5 Types of Customer Service [Highs and Lows]

Client-centric businesses can increase sales and marketing opportunities. Businesses can even position their brand better with their customer centric approach by winning high customer loyalty. To win client loyalty, it is necessary to invest in a reliable and strategic customer service plan. You cannot make the right customer service strategy until you know the types of customers you have and the types of customer service you can offer them.

If you are unaware of the types of customers you have and don’t know how to classify clients into different categories, then read our latest article on major types of customers.

To help you define the right customer service types, we have penned down this article as the top unified customer care solution provider.

By knowing the possible types of customer services, you will be able to make the right strategy by getting the best tools and team onboard.

Major types of customer services

1. Phone customer service

This is the highly used and most popular type of customer service followed by the major business brands. For years, it has been used in businesses to provide pre-sales and post-sales support to clients. This form of customer service is always preferred by customers that don’t want to visit the store and are still looking for some answers. In the 21st century, this type of customer service is a must because many businesses operate virtually or serve international customers. In this case, it is impossible for a business to provide in-store support.

The phone based customer service is also recommended when the customer needs to explain the query to the support agent to get the resolution. It is a faster mode of communication and helps in resolving concerns within a few minutes in a majority of cases. According to Statista, more than 61% of consumers prefer to receive customer service over the phone.

Benefits of phone customer service

• High FCR (First Call Resolution) rate
• Increase customer engagement
• Personalized customer experience

Drawbacks of phone customer service

• Complicated process to connect with customer care executive
• Efficiency is dependent on manpower and skill
• May frustrate customers even more

2. Walk-in customer service

This is typical customer support, which is disappearing due to the busy schedule of clients. Still, this is one of the important types of customer service. As the name suggests, the customer walks into the physical store to receive support. In some sectors, it is necessary. For example, hardware related technical support. The customer has to visit a technical center to show the laptop or any other device to get it repaired.

Benefits of walk-in customer service

• Physical interaction increases customer engagement rate
• Increase opportunity of cross selling and upselling
• Get the non-verbal clues to deliver even more personalized customer care

Drawback of walk-in customer service

• Extra cost of having a physical support center
• Cause inconvenience to customers visiting the store
• Make you appear obsolete in the modern digitized era.

3. Email customer service

Since 1971 when the first email was sent, email has become one of the favorite modes of communication for many businesses and consumers. Still, many businesses love this mode of communication, which makes email customer service one of the major customer service types. It is one of the asynchronous types of customer service, which means customers don’t need to sit and wait for the agent to respond. Likewise, agents also have enough time to study the issue and respond. This can be a vital type of customer service in some cases such as technical or premium services, in which screenshots, receipts, invoices, etc. need to be exchanged.

Benefits of email customer service

• It is cheap for both the customer and the company
• Completely documented, logged, and digitized communication
• Automate acknowledgment, send canned responses
• Get enough time to study and respond
• Reduce pressure on agents

Drawback of email customer service

• Slow in process
• Long email chains can make things complicated
• Long email responses can be tedious and irritating
• Lack of personalized responses

4. Chat customer service

Live chat is one of the top types of customer service offered by a majority of customer care centers. It can be simple live chat using a chat widget or it can be WhatsApp chat to give a digital touch to your customer care department. In fact, WhatsApp chat is more popular than live chat because consumers don’t need to go to your landing page or chat widget to initiate the conversation. It is one of the most effective customer service types because customers can chat about their issues on the go.

Benefits of chat customer service

• Give real time customer services
• Excellent for short conversations
• Preferred types of customer service for introvert consumers
• Improved agent productivity as agents can handle multiple chats in parallel

Drawback of chat customer service

• Lacks human touch
• Difficult and complicated when longer responses need to be given
• Logging conversations is a tough task
• No way to comprehend the mood of customers to give personalized responses

5. Social media customer service

As things are getting more and more digital, digital channels are taking over each department in the business. Then how can customer service be left behind? Major social networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter are on the top list for the best types of customer service. Consumers have started posting their issues and concerns on social media without even checking if your brand includes social media in one of the customer service types. Moreover, they expect rapid responses over social media. According to a stat result shared by Statistia, more than 20% of consumers demand a response immediately after posting on social media. This shows how this platform is taken so seriously by the young generation. Of course, the old generation also uses it, but the young generation demands customer support over major social media platforms. Thus, it has to be one of the customer service types you are offering.

Benefits of social media customer service

• Position your enterprise as a modern business brand
• Satisfy demands of millennial and Gen Z audiences
• Give convenience to your customers to reach via their preferred channel
• Skyrocket your reputation management and digital marketing campaigns
• Position your business as a customer centric brand
• Enhance brand reputation by showing proactive customer care
• Low cost and affordable

Drawback of social media customer service

• Everything is online and transparent. It can work in your favor or against you.
• For businesses with multiple concerns, it becomes tough to maintain a positive brand reputation
• Makes it difficult to track all mentions along with the DMs
• Possibility of skipping or missing out on a customer concern

Conclusion

Nowadays, customers need what they find appropriate to meet their demands and types of customer service are not at all an exception. Your customer care team has to incorporate major customer service types in the strategy to match the pace with the growing demands of customers and stay tuned with modern trends.

Your software such as contact center software must also implement all these communication channels into the software to help you provide all major types of customer services using a single platform. We can help you make this possible with our communication tools. Let’s connect to discuss more about these solutions and major customer service types that must be part of your business to level up your customer care game.