, you can proactively answer customer questions before they arise, empower customers to resolve questions on their own, and free your support team up to answer the most critical, complexqueries. It’s the most effective, efficient way to provide personal support, at the scale your business needs as it grows.
Choose a support method
Human, self-serve, and proactive support excel at different tasks. Each part of the funnel helps your team achieve different goals:
Below, we dive deeper into when to use each layer of the funnel and share the exact tools that will help you achieve the biggest results.
😃 Human support
Reserve human support for complex and VIP queries that can only be answered by a human – using a combination of inbox capabilities and automation. Human support is ideal for:
Quickly resolving VIP issues. For example, you can use inbox automation to prioritize the most important issues and route them right to your support team, so they can provide a fast, personal response.
Quickly resolving complex issues. When a customer has a technical or complex issue, you can take a quick glance at their profile to see key details about them, like what plan they’re on, what actions they’ve taken, and whether they’ve been in touch before with a similar issue. This helps you avoid the typical back and forth, which can be time-consuming and frustrating for the customer.
🛠️ Best human support tools
Inbox automation
Chatbot routing
Conversational messages
Messenger apps
Integrations
🤖 Self-serve support
Use self-serve support for automatically resolving simple, repetitive queries – with chatbots and knowledge base articles. Self-serve support is perfect for:
Automatically resolving simple, frequent queries. With modern support chatbots, like
, you can almost-instantly resolve simple, repetitive queries, like “How do I change my credit card details?” – before the customer even finishes typing.
Empowering customers to help themselves. A well-crafted SEO-optimized knowledge base provides the perfect solution for customers who want to help themselves ASAP. With modern support tools, like
, you can take this one step further and deliver content in context based on who the customer is and what actions they’ve taken.
🛠️ Best self-serve support tools
Chatbots
Contextual knowledge base articles
Messenger apps
💪 Proactive support
Use proactive support to pre-emptively address known questions before customers even have them – with outbound messages, product tours, and messenger apps. Proactive support excels at:
Alerting customers to known issues. For example, you can send outbound messages to specific groups of customers to alert them to known issues, like bugs in your product or delivery delays, and provide help upfront.
Onboarding and educating customers. You can also onboard and educate new customers with product tours, so they’re set up for success with your product from day one and have all of the information they need to navigate common issues.
🛠 Best proactive support tools
Outbound messages
Product tours
Mobile carousels
Messenger apps
Get the Starter Kit guide
For more tips on how to make your support more efficient and personal,