Several years ago customers had to either stand in long queues to see a customer representative or spend minutes on call to speak to customer service. Sometimes we spend as much as 30 minutes or more on the line till it automatically drops, and at the end, we are frustrated as we end up not speaking to the customer service. Thanks to technology and digital support, things have changed. In today’s evolving world we can contact startups and brands through multiple communication channels.
Choosing the ideal digital support for your startup is a crucial step to ensure your startup is successful. Ensure you carry out thorough research to unravel the features of the digital support and ensure your startup’s choice has great functionality.
And just in case you operate a crypto brokerage you should endeavor to learn how to select the best digital support for your crypto brokerage too as digital support is also crucial for your crypto brokerage.
Digital support delivers customer service through diverse digital channels, including social media, email, mobile apps, chatbots, live chats, and more. Digital support helps you to establish strong relationships with your customers and with exceptional customer support you can enhance your products or boost your service quality via feedback. Digital support increases your reach and you can easily provide customer support to anyone, anywhere, on any device, at any time, it also helps you to meet your customer’s expectations thereby keeping your customers satisfied.
Picking the best digital support should be on your startup’s to-do list. Unfortunately, startups face numerous challenges in choosing the right digital support. According to HubSpot, a 5% increase in customer retention can increase your startup’s revenue by 25% to 95%. The absence of effective digital support is risky for any startup as it makes customer retention difficult because retaining acquired customers is important to sustaining your startup’s success.
In this publication we will help you understand your startup’s needs, research digital support options, evaluate digital support providers, build a strong partnership, and give you tips to successfully pick the best digital support for your startup.
Understanding Your Startup’s Needs
The first step to picking the best digital support for your startup is to understand your needs. You are required to first identify the key areas where digital support is crucial and this is different for different startups, for instance, yours could be in administration, marketing, customer service, or IT. While you identify your startup’s needs, you need to also assess your startup’s budget, your growth goals, your team expertise, and any other related metrics to help you effectively know the best digital support your startup needs.
Researching Digital Support Options
Once you understand your startup’s needs, start exploring the types of digital support you can choose. There are three approaches you can consider.
- Outsourcing
With this approach, your company can delegate your digital support services to a third-party provider who is tasked with satisfying your company’s needs. The third-party provider could be based locally or internationally. These providers are capable of efficiently handling your needs thereby letting you leverage external capabilities. This approach is particularly suitable for startups with unavailable or limited resources, or when your startup needs to focus on other core areas.
- In-house team
The in-house team ensures you remain in control at every step of your digital support integration. This approach is suitable for startups with adequate resources, knowledge, and tools. This ensures quality and rapid integration of your digital support due to direct oversight and you can gain a deep understanding of your digital support integration hereby limiting or eliminating potential threats and minimizing risks.
- Hybrid
This approach combines beneficial elements from both outsourcing and in-house team approaches. Although this approach requires careful management and might appear complex, its flexibility to scale is one of its major advantages.
Once you identify the type of approach you want to follow, identify potential providers or agencies that specialize in your industry or digital support needs. Do this by making inquiries and asking for recommendations from other entrepreneurs. You can also research to find reputable digital support providers and look for providers that have worked with similar startups like yours and have a robust understanding of your industry.
Evaluating Digital Support Providers
When evaluating digital support providers for your startup, several factors should be considered. These include:
- Assess the provider
Ensure you assess every provider you come across when selecting your startup’s choice. Assess the experience, expertise, and case studies of the digital support provider ensuring they are well-equipped to provide solutions to your needs.
- Consider costs and operational factors
Some cost and operational factors to consider include, pricing, scalability, and communication style. Ensure your choice suits your budget, can scale with your startup expansion without compromising performance or your customers’ experience, and there is a free-flow communication channel between your startup and its digital support choice.
- Conduct interviews
Do not select a digital support provider based on instinct alone, make sure you meet with the digital support provider your startup is about to onboard, you can carry out a virtual or onsite interview if possible, and ensure you carry out reference checks to eliminate potential threats especially when you cannot conduct an interview.
Building a Strong Partnership
After you have selected digital support, building a strong partnership is the next important step to take. Here are three ways to effectively build a strong partnership between your startup and its choice.
- Be open
Discuss expectations and goals with potential providers, this discussion should be carried out even before you put pen to paper. Ensure each party knows what each other wants and is focused on helping each other achieve its goals.
- Establish clear communication channels and timelines
Ensure there each party can effectively reach out to the other when necessary, eliminate potential barriers, and establish clear timelines to carry out every task or project you and your digital support will be working on.
- Carry out evaluation
Both parties should have a trial period to evaluate the partnership, and each party should be aware of the chain of cause and effect of the partnership.