Everything You Need To Know About Outbound Customer Support

You may be thinking you’re providing your customers with full support, but if you only receive inbound communications, you’ve got a long way to go. 

Modern customers demand more from businesses they’re interacting with, and they expect a higher level of service. You can easily build a solid reputation with them by implementing outbound customer support. 

The natural question that arises here is whether expanding your reach is worth it, but in our book, there’s no debate here. Your competitors are most likely already implementing outbound customer support and service as we speak, so the longer you wait, the higher the risk of being left behind. 

With that said, here’s everything you need to know about outbound calls and how they can help you improve your overall customer service experience. 

Inbound vs. outbound customer support

Inbound customer service is the traditional form of customer service in which a caller calls your phone number or hits you with an email to ask a question, place an order, or resolve a problem. The name inbound is self-explanatory as communications are made to your company.

With outbound customer support, your business is reaching out to customers to offer deals based on previous purchases, ask a question about the product or service, and anything else your heart imagines. 

The best way to look at the differences between the two is that outbound customer support is proactive while inbound one is reactive. 

Impact of technology on customer service

Outbound customer service is by no means new. However, the practice has been steadily picking up steam for the last few years, primarily because of new technologies. 

At the time of writing, virtual phone systems are becoming very popular. This software connects 

all the different channels such as SMS messaging, phone calls, and social media, and allows customer support reps to engage with customers in a completely new way. All of these channels are now brought together, which allows businesses to partake in proactive communication with the customers. 

Some systems, for example, allow customer support agents to monitor all customer communications with a centralized dashboard. That way, they can easily contact a customer who criticized or praised the company’s offering on social media or contact your happy customers via text about a special offer. 

In some sense, customer service nowadays is about branding, meaning the main goal is proactively building and protecting the reputation of your company. If we’re to trust this sentiment, limiting yourself to only inbound calls could lead to you falling short of your full potential - so it’s the right time to rethink your overall strategy. 

Benefits of providing outbound customer support

If you’re still unsure whether to invest in outbound customer care, here are just some of the benefits you can expect:

• Increased customer loyalty: outbound communications will show your customers you legitimately care about them. It humanizes the typical business-to-customer relationship and will ultimately result in consumers feeling more loyal to your brand. This means that outbound customer support will decrease the chances of your customers switching to a competitor. 
• More sales: a bit of a no-brainer, but contacting your customers with exclusive deals will drive your sales. The best thing is you can keep your marketing costs to a minimum, which can be a lifesaver if you’re dealing with a slow sales period. 
• Increased productivity: what are your customer support reps doing during slow periods? You can assign them outbound support tasks so they can contact customers instead of waiting for the phone to ring. 

How to find customer issues?

Just because you can contact customers doesn’t mean you should. While you can provide value by notifying them about exclusive offers, offering thank-you gifts, or checking in after a purchase, you should also look for ways to solve customer problems. 

But how? Can you just rely on your inbox? 

Sure, but you can achieve much better results and provide more value to your customers by finding their issues outside of the inbox. Here are some ways you can do it:

1. Keep an eye on your social media accounts

Despite social media being a great way to connect with customers, you’d be surprised how many businesses fail to check their accounts. This is a huge mistake because modern customers generally turn to these platforms to express their pain points and look for support. 

Let’s take X (formerly Twitter), as an example. Not all customers will be familiar with your handle, they’ll simply use the name of your product or your company. A good way to go about this is to manually search your business name regularly or use a tool like HootSuite that automatically does this for you. 

2. Figure out which sites your customers use

You should go past Facebook and such, especially if your customers fit a smaller niche. This may seem harder than it is, but you already understand your audience enough to figure out which online corners they habituate. 

For instance, if your customers are mostly software developers, they aren’t posting on Instagram, they’re using Stack Overflow or Stack Exchange. Similarly, if you sell tools for SaaS startups, you should check for mentions of your company on sites like Hacker News. 

By having a presence in the same communities as your customer base, you’ll have an easier time spotting when your offering gets a mention. 

3. Use monitoring tools

What if you can’t find anything online manually? In that case, you can use a tool that crawls the web and notifies you when your company or product is mentioned. There is even one you can use for free - the amply-named Social Mention.

Using these will help you stay on top of what’s happening, allowing you to be proactive with your outbound customer support efforts. 

What if you don’t have the resources?

The business world is cutthroat, and many smaller companies have trouble keeping up with larger ones that have infinitely more resources at their disposal. A small to mid-sized business may not have the means to handle inbound or outbound customer support.

If that’s the case with your business, you should consider outsourcing these tasks to a third-party call center company such as Aspen Media. By letting us take over your customer support, you can receive all the bells and whistles of an in-house call center at a fraction of the price.

We have thirty years of experience doing this, so we’re already familiar with your industry and we’ll treat your customers like one of our own. 

Tell us more about your needs and goals by calling 800-853-2240 or filling out our contact form.