When implementing any software, your business has expectations—first and foremost, that the solution will work as advertised. Second, you expect that the level of customer service will be responsive and helpful. This goes beyond the deployment because, as your business grows and evolves, so will how you use your tech stack. That’s especially true for sales enablement software. It plays a significant role in driving revenue and ensuring sales and marketing alignment. Without support from the provider, you likely won’t reap the benefits you expect.
But what should your expectations be? And how can you ensure you find the right fit to meet your goals?
While you likely completed comparisons and assessments of several platforms, you can’t really know how effective they will be until adoption. Your sales and marketing teams have to engage fully with the platform for it to create value. Unfortunately, users can get easily frustrated if they don’t have service and support from the vendor.
Long or substantial learning curves can hinder adoption, and sales teams are already short on time. Thus, adoption must be simple and easy—not just in ease of use of the platform but also in how responsive your provider is to questions and requirements. If your users receive slow or no responses, they’ll soon abandon the software. You would compromise your investment at this point.
Developing a set of expectations regarding customer service for your sales enablement platform depends on your goals and structure. However, there are some fundamentals that any industry can appreciate. Here are some questions you should consider:
The team behind the platform must have deep knowledge of your challenges and expertise in sales enablement software to be able to provide great service. Thus, it would be helpful to ask about training for support teams when looking at options. If there isn’t a level of product and industry knowledge, you’ll be unsatisfied when you need help.
We live in an omnichannel world, and your users may want to interact with support providers in different ways, from phone to chat to email. If the company has limited options or the process seems too complex, you aren’t likely to receive quick responses.
Any issue that keeps your employees from doing their job is a high priority, not only for them but for you. Depending on the urgency of the request, you should expect timely and complete responses to any issues or questions.
Get clarification during the purchasing process to determine how much—or how little—customer service you can expect. Ask for a service level agreement (SLA) or some documentation of minimum support levels. Also, you may want to ask if there are additional costs for support. Speed, understanding, and resolution are critical in the current customer service ecosystem. If your vendor can’t deliver on these, it will cause bottlenecks for you.
Sales enablement software is niche, but those using it come from many different environments. While the features and functionality are the same, industries will use the software differently. For example, consider a life science company. This sector has unique needs, such as in the area of compliance, so they would appreciate customer service that understands these needs and how they differ from a retail or manufacturing organization.
You are most likely to receive this level of service by choosing a platform that has industry-specific features. A solution such as this has built-in specifications that align with a field’s workflows and special requirements. If these aren’t available, you may encounter setbacks with deployment and adoption.
Lots of companies claim to be customer-centric, but only 12 percent of customers believe they are, according to a HubSpot report. Your inquiry to your vendor is simply a request for a quick and optimal resolution. You don’t want to be bounced around to multiple support staff or left with no response. You’ll get the level of service you expect from a company that empowers its frontline staff and puts them in the position to be problem solvers.
Some of the best customer service occurs when companies find an issue and resolve it before their users even know it was there. For a business to do this, it must have a proactive approach to meeting customer needs and constantly enhance and test its product. If you have to constantly bring errors and issues to their attention, you may soon feel like you deserve to be on their payroll.
As noted, most industries deploy and adopt sales enablement software in various ways. The basics may be the same, but there are key components that some companies need. A provider that listens to its customers and can provide features specific to your requirements goes a long way in creating trust and loyalty. A company that wants to hear your suggestions and needs and actually implements them is often the difference between a mediocre platform and an exceptional one.
The vablet sales enablement platform has the features and capabilities to take your sales and marketing to the next level. While we’re proud of our product, we’re even more so of the expert support team behind it. Our customers appreciate our responsiveness and thoroughness. We listen to their feedback and use it to improve. Our goal is to deliver a tool that works and meets your needs, and we know that customer service is a significant element in customer satisfaction.
If you’d like to dive deeper into sales enablement software and how vablet works, download our e-book, Secrets Revealed: How Marketing Can Help Increase Sales Using a Sales Enablement Platform.