Customer Support or Customer Success? What's Better?

'Customer support,' 'customer service,' and 'customer success' are often used interchangeably. However, at Geekly Media, we don't think they're the same thing at all!

Customer support is a reactive customer service methodology, and customer success is a part of the flywheel methodology that produces new-business-generating, delighted clients. 

How do you know whether you have a 'customer support' or a 'customer success' process in place?

Ask yourself these questions:

• Am I usually surprised by customer service issues?
• Do I have recurring customer service issues surrounding the same topic?
• Are customer interactions more focused on the speed of resolution or how happy your customer is?

Let's dig a little deeper into the definitions of these concepts to see how you can set your property management company up for customer service mastery by whichever method you prefer. For clarity, we'll use the term 'customer service' when referring to both methods and overall client satisfaction efforts.

Customer Support

• Customer support is a reaction-based methodology.
• The customer has an issue, and your property management company reacts to solve that issue for the customer.
• These methods are usually based on short, transactional interactions with the client.

There's also a good amount of expected customer self-help involved in customer support, such as sending the client an article that will help them solve their needs, connecting them to knowledge bases, and offering chatbots. This method is the primary method of customer service for property management companies. 

Customer Success

• Customer success is an ongoing methodology that lasts the lifetime of the client's engagement with you.
• As long as someone is a client of your property management company, they are receiving customer success services.
• Customer success is more of a proactive approach instead of a reactive one, and it is built around creating relationships with your clients and seeking to meet their goals through client interaction.

At Geekly Media, we prefer the customer success method as it goes hand-in-hand with inbound and process automation. Instead of waiting to hear from an upset client, we believe in finding ways to serve clients that help stop issues from happening in the first place.

For example:

• Using property management process automation, you can ensure that late rent payments have immediate collection activity without having to wait for your collections staff to get around to calling that tenant.
• This helps ensure that the rent gets paid before an upset owner has to call in. You let the owner know that there was a late payment, but your automation helped collect it right away.
• The client is delighted with your proactive service and communication of the issue to them, as well as the quick turnaround times involved in finding a solution.
• Using ticketing systems helps bolster this approach by ensuring that no customer requests are lost in an inbox; rather, they are managed through a system with automated reminders.

Customer success seeks to look at the way the business is run and identify ways to solve issues before they become issues—or a one-star review.

HubSpot for Customer Service

HubSpot was made for customer service! Whether you prefer a customer support or customer success model, there are HubSpot tools that can help you deliver great results to your property management clients.

Employ a Knowledge Base

• The HubSpot knowledge base makes it easy to collect all of your customer support information in one place using easy-to-find articles and videos.
• Building a knowledge base is a great way to help your customer support team quickly and easily solve client problems.
• Using articles that answer common questions, you can help to avoid calls by publishing great information that your clients can access when they have an issue.

Offer Chatbots

Chatbots make your knowledge base more accessible! Think of the chatbot as an AI search tool for your knowledge base. Instead of making the customer search through your site for an answer, they can access the chat right away and get searching.

Consider NPS Surveys

NPS or Net Promoter Score surveys help you determine how likely a client is to recommend your business to a friend or colleague. Using these scores is a great way to determine if there is an owner on your list who would benefit from a member of your customer success or support team reaching out.

Use CES Surveys

CES surveys ask your client how easy it was to handle their issue and is a good indicator of whether your customer service initiatives are making doing business with you easy. The easier it is to work with you, the more likely a client is to renew.

Let Us Help You Help Your Clients!

Geekly Media is here to help!

• Our team of process and marketing automation specialists can help you build the perfect customer support or customer success programs using HubSpot!
• We can build in touchpoints with your existing clients into your process automation or marketing automation that support your customer service objectives.

If you'd like to learn more about how we can help you provide the best in customer service, book a discovery call with us using the link below!