What is Meant by ‘Business Support Service’?

Business support services play an important part in solving a customer's requests and queries promptly. Reliable business support services are essential in maintaining a business’s image. Companies can outsource their support services on a contractual basis to enhance the customer experience.

What is Business Support Service?

Business support services solve a customer's problems and provide them with an instant solution. The services provided are related to commerce, business, telemarketing, etc. IT management services are usually outsourced. These include network security, application patching, comprehensive data backup, 24/7 online availability, data monitoring to correct issues, and handling potential threats to the company online.

These services are also used to manage logistics and distribution. The kind of business support services that companies provide include:

• Technical support services
• Customer support services
• Virtual assistant services
• Call centre services

Role of Business Support Services in Small and Medium Enterprises

Business support services build the foundation for small and medium companies, facilitate cash flow management, meet financial projections, build teams and work environments, etc. All these parameters are important to reduce the chances of failure. A company can manage the following four business areas through business support services. These are payments, invoices, revenues, and order management. These processes are explained below:

1. Product management

Product management boosts sales, devises product discount schemes, determines pricing methods, and manages interrelated products.

2. Customer management

The service providers need to review the preferences and queries of customers to provide the best possible solutions. Increasing customer satisfaction is the primary objective of business support services. They provide 24/7 services to the customers. This is a great way to increase customer satisfaction and trust.

Customer management also covers CRM (Customer relationship management). It is essential to build customer service software that tracks all customer queries. A CRM (customer relationship management) streamlines this process. It handles a company's relationship with its customers and improves profitability.

3. Revenue management

Revenue management focuses on the billing of a company. It tracks charges levied to customer accounts for services availed, wholesale services, roaming services, etc., to build a billing system. Business support services help reduce expenses and increase revenues. It also includes fraud management and revenue assurance.

4. Order management

Order management creates a systematic order flow for a company. It consists of four major elements - order decomposition, order orchestration, order fallout, and order status management.

Benefits/Importance of Business Support Services

The importance of business support services are:

1. Safety and Security

Business support services provide safety to small- and medium-scale companies. A company’s data is invaluable, and these services secure this data. Data handling can boost a company’s reputation and customer's trust in the business. A company needs to ensure that customer data is up to date at all times. Some companies fail due to poor services in this area.

2. Business Expenses

Business support services can help companies save money. IT consultants can help small- or medium-scale enterprises save time and money when finding the right candidate. A company need not look for candidates to fill vacancies. A company need not bear expenses like healthcare, benefits, equipment cost, employee-related cost, etc., thus saving money. These savings can be used for other purposes like business expansion.

3. 24/7 access

Business support services provide 24/7 assistance, thus meeting a company’s needs whenever required. It assures a company that professionals will take care of things as per client requirements. For example, a company that offers 24/7 services to small and medium businesses and supports IT growth.

4. Client satisfaction

Client satisfaction is one of the most important aspects of business support services. The service providers strive to maintain a good relationship between a company and its clients and offer them the best service possible. It helps build a company's reputation and rapport with its customers. The loyalty and trust of customers are directly proportional to a company's profits.

5. Extra Time for Business Growth

Business support services save a business’s time that can be invested someplace else for growth. A company can focus on improving its product or services, investing in new machinery, boosting marketing strategies, SEO development, etc., all of which lead to growth.

6. Automated Services

Business support services offer automated services 24/7. Automation boosts a company’s overall performance and the experience of customers. It has a faster response rate compared to manual phone calls. Automated chatbots solve customer issues immediately. The follow-up is easy and efficient.

7. Instant problem solving

A customer’s problems need to be solved instantly to reduce resolution lead times and increase customer satisfaction. Customers are happy when their problems are addressed immediately and solved quickly. It increases a company's goodwill, and happy customers make a better company. Business support services help a company solve customer problems promptly.

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FAQs

Q. Why does a company need to manage IT support services?

Ans. IT management is important irrespective of the scale of the business. It is a proactive approach to increase company productivity and reduce downtime. It also takes care of cybersecurity.

Q. What are managed support services, and why are they important?

Ans. Managed services are outsourced functions and responsibilities in IT management, including network security, application patching, data backups, 24/7 online availability, data monitoring, and online threat management. They offer technical, customer, and virtual support services.

Q. How to choose a good support service provider?

Ans. It takes time and hard work to pick the right service provider for your company. You can fast-track the process by planning the important steps based on your requirements. Start by identifying your company's preferences and IT services required, such as software, business continuity, licensing, mobile management, etc. The next step is to compile a list of MSPs (managed service providers) and let them know your requirements. Select the best service provider relevant to your business.

Q. How does business support services for the IT sector different from staff augmentation?

Ans. Business support services are outsourced functions and responsibilities in IT management. They offer technical, customer, virtual support services. It is a proactive approach to increase productivity and reduce downtime. It also ensures cybersecurity.

Staff augmentation is an outsourcing strategy used to staff a large project. It provides an outsourced IT team to the company's IT department to handle IT-related issues. It evaluates the existing staff and determines the need for additional staff. It is essential for large-scale companies or IT projects like Office 365 installation or new VoIP systems. They hire additional contractors to support the managed IT services, spending resources to hire skilled IT service providers.