Table of Contents

    The customer experience is at the heart of every successful business. That’s particularly true for companies that provide data security for business end users. When data security is your business, you’re in a position of trust. You earn and maintain that trust by giving your B2B customers the highest possible level of customer support. 

    Discover exactly what customer service for a data security product should look like and how AI-enabled platforms and digital tools can improve customer support. Explore the ins and outs of building a great customer support team, training that team, and preparing for every eventuality. 

    You’ll also learn about some of the major issues that customer support teams face, along with 10 actionable tips for delivering the highest quality of customer support. Remember, excellent customer service is one of the best ways to build long-term customer loyalty and develop positive word-of-mouth marketing.

    What Is Customer Support for a Data Security Product?

    Customer support for a data security product is an umbrella term: It refers to all of the front- and back-end work that goes into making end users feel secure, confident, and well-informed. In the modern world, customer support entails leveraging AI to increase access to knowledge and break down data siloes. 

    Here are the key ingredients for great customer support for B2B businesses in the tech space.

    Balancing Compliance and Innovation

    There’s a constant push and pull between the drive to innovate and the need to stay accountable to data privacy regulations. Depending on your location and industry focus, you’re almost certainly governed by one or more data privacy acts, and compliance should be a key concern.

    At the same time, your business depends on bold exploration. Your customers rely on you to deliver great products, which requires ongoing innovation to keep up with ever-evolving technological advances.

    You can achieve that balance by baking compliance into your technical innovation. At the outset of every new project, explore the project’s implications and check that you are complying with relevant laws. Train your team regularly on the practical implications of data privacy laws.

    Improving Incident Response Times

    A vital part of customer support is demonstrating to your clients that you are available and ready to help whenever there is an incident. As the B2B landscape has grown more complex, though, many companies struggle to respond appropriately and quickly to incidents. 

    In other words, improving your response time gives you the opportunity to stand out from the competition and build customer loyalty.

    You can speed up your response time by setting up clear protocols for your technical staff to follow. Hold regular training sessions, especially since the cyber-threat landscape is constantly changing. Using an AI platform that facