagnosing and fixing all types of problems. They greatly increase customer satisfaction because the problem is diagnosed and fixed all in one contact.

Social media and online forums are newer sources of help and support for customers. A company-sponsored forum is a better option that letting customers vent on other platforms. In this way the company representatives can become involved and can not only solve the problems but also find ways to prevent them in the future. Frequently these satisfied customers go to other social media and sing the praises of the company instead of slamming the company. [Don't be surprised at the way Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn will change the way companies do business and support their customers in the next few months. I signed up to follow several companies on Twitter today and have had a number of companies sign up to follow me in the last two weeks.]

If your company has service reps who answer phones, see how these numbers compare to yours:

* 35% of all companies with phone-based service reps had have a customer service rep threatened by an angry customer.
* 37% of phone reps take 5 to 15 seconds to answer; 20% take less than 5 seconds.
* About 25% of companies say their callers experience no hold time; 46% say their hold time is less than 1 minute; and 2% say their callers wait more than 5 minutes to talk to a rep. [Do you feel like you only call companies in the 2%?]
* 32% of companies claim an average call abandonment rate of less than 1% and 43% claim an average call abandonment rate of 1% to 5%.

Whether the customer solves the problem himself or the technician or customer service rep solves the problem, most of today’s problems take some type of tools other than the telephone for a true resolution. Increased customer satisfaction and loyalty join ease and quickness of solution as factors in using more web based customer support software. Most of these softwares include a wide array of tools and widgets for helping with a variety of problems – everything from screen-sharing to chat to remote diagnostics. Companies see a reduction in cost per solution and a reduction in the cost of IT staff. They also do not purchase in-house customer support software when they pay for only what they are using in a web based package.

This adds up to great savings to the company. And it equals greater customer satisfaction and quicker problem resolutions with less cost in time and money. In the process, customer services reps are more satisfied with their jobs and stay longer, costing the company less in turnover and training. This is a win-win-win!

Statistics taken from 2009 Service & Support Metrics Survey by SupportIndustry.com