The 9 Customer Channels – Strengths and Weaknesses
Live chat and phone and email, oh my! Choosing the best customer channels to offer is not an easy journey, but ultimately rewarding.
It used to be a no-brainer: first add phone and then maybe email. But now people have devices that can do so much more. Companies are figuring out how to offer the best customer experience without investing in too many unnecessary channels.
If you have limited resources, this gets even more difficult. That’s why we outlined the most prominent customer channels available to help you consider which ones may suit your support needs best.
Nine most important customer channels
- Phone
- In-person
- Live chat
- Messaging
- Video calling
- Social media
- Knowledge base
- Online communities
1
Phone
There’s no denying it; phone support has seniority in customer service. Many customers still expect it despite the availability of newer channels. This is because it meets basic human needs: having a direct, personal line of communication where you can express yourself in your own words.
- Conversation scale: 1:1
- Communication: Synchronous
- Use effort for customers: High
Some companies, like Squarespace , don’t even offer it. Phone is an older solution, so it’s unsurprising that it’s generally preferred by an older crowd. As long as you call within service hours, you’re pretty much guaranteed to reach someone.
But if your company is marketed toward a younger demographic, phone support may be too tedious or inconvenient. Being forwarded and having to repeat yourself is a pain.
Since it’s voice communication, conversations aren’t documented and searchable. This makes following up on inquiries and quality assurance a lot more difficult than it needs to be in support. Once a customer has their issue solved, chances are they don’t want to stay on the line to rate your service quality.
Agents can also still only take one call at a time, which inevitably leaves your customers in waiting queues. If your support demand is high, then your employee costs will be high. This is a tough battlefield for companies that are trying to keep their service costs down, which explains the switch to more flexible, asynchronous solutions.
| Upsides | Downsides |
|---|---|
| Direct human connection | Disruptive in an office |
| Less miscommunication | Making or taking calls can be inconvenient |
| Easier to read customer's emotions | Long waiting times |
| Familiar for customers | Requires extensive training |
| Easily accessible | Often needs extra equipment |
| Managed expectations from familiarity | Requires larger teams |
Tools we recommend:
- Placetel : Placetel offers a flexible telephone system with over 150 functions. It doesn’t require any extra hardware, is suitable for home office setups and is quick to set up. They even offer a team collaboration suite that lets you and your team stay connected via instant messaging, desktop and file sharing and HD video conferences.
- Grasshopper : This integrative VoIP solution lets you make phone calls anywhere you have an internet connection without the need for a traditional phone line or cellular network. You have all the same voicemail and forwarding benefits as a regular phone line, but because it’s mobile, calls will rarely go missed.
2
Email
Customer support requires effort for all parties involved, but email alleviates some of that pressure. It’s an ideal medium for customers who can’t commit to a live conversation but responses are much slower. Customers and agents can end up waiting days to receive a response and resolve an issue.
- Conversation scale: 1:1
- Communication: Asynchronous
- Use effort for customers: Medium
Email delegation and status tracking and drafting, even if you’re using canned responses, can also get messy. Even if many of your customers like the moderate effort it takes to email, they still expect a speedy response. According to a benchmark study by SuperOffice , the average email response time is 12 hours and 10 minutes.
Also, only 20% of companies were able to answer the customer’s questions in the first full reply. It lacks the rapid exchanges you get from phone and chat, which limits your conversion rate and how much you can guide customers across your website.
| Upsides | Downsides |
|---|---|
| Allows for longer, more personalized explanations | High barrier |
| (Often) direct form of communication | Time-consuming to draft |
| Instant documentation | Long response and resolution times |
| Flexible for customers | Prime for misunderstandings |
| No waiting | Requires organized delegation and status tracking |
| Accessible for international customers | Slow approach to building customer relationships |
Tools we recommend:
- Freshdesk for easier ticketing, reporting, automating, multilingual support and app integrations.
- Zimbra : Desktop software that allows online and offline access to email accounts. Zimbra’s email software offers team chat, mailbox integrations, smartphone compatibility and more.
3
In-person
Meeting your customers face-to-face isn’t just limited to businesses with physical stores. Customer meetings and visits are also helpful in online business.
- Conversation scale: 1:1
- Communication: Synchronous
- Use effort for customers: High
When possible, meeting your customers in person lets you make a human connection and put a face to a name. You can read your customer’s body language to see how they respond to you and your business, give interactive product demonstrations and help guide them during the shopping and selection process.
In-person service can also be more demanding of agents, especially when customers are angry or irate. Long waiting lines, peak service times, product unavailability and misunderstandings can lead to quick escalations. This isn’t completely avoidable, but important to remember if you’re considering opening your own brick and mortar.
| Upsides | Downsides |
|---|---|
| Close human interaction | Waiting lines |
| Complete focus on the customer | High performance pressure on agents |
| Guided, personalized shopping | Increased chance for escalations |
| Humanizes company | Limited product availability |
| Barrier-free | Restricted to local customers |
| Easily accessible |
Tools we recommend:
-
In lieu of a tool, we recommend the following keynote to help learn the different types of universal body language and how to communicate in response:
- For help with choosing the right employees, we recommend our post “The 8 customer service skills and traits you should look for.”
