Have you ever wondered why certain businesses have a customer service department and others offer customer support? You’re not alone. It’s easy to understand the confusion: both teams aim to improve customer satisfaction. But when you take a closer look, it becomes clear that the day-to-day activities, training, goals, and qualifications for these two roles are quite different and equally important to the success of a business.
In this article, we’ll dive into the key differences between customer service and customer support and look at a few businesses excelling in customer satisfaction.
Jump right to:
- What is customer service?
- What is customer support?
- What are the similarities between customer support and service?
- Customer service vs. customer support: Core differences
- Examples of great customer service and support
- Successful customer service and support strategies
<h2 id="Service">What is customer service?</h2>
Customer service is the overarching customer experience facilitator for any given business. In general, customer service teams are responsible for the overall customer experience and their primary goal is to foster a positive relationship with the brand throughout the customer lifecycle.
Textline’s Head of Customer Success, Nancy Gallegos, weighs in on the role of customer service within a business: “Customer service will always be proactive. They’re concerned with reinforcing value, triggering engagement, and providing continuous positive experiences.”
A customer service representative might provide product costs, recommend services or relevant products, assist customers in the purchasing process, or handle complaints. Customer service interactions tend to be less technical and focus more on cultivating a positive brand reputation.
<h2 id="Support">What is customer support?</h2>
Customer support is a technical, product-centric role. While customer service teams work with customers over long periods of time, support teams aim to address individual concerns, troubleshoot technical problems, and respond to product-specific inquiries.
For example, suppose you’re having trouble with your WiFi connection and can’t seem to get your router to connect. In that case, your call to your internet service provider will likely be routed to a customer support specialist. In other words, an individual with the technical expertise necessary to resolve your issue.
While almost all businesses offer customer service to their clients, customer support teams are primarily offered by organizations within technology spaces, such as IT help desks, ecommerce, and Software as a Service (SaaS).
<h2 id="Similar">What are the similarities between customer support and service?</h2>
While the daily activities and objectives of customer support and customer service roles differ, there are a few similarities between both departments. They both:
- Use similar tools to communicate (email, live chat, SMS, phone)
- Aim to create customer satisfaction
- Communicate directly with customers
- Are critical to the customer experience
- Act as a representative of the brand
At the end of the day, both customer service and customer support representatives play an integral role in shaping brand reputation and identity.
<h2 id="Different">Customer support vs. customer service: Core differences</h2>
While both customer support and customer service teams want to achieve customer satisfaction, their approaches have key differences.
Let’s dive into the main differentiators.
Focus
A customer support team’s focus is to provide technical value to a customer. Many support roles require direct product or service knowledge and in-depth experience. Support members will generally have a deep understanding of the software or product and aim to fix customer issues or ensure the product is functioning properly.
Customer service teams are primarily relationship-focused. Their aim is to ensure long-term customer satisfaction by regularly addressing customer concerns, questions, or needs throughout the customer journey. Service reps work to provide value over time, fostering loyalty and increasing retention.
Industry
Businesses in the tech industry, specifically in the SaaS sector, provide extremely complex, technical products that require subject-matter experts to troubleshoot. In order to remain competitive and ensure positive customer experiences, a customer support team is crucial. Other industries where customer support teams might also be found are manufacturing or appliance and equipment industries.
Almost all businesses provide some form of customer service, regardless of industry, to ensure a positive customer experience throughout the entirety of the relationship.
Interactions
Customer support teams only interact with customers periodically or when there is a specific issue. For example, support teams often provide step-by-step instructions, detailed solutions, or technical resolutions. Customer support interactions typically have a clear end goal.
On the other hand, customer service teams are end-to-end, meaning they will interact with the customer indefinitely. While they don’t need to provide technical expertise, customer service representatives utilize problem-solving skills to address customer needs, provide education, and actively listen to feedback.
Goals
While both teams share the goal of improving overall customer satisfaction, customer support is generally a reactive role, with the specific goal of solving a particular issue after it arises.
Customer service is more proactive, seeking to enhance the customer experience and build a beneficial relationship. The customer service team may initiate interactions with the customer, such as requesting feedback or sharing a thank you message after purchasing.
Metrics
The success of a customer support team is generally measured by efficiency standards. This means looking at metrics like response time rates or ticket resolution times. Teams can use surveys like the customer effort score (CES) to determine how easy it was for the customer to resolve their issue or use a product.
