Automated phone technology, such as interactive voice response (IVR) menus, can save businesses time and money on customer support. These solutions route callers to the right people without the help of a human operator. Larger businesses should consider IVR menus to streamline the customer support experience. They should not replace account managers and instead are optimized for streamlining after hours and emergency support communication.

As we look forward into the next decade, let's first reflect back to the previous one and the impact it had on customer support. The 2010's was a decade driven by the emergence and evolution of mobile technology, making it easier to communicate than ever before. It also launched "big data" into the mainstream, and support teams had more information about their customers than ever before. We've looked at annual customer service trends in the past, but now it's time to look even further down the road.

While 90% of business-to-business (B2B) leaders recognize the importance of customer support, fewer than 25% of companies excel at helping their customers. It’s a concerning statistic as B2B markets thrive off long-term relationships with their clients. Phone calls are a vital component of any B2B customer support strategy, as it’s often the fastest way to resolve problems.

Simply put, your business needs customer service strategies that improve their productivity and customer satisfaction. The right strategies help your customers resolve their issues faster and enable your agents to provide better support. Here are five of the winning customer service strategies every business should be using.

You get a support call escalated to you one minute, your boss tells you to call a different customer the next, and a few minutes later three new tickets hit your inbox, all with totally different issues. How do you and your team stay organized with your tickets when they’re flying in from everywhere?! If all customer problems came in through a single channel, such as email, it would make organizing and keeping track of your tickets so much easier.

You’ve given them countless product demos. Made executive trips to their headquarters. Answered their questions on Saturday mornings. Invited their European team out to dinner. Your team put in the work and finally won the deal. Congratulations! Now, is it really on to the next one? For sales yes, but for your entire company it definitely shouldn’t be. More companies are spending additional time and resources on improving the B2B post-sale experience of their customers. Why?

As technology continues to move forward, more companies are seeing an influx of international customers that didn’t exist a decade ago. For many companies based in the United States, a large percentage of their new international customers are from the United Kingdom (aka “the UK”). Made up of four countries – England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland – the UK may share a common language with the US, but there are some notable cultural differences.

With more companies creating and expanding their customer success teams than ever before, it’s critical that leadership focuses on the right metrics to accurately gauge their work. Remember, this team isn’t just an extension of customer support, so common metrics like average ticket close time will fail at accurately representing their contribution to your company.

Great companies have always cared about their customers. When a customer pays for a service or offering, it’s up to the company to make sure what they paid for meets their needs. In the past, this may have meant a follow-up call or two, and then the company moved on. However, as the B2B customer experience evolved, a single phone call is no longer good enough. Now, companies have entire “customer success” teams that focus solely on ensuring the customer is happy and remains that way.

The difference between a B2B (business-to-business) and B2C (business-to-consumer) customer is night and day. To most B2C companies, customers are a dime a dozen. A B2C company isn’t focused on their current customers nearly as much as acquiring new ones. Their own customers know this, and thus the expectations for many B2C products are so low that companies in this industry rarely emphasize the priorities of their customers.