Challenges startups face delivering good customer service

It is gratifying to see your startup grow. But a thriving business can pull your attention in many different directions—and sometimes, that means customer service gets overlooked. Many business owners focus their attention on product and marketing plans, hoping to achieve success by attracting new customers. Less often do they consider how to retain customers once acquired.

It has been established that it is more economical to retain existing customers than to acquire new ones. Statistics indicate that existing customers are more likely to try your new products and spend more money. Despite this, statistics also show that companies are more likely to invest in customer acquisition than retention.

Here's why this might be the case:

New customers look good on paper

Many metrics tracked by companies are merely "vanity metrics." They create an illusion that marketing efforts are paying off so businesses can demonstrate their success to stakeholders. For example, a business may track the total number of customers acquired, when they should be tracking the cost of each acquisition. They may track monthly revenue per customer, when they should be looking at customer lifetime value. Too many companies sacrifice actionable metrics in favor of numbers that boost their self-image.

New customers provide early gratification

New companies often seek quick victories to stay relevant in the market, and they know acquiring customers boosts short term revenue. Unfortunately, sometimes it's too late before they realize the importance of customer lifetime value, which is relative to customer retention. For these companies, closing two new deals feels like an achievement—even if five customers drop.

Over time, companies with this mindset will find it increasingly difficult to stay in business. Customer lifetime value plays a major role in long-term success, which means providing a high-quality customer experience is crucial.

Now let this sink in, 86% of customers are willing to pay more for a better customer experience. That shows how hard good customer service is to come by these days. Though an acquisition-driven growth strategy is not necessarily a bad thing, it's important to ensure that you're providing a top-notch experience to customers once they're acquired. This is how customers become your brand evangelists.

It's important that you keep up with increasing customer requests as your business grows. Remember, it only takes one bad experience for a customer to turn to one of your rivals. But providing quality customer support can be challenging for small businesses, especially since the responsibility of handling customer requests usually falls on a small team, and sometimes a single person. Even when the company has the means to hire more support reps, these teams often lack the right tools to succeed. There's only so much email can contribute to a good customer experience.

Customer service can't rely on email alone

As a customer support tool, email can be slow, cluttered, and limited in functionality. It doesn’t give you the visibility or structure needed to manage growing customer conversations effectively. And when it comes to understanding how customers feel—something that’s essential to offering a great experience—email alone just doesn’t cut it.

Here are a few signs your business has outgrown its email inbox for customer support:

• Your inbox is overflowing, and requests are piling up, causing delays in response times.

• It’s hard to identify or prioritize urgent customer issues.

• Some emails go unanswered, while others get multiple replies.

• You lose track of conversations and find it difficult to follow case history.

• Customers are reaching out on social media or your website, but your inbox can’t handle messages from those channels.

• You can’t measure performance or gain insights from your customer interactions.

Time to move beyond your inbox

Many small businesses start by handling support over email—it’s familiar, accessible, and cost-effective. But as your business grows, so does the need for better organization and faster responses. That's where email ticketing system comes in. 

Email ticketing software turns every incoming email into a customer service ticket. A ticket is a complete record that captures every interaction between the customer and the service team until the issue is resolved. It helps your team stay organized, avoid duplicate replies, and track performance.

Start with email, grow into omnichannel

You don’t have to leap straight into a complex system. The right solution lets you start small with email ticketing and scale up as your business grows. For instance, as your customer base expands, you might start receiving queries through social media, messaging apps, phone, and more. With an omnichannel ticketing system, you can manage all these interactions in one place, withoit juggling multiple tools. No matter where a conversation starts, every customer gets consistent, timely support. 

However, finding software that allows this kind of flexible, step-by-step growth isn’t always easy.

Why most customer service solutions in the market today aren't ideal for small businesses?

Many software solutions come with high price tags and a long list of complex features that small teams rarely need. The ones that open up their starting plans for small businesses, lure them with seemingly low price but hide the most essential functionalities in higher plans. A growing business needs access to basic features, with the option to upgrade plans as its customer base expands. But the popularity of "bait and switch" subscription plans often makes this impossible. These plans require businesses to purchase additional functionalities as expensive add-ons, on top of already loft subscription prices.

For a young business that has settled on an option after intense research, onboarding should not feel like a business challenge, but a solution. For vendors, emphasis should be on empathizing with every business size rather than chasing only the "big wins".

Can Zoho help?  

Absolutely! If email is your comfort zone, that's okay. Transitioning to ticketing software should not be stressful or painfully expensive. The Express edition of Zoho Desk is easy to implement, simple to use, and affordable. It includes both email and socialmedia support, covering exactly what most small businesses need. And as you grow, you can seamlessly upgrade to access more advanced capabilities—all within the same platform.

Learn more about why Zoho Desk is the best customer support software for small businesses.