High-Touch vs Low-Touch Customer Service

Excellent customer service helps companies stand out. In fact, Zendesk’s Customer Experience Trends Report 2022 shows that just one bad service experience can lose you 61% of customers.

So, how involved should you be with your customers?

Deciding between high-touch vs low-touch customer strategies is crucial to consumer success. You must understand tactics and weigh them against each other. In this piece, we cover what is high-touch customer service and low-touch customer service. We also touch on the pros and cons of both strategies.

What is High Touch in Customer Support?

If you’re wondering, “what does high touch mean?” – it’s a more personalized, one-on-one approach to providing client service. High-touch customer service requires more dedicated time and strategic approaches to help customers. This strategy suits high-value consumers due to its higher cost and effort requirements. It’s beneficial when client needs are complex.

High Touch Customer Service Examples

If you’re looking to implement this strategy, consider these high-touch customer service examples:

• Dedicated account managers: High-touch customer success managers deeply understand client needs, offer quick assistance, build loyalty, and add a personalized touch.
• One-on-one support: With tailored assistance, monitoring customer expectations and collecting feedback is easier, leading to higher product and feature adoption.
• Cobrowsing: Cobrowsing interactions feel more genuine and intimate compared to low-touch methods like email. High-touch interactions can reduce repeat support requests and improve first-call resolution rates. Engaging in real-time conversations with clients for issue resolution provides a personalized touch.

Pros of High Touch Customer Support

High-touch customer service uses direct and tailored client sessions to emphasize customer service value. How does this benefit businesses?

• Fosters deeper relationships: High-touch customer service isn't limited to a single transaction. You should maintain ongoing relationships, which build stronger emotional bonds and loyalty with consumers, ultimately increasing engagement.
• Improves customer retention: Personalized engagement makes clients feel cared for, increasing their loyalty to your brand. Continuously fostering trust can turn consumers into brand ambassadors.
• Resolves issues efficiently: Improved customer service efficiency boosts customer satisfaction by reducing issue response times.

Cons of High Touch Customer Support

Although the high-touch customer success model has benefits, it also has drawbacks:

• Higher operational costs: High-touch customer service is costlier, requiring more staff and resources, including additional account managers with associated wages, benefits, and training for business growth.
• Limited scalability: Scaling high-touch customer success models is harder due to the need to expand the customer service team continuously.
• Time-consuming: High-touch services tend to target a higher-end, more exclusive clientele. Resolving their issues could take longer because it includes human interaction and tailored attention.

How to Implement High-Touch Customer Support

High-touch customer service focuses on creating strong bonds and memorable experiences. Here’s how you introduce high-touch service initiatives in your business:

• Offering 24/7 support: Although chatbots and tutorials are useful, customers often prefer speaking with a team member for problem-solving. Implementing 24/7 live chat operators offers immediate response to client queries.
• Assigning dedicated representatives: Customer service reps can conduct regular check-ins to understand customer goals and challenges, proactively resolving issues for a seamless experience.
• Conducting regular follow-ups: To provide proactive support, follow up with clients even after the issues have been resolved. Develop strategies like personalized messaging or tailored follow-up calls to make them feel valued.

Technologies for High Touch Customer Support

Tech solutions enable small businesses and high-stakes providers (like insurance agents) to offer enhanced, high-touch customer care, allowing more capabilities while maintaining a personalized touch.

Here are some options to better implement high-touch customer service:

Cobrowsing

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Using cobrowsing technology like Fullview allows agents and clients to navigate web pages virtually, enhancing sales support and customer care. Customer support teams can swiftly troubleshoot and resolve difficult technical support problems with Fullview, which only takes a few moments to install, is 100% GDPR compliant, and requires no downloads.

Because cobrowsing gives customer support agents screen control of a user’s system, it eliminates the back-and-forth with users over emails or chat conversations, ultimately increasing client engagement and reducing the frustration users and agents feel when trying to solve complex technical support issues.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software

A CRM platform maintains client relationships and engagement over time, tracking interactions. This data helps identify patterns and predict future needs, boosting customer satisfaction, loyalty, and revenue.

