Plan requirement
| Subscription | Any plan |
| Access | Admin |
Match the channel to the question, not to what looks modern. Three properties decide which fits: urgency, complexity and emotion.
The three properties
- Urgency. Does the customer need an answer now, or today?
- Complexity. Can it be answered in two sentences, or does it need attachments and back-and-forth?
- Emotion. Is somebody upset?
What each is good at
Email and the help centre form. Complicated questions, attachments, anything needing a considered answer. Also anything where a written record matters to both sides.
Messaging. Short questions, mobile customers, conversations that pause and resume. The best default for consumer-facing support.
Live chat. Someone stuck on your website right now. Genuinely effective for that, and expensive for anything else.
Phone. Emotion and complexity together. A frustrated customer with a complicated problem is a phone call, and forcing that into chat makes it worse for everybody.
Social and WhatsApp. Where your customers already are. Choose these because your audience is there, not because the channel exists.
Do not offer every channel for every question
Directing a password reset to the help centre and a billing dispute to the phone is not restricting your customers. It is putting each question where it can be answered well.
The help centre is the natural place to steer, because a question answered by an article costs nobody anything.
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