Customer service teams measure success based on customer satisfaction. Measuring how satisfied a customer is with their overall experience with your company is a good indicator of customer service performance. Surveys, like the customer satisfaction score (CSAT), can be used as a short-term satisfaction indicator.
<h2 id="Examples">6 examples of great customer service and support</h2>
As competition for customers increases, businesses can stand out from the crowd by providing stellar customer service and customer support programs. As you build or improve your own teams, exploring brands that are already exceeding customer expectations can provide inspiration and ideas for improvement.
3 excellent customer support examples
Hive
Popular project management tool Hive excels in customer support by making support agents as accessible to users as possible. Alongside six available support channels including email, Discord, Facebook, and X, Hive offers customers 24/7, multi-lingual live chat to ensure customer questions are answered instantly. Plus, they’ve placed a support icon on each page, rather than directing the customer to a separate “Help” page.
Best Buy
Best Buy’s Geek Squad offers a branded customer support experience, positioning their support agents as tech-savvy and eager to provide solutions. In addition to offering 24/7 technical support via phone, remote calls, or in-store appointments, they regularly offer tech-related training to help educate customers on new technology, such as one-on-one AI training with a Geek Squad member.
Slack
Slack is a cloud-based messaging platform built for business communication and collaboration. Slack excels in customer support by providing a robust help desk, catering to customers who like to problem solve with support options like video tutorials, quick start tutorials, and an in-app knowledge guide. For those who’d rather have an expert solve their technical issues, Slack offers multiple communication methods, including email, phone, and social media.
3 outstanding customer service examples
GoFundMe
The popular crowdfunding platform GoFundMe has dubbed their customer service reps “Happiness Agents.” The platform’s focus on pay-it-forward acts and mutual aid created the need for a specialized customer service team that embodies GoFundMe’s values of empathy and giving back. Happiness Agents undergo rigorous application and subsequent training to ensure their agents provide empathetic and unbeatable customer service.
Birchbox
Birchbox’s leadership wanted to develop a team of customer service representatives for their skincare brand who’ll go above and beyond everyday customer satisfaction duties. Birchbox’s “Discovery Specialists” are responsible for supporting customers like most service representatives, as well as shaping brand voice, driving retention rates, and ensuring quality control. Because of their exposure to every part of the businesses, Discovery Specialists are uniquely poised to deliver exceptional customer service experiences and are positioned to customers as brand experts.
Amazon
Amazon, the retail giant that needs no introduction, has developed an extremely customer-centric approach to service. With seamless and hassle-free returns and refunds, Amazon allows customers to return products for free, provides 24/7 live chat support, and avoids long wait times with a request call feature. Plus, they offer a comprehensive and easily searchable database of help articles offering solutions to both sellers and buyers.
<h2 id="Strategies">Successful customer service and support strategies </h2>
A flashy new product isn’t enough to build a lasting customer base.
Businesses need to invest in developing strong customer relationships to drive success. For example, Textline’s parent company, Inunity, works to deliver cutting-edge software solutions but describes its ultimate goal as “building success through customer obsession.”
Effective customer service and support teams are crucial elements of a successful business strategy and should be fundamental to the blueprint.
Let’s look at a few quick tips to ensure your business is delivering exceptional service and support.
- Cultivate a customer-centric culture. Prioritize customer needs and satisfaction in the development of your business. Clearly define core values such as integrity and responsiveness in company literature.
- Embrace new software. Harnessing new digital solutions for customer service and support, such as AI chatbots and other integrations, will allow your teams to stand out from competitors and provide next-level service.
- Effectively onboard new members. Taking the time to properly train new employees will ensure a consistent brand experience for customers.
- Analyze metrics and gather feedback. Regularly analyzing metrics such as customer satisfaction scores and average ticket resolution times will help you keep a pulse on the effectiveness of your support and service teams. Implement regular methods of collecting feedback from customers like surveys, web forms, and reviews.
Take your customer-facing teams to the next level with SMS
A large part of offering superior customer support and service is making your teams accessible to customers. This means providing your customers with multiple channels through which they can receive help or resolve issues.
SMS text messaging should be an integral addition to your communication channels because it allows customers to interact with your brand from all types of mobile devices, is concise and quick, and is the preferred communication method for most customers.
Choose an advanced SMS provider like Textline that’s built to equip customer-facing teams with dynamic SMS customer service and support features, such as a robust SMS inbox, Automations, Two-way texting, conversation transfers, and so much more.
Want to see Textline’s customer support and service features in action? Request a demo today or sign up for a 14-day free trial to experience the future of customer satisfaction.