4
Website chat
More companies are switching to live chat to serve their customers. It’s a direct channel that allows for fast, personalized support directly on your website. Whether you work from home or at an office, live chat is undisruptive, familiar and less demanding than other channels.
- Conversation scale: 1:3+ - more than three chats at a time can get overwhelming
- Communication: Synchronous
- Use effort for customers: Low
Live chat is also one of the most cost-effective channels on this list, which is ideal for businesses of all sizes. It lives on your website, which means no extra equipment. Agents can also assist multiple customers at one time, which means smaller teams.
Businesses also tend to have an increase in conversion rates after switching to live chat. This is because it’s the only channel that lets you effectively guide a visitor throughout their experience on your website.
For customers, it’s a relatively easy channel to use. There’s no need to download anything, and chatting is straightforward. It’s instant communication that is internationally accessible at no cost, and translation software embeds, like DeepL , make live multilingual support possible.
| Upsides | Downsides |
|---|---|
| Fast response times | Generally unused by older customers |
| Convenient and quiet to use | High quick response time expectations |
| Instant documentation of conversations | Susceptible to trolls due to its low barrier |
| Budget-friendly | |
| Reduces cart abandonment | |
| Personalized support and more |
Tools we recommend:
- Userlike : We recommend our own live chat solution that we built for every team size and budget. Userlike offers multi-channel messaging, live translations, canned messages and more for your customer support and sales teams, Being GDPR-compliant means you also get a safe and secure service fit for international support.
- Tawk.to : Free solution that has a built-in ticketing system, customizable widgets and chat agents for hire.
5
Mobile messaging
Mobile messaging through apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger allows for private, quiet and direct communication, but on a much more flexible scale. It’s both synchronous and asynchronous. Customers can continue a conversation whenever it’s most convenient for them.
- Conversation scale: 1:3+ - more than three chats at a time can get overwhelming
- Communication: Asynchronous and Synchronous
- Use effort for customers: Low
Becoming a part of your customer’s messaging contact list makes it more likely for them to reach out to you in the future. It’s easily accessible and requires low effort to use.
Messaging is even helping break the relationship barriers that tend to exist between businesses and customers. Because this channel lives on their personal device, customers will see contacting your business as an effortless, satisfying task.
| Upsides | Downsides |
|---|---|
| Casual and low effort | Asynchronous nature may prolong resolution times |
| Familiar and easy to use | Unappealing to older users or those who fear being spammed |
| Allows for image and audio attachments | May require extra convincing for customers to try |
| Reduced pressure to be online | Messaging apps, like WhatsApp, have limitations for getting set up |
| Budget-friendly | |
| Private and accessible 24/7 |
Tools we recommend:
- Userlike’s Unified Messaging : In addition to live chat, we offer a service that allows for mobile messaging support. In addition to your website, you can use UM to reach your customers on WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Apple Business Chat and SMS.
- Respond.io : A business messaging platform that lets your team collaborate on chats from shared inboxes, automate responses and surveys and integrate your business’ preferred apps.
6
Video calling
Online business isn’t excluded from face-to-face interaction. Our devices make it easier to video chat with anyone in the world at any time. Why not extend this into customer service?
Companies, like N26 , use video calling as an added security measure when processing new customer applications. Other companies, like SightCall , help insurance customers show their problem in real time to receive quicker reimbursements and reduce the need for onsite visits.
- Conversation scale: 1:1
- Communication: Synchronous
- Use effort for customers: High
It’s a modern way to have those in-store type connections and put a face to a name. Though not without privacy, and dare we say it, awkwardness concerns. Video calling demands your full attention and customers may feel wary about sharing their face during the first contact.
Of course, you should use your own discretion to decide if video calling is suitable for your business. For example, industries like automotive , technology and fashion can use video for product demos and style consultations.
| Upsides | Downsides |
|---|---|
| Can be done remotely | May be distracting in an office |
| You can show rather than just tell | Customer may have unreliable internet connection |
| Can offer in-store experience for everyone | Less privacy |
| Allows you to see and read facial expressions | Impossible to multitask |
| Can be expensive |
Tools we recommend:
- Agora : A customizable and secure solution you can embed into your existing applications. It works across platforms and channels and supports one-to-one video calls and group chats.
- Webex : The Webex Contact Center is an omnichannel, native cloud contact center solution ideal for small and midsize businesses.
Despite being a relatively new way to connect with friends and family online, customers of all ages have found their social media flavor of choice. Since the major platforms now offer business accounts, social media has become a viable contact channel.
However, managing customer relationships via Twitter or Facebook can end up chaotic and messy. Responses are public, which means your service interactions become publicity for your brand. This can be a good thing, but also very bad; many people use social media to complain about a brand , which can lead to discussion and resolutions but also damaging debates and arguments.
- Conversation scale: 1:∞
- Communication: Asynchronous
- Use effort for customers: Medium
You don’t need to currently have a large following on the social media channel your business prefers to start using social media management software. Though you should first consider if it’s even necessary for your business. Retail can take advantage of social media shopping features, such as Instagram’s “Swipe Up” profile shop. But for business software like Userlike, there’s little value in social media engagement.
| Upsides | Downsides |
|---|---|
| Connect with customers on a more casual level | Makes it easier to share impulsive opinions or thoughts |
| Allows for more humor and personality in responses | Messages can pile up or be missed |
| Private communication via direct messages | Bad management may hurt company image |
| Marketing tool and communication channel in one |
Tools we recommend:
- NapoleonCat : Lets your team interact with customers across platforms from a single inbox. You can schedule and publish posts on multiple platforms simultaneously and receive automated reports straight to your email.
- ContentStudio : This platform also offers a unified inbox for easier customer response management. You and your team can see who is responding to which inquiry, add notes and categorize conversations for automation and reporting.
8
Knowledge base
Customers like to help themselves sometimes. It’s empowering and a learning opportunity.
Most websites have a FAQ page where customers can get answers to common questions, but this meets the bare minimum requirements of it being a viable channel. You can create satisfying customer experiences by building an interactive knowledge base organized with a large variety of troubleshooting articles.
- Conversation scale: 1:∞
- Communication: Asynchronous
- Use effort for customers: Low
A searchable knowledge base, like Adobe’s and Dropbox’s help centers, with articles that address everything from billing troubles to product errors can take a load off your agents. Even if customers forego searching your knowledge base for themselves, agents can easily send and reference articles when assisting customers.
This draws attention to your knowledge base for future inquiries and keeps agents from having to repeatedly explain the same solutions.
| Upsides | Downsides |
|---|---|
| Reduces workload for agents | Takes effort and time to create |
| Prevents spread of misinformation | May suffer from the knowledge curse |
| Customers learn how to use the product better | Less personal approach |
| Customers feel more self-sufficient | |
| Helps agents respond quicker to inquiries |
Tools we recommend:
- OMQ : OMQ Help is a searchable FAQ page that customizes itself to fit your customers’ behavior. Displayed results change based on search frequency and the auto-complete function helps guide to an accurate solution. They also offer OMQ Contact, which is a contact form that gives possible automated solutions after the request is sent. The software learns and improves over time as it helps customers.
- Atlassian : This knowledge base software works both for internal and external customer use. Customers can use the search engine for quick answers, confluence lets teams collaborate on documents and find everything in one place, and it supports your theme, branding and workflow add-ons.
Looking for better customer relationships?
Test Userlike for free and chat with your customers on your website, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram and SMS.
Read more
9
Online communities
Online forums and communities exclusive to your products or services are another form of self-service, but a lot more collaborative.
Creating a space for customers to ask and share solutions to problems or concerns is a great community approach to support. Just look at Moz Community and the Wordpress Support Forum where customers submit and resolve issues on a regular basis.
- Conversation scale: 1:∞
- Communication: Asynchronous
- Use effort for customers: Low
Resolved issues, especially when easily searchable, assist similarly to help center articles. However, these resolutions can come from other customers, which means your agents may only need to monitor and respond when necessary.
Over time, your community page or forum will become an interactive guide where customers can reach out, learn, teach and share their thoughts and insights.
| Upsides | Downsides |
|---|---|
| Public way for customers and agents to assist other customers | Prone to misinformation |
| Strengthens customers' relationship with a company | Requires strict monitoring |
| Casual space to ask for help or learn | Customer explanations may be poor or overly complicated |
| Alleviates workload for agents | low contact with customers |
Tools we recommend:
- WordPress : The publishing site offers several plugins that let you seamlessly integrate a forum into your WordPress website.
- Vanilla : Enterprise-level software that lets you start discussions and allows users to post their own questions and polls.
It’s all about customer channel quality versus quantity
Picking the right customer channels is a strategic decision. Chances are your company doesn’t have a need for more than two to three customer channels. Any more than this can lead to miscommunication, unaddressed messages, inconsistent service quality and stretching your team too thin.
For example, a fashion brand told me to call them after I’d sent them an email. Why? So they could “better assist” me. Why offer email if phone is preferred and encouraged? I could have saved a day of waiting for a response if their preferences were clearer on their website.
If your budget allows for it, try to offer a blend of personalized and self-service solutions for your customers. For example, phone, a knowledge base and live chat. Throwing email into this mix would be too redundant. Written communication is already taken care of. We recommend Userlike as a live chat solution since it’s website chat and mobile messaging in one. It only takes five minutes to set it up. Get started with our free 14-day trial .