What is Low Touch in Customer Support

Low touch involves minimal interaction to optimize communication and engagement with customers. This strategy's foundation provides easy access to technical documentation and automated processes, with a dedicated manager for complex issues.

Low Touch Examples

Now that you understand what low touch means, you can identify some examples that may exist in your business workflow.

• Self-service portals: Self-service tools allow users to self-register and troubleshoot without waiting for customer care representatives.
• Knowledge bases: ****A knowledge base lets customers get information without customer care staff, saving time and effort for both the business and the customer.

Pros of Low Touch Customer Support

The benefits of low-touch customer support are simple:

• More efficient process: Clients will find this model effective and easy, as it allows them to research solutions independently. This is a huge benefit for those who like to use the product immediately without contacting customer support.
• Reduces business costs: This model is cost-effective as it doesn't require adjusting operations for demand and is scalable due to technology and automation handling higher contact volumes.

Cons of Low Touch Customer Support

Low-touch customer service is useful but has disadvantages, including:

• Reduces personalization: As you won’t interact with users directly, you can't offer customized solutions. So, instead of personalized support, clients use self-service tools and automated systems, which lack a human touch.
• Inability to address complex issues: Even with low-touch consumers, improper execution can lower retention rates, so level 3 customer support is essential for resolving critical issues.
• Allows for friction points: Customers may struggle to see your product's value, especially if they have onboarding issues and can't quickly get help from your team.

How to Implement Low-Touch Customer Support

A low-touch strategy is effective for B2B clients who prefer self-service. Here are some tactics for setting up these customer support solutions:

• Using chatbots for quick responses: Chatbots handle multiple conversations and quickly respond to basic inquiries. 48% of customers report being comfortable with bot interactions, and 71% would use them for better service.
• Creating comprehensive knowledge bases: Customers utilize self-service resources in customer-facing knowledge bases, saving time for support staff to handle complex inquiries and other tasks.
• Offering automated solutions: For true success, automate self-serve onboarding with help menus, product tours, and in-app alerts.

Technologies for Low-Touch Customer Support

For low-touch solutions, explore automated options like the one below:

Chatbots

When a consumer contacts a chatbot, it can offer immediate solutions, connect to a human agent for effective assistance, and provide estimated wait times.

Automated Email Service

Automated emails enable support agents to send personalized messages to prospects at optimal times, freeing teams to focus on other tasks and saving time and effort.

The Key Differences Between High Touch and Low Touch Customer Support

By now, you know what high-touch customer service and low-touch customer service are. But what exactly are the differences between high touch vs low touch customer support?

• Low-touch service suffices for generic, automated communication. Meanwhile, high-touch service is beneficial when dealing with valued or potentially risky clients.
• Both high-touch and low-touch services aim to enhance customer experience. Account managers offer personalized interactions in high-touch models, while low-touch relies on technology for convenient but impersonal encounters.
• High-touch service is costly, serving high-value clients with personalized support. In contrast, low-touch service is cost-effective, and suited for lower-value clients.

Now that you know low-touch vs high-touch customer success tactics, depending on the situation, choose what best suits your team.

Email and chat can be useful for low-touch customer service, but because they’re impersonal, they frequently perform poorly for high-touch. That’s where cobrowsing enters the scene.

High-touch customer service goes beyond solving problems. It aims to build relationships that enhance client satisfaction and loyalty. Cobrowsing, as a close approach to personalization in remote service, can help achieve this.

So, to balance in-depth involvement during the customer journey and maximize your customer service staff's potential, use both low-touch and high-touch approaches.

Which Customer Service Strategy Should You Choose: High Touch or Low Touch?

Certain businesses like those in professional services, IT, and finance benefit from a high-touch approach because direct communication with clients is crucial. However, simpler product or service companies value the adaptability, scalability, ease, and effectiveness of a low-touch customer success model.