Adding phone support

[Justin89]

What's everyone's feelings on adding phone support under your contact us/support pages? I don't have a need myself for adding phone support, but I know some sites out there that can certainly benefit from it. But, I do know from experience, that working in a call center is a pain. I worked in a call center for a brief time, and I hated every minute of it. Talking to angry customers is no fun, and customers who are old and make mistakes, really bring the depression on. 

But yeah, I know that's not the topic, but I couldn't help myself. Anyway, would you ever add phone support for your business? Or would you rather utilize email/chat instead? 

[James]

Our ecommerce enterprise where we sell products directly to consumers has always had live chat, phone, and email support. I do feel it is extremely important for ecommerce and service websites to do this to really set them apart from the competition. 

The more accessible you are to the customer the better chance you will have of closing a sale and building trust with the consumer. 

Yes it can be a pain to talk to customers but as long as you understand the products you sell offering support for them should be relatively painless. I think offering as many mediums as possible for the customer to get in touch with you is important so they have no roadblocks to reaching out. 

[Emma]

When I was helping a friend on her site, she had a chat support option. There are a lot of programs out there that are free and easy to use for your website. It is more practical for a smaller business and easier to manage. 

[Ella]

19 hours ago, Emma said:

When I was helping a friend on her site, she had a chat support option. There are a lot of programs out there that are free and easy to use for your website. It is more practical for a smaller business and easier to manage. 

I was going to mention chat support. I think for new businesses that are smaller, it is not worth having full blown phone support unless your service absolutely requires it. Chats are so much easier and you can keep records of everything. 

[James]

1 hour ago, Ella said:

I was going to mention chat support. I think for new businesses that are smaller, it is not worth having full blown phone support unless your service absolutely requires it. Chats are so much easier and you can keep records of everything. 

Phone support though is really cheap to offer to your customers. 

You can use the support desk software from Zoho and have a ticketing platform, live chat, and phone all for less then $15 a month per user. You get your phone number from Twilio and only pay for the minutes you use. Twilio plugs directly into Zoho so its a seamless and easy integration. 

We found just adding a phone number to the header of our e commerce site increased conversion rate by around 3% vs when we had the phone number hidden on a support page and in the footer. 

Also for my local brick and mortar store it is amazing how many people find our google listing page and just tap to call the store to ask whatever it is they are asking about. 

I think people just feel more comfortable when they know they have someone they can get in touch with if there is ever a problem. 

Now non of my affiliate projects, communities, or anything else have phone support as that would defeat the purpose. If I was promoting a super high end product though that paid a decent commission it is likely something I would look into so I could provide more value and get a better chance of closing a sale. 

[Carson]

I don't think my services would require phone calls, but I do let my clients know they are allowed to contact me via discord, and we could discuss doing a voice call on there. I feel like most support related things happen online these days, especially through chat. But phone support is still something I would suggest if your business was more complex and had more working parts, but if it's simple and doesn't really need support, you could probably handle it all yourself.