What Is Customer Support Funnel?
For marketing folks, the term "customer support funnel" may make more sense, as marketing funnels are famous for nurturing leads to make your customers buy your products and services. But the word around the customer support funnel is also catching traction for its added advantage of building a larger client base, maximizing your customer retention ratio, and creating an undercurrent of positive word of mouth for enhanced brand loyalty and credibility.
A well-structured customer support funnel begins as soon as the marketing funnel concludes with their prospects, and they move up to the level of onboarding, post-sales support, retention, and advocacy.
Mapping your customer support funnel helps your brand achieve the most integral aspects of your company, such as maintaining your customer success ratio and redefining your customer experience so that customers can be prioritized and become brand loyalists. As 80% of customers deem the customer experience (CX) to be as important as the product itself, it has become a core strategy to build your customer support funnel with the right formation to maximize your revenue growth.
How Does The Customer Support Funnel Benefit Your Company?
After establishing a solid customer support funnel, companies can boost their revenue growth, customer acquisition, and drum out positive word of mouth from their customers.
It also enables companies to cross-sell and upsell their products and services after studying the customer persona, intent, and requirements. You can easily boost sales, brand credibility, and create a worldwide buzz for your brand—all by aligning your company with a well-structured customer support funnel.
Here are 4 steps that make up a great customer support funnel: initiating from onboarding, post-sales support, customer retention, and solid brand advocacy on forums, community pages, and in public.
1) Onboarding Process:
The onboarding process is the first rung of the ladder that either leads to customer success or a complete fiasco. In fact, 52% of the customers have vouched to end their contract with the company if they would not receive a delightful customer experience at the time of onboarding. It's the first impression of the company that comes into play right when the marketing team persuades the prospect to convert.
A thorough onboarding process involves complete customer assistance, either via phone call or live chat. It should incorporate a detailed introduction about the products or services your customers are interested in. A company attuned to a perfect customer support funnel has all the possibilities of converting their one-time customer sale into lifetime customer retention.
The onboarding should also possess some focus for the leading customer touchpoints. For example, you can use established help desk support to enlighten your customers about their questions and concerns. With that, companies can also contact their customers via live chat support to give them a rundown of what they are buying.
2) Post Sales Support:
Right after onboarding, customers fall into the phase of post-sales support which initiates the process of integrating your products and services into their workflow and strategy. This is a challenging time for both: customers, and the company as the stakes are high, and customers begin leveraging with what they've purchased from your brand.
According to Sales Force Research, 89% of the customers agree to purchasing again from companies that integrate a seamless, and helpful post-sales support. It means you have a great opportunity to use this phase to redefine your customer experience.
The post-sales support is also a time when customers lodge queries and concerns about your products and services. At this point, using live support or the best customer service channels such as, call customer care or email support makes your brand accessible to them, making it easier for customers to resolve their issues.
3) Retention Ratio:
Retention comes right after surpassing the "onboarding" and "post-sales support" part. It's a phase where customers are using your products and services, and giving you a needed business opportunity of making them buy or order anything again.
How would you achieve that? The famous retention strategies include, sending novel discounts to your customers, keeping them updated with a well-curated newsletter full of promotions/offers etc., and using social media to staying connected with them.
A thorough research suggests that, if companies, improve their retention ratio by 5%, they will eventually grow their profits by 25%. Retention is as important as any other step in the customer support funnel. It is the ratio of the stay-time of the customers with your company.
4) Brand Advocacy:
Brand Advocacy is last but not the least, in fact, it is the highest point of contentment for brands that need to strengthen their CX with a well-structured customer support funnel. At the nexus of advocacy, customers delightfully become the mouthpiece of your brand, and they consistently recommend your products and services to their friends and family.
Advocacy is the stage when customers take pride in using your services, and at the same time, have the conviction to draw in more prospects (new customers) which intrinsically boosts your sales and puts your brand under the limelight of recognition.
You can redeem valuable customer feedbacks as a part of their advocacy practice in the following form:
1) Testimonials on websites
2) Feedbacks on social media accounts
3) Company review on online forums
4) Word of mouth on relevant company events
Final Thought:
Like a holistic marketing funnel, putting the customer support funnel to correct use can do wonders for B2B and B2C brands. It can redefine your customer journey, and boost your customer retention which will eventually widen your revenue streams for the company.
Further, having the correct customer support funnel in place is also a sign of a customer-centric company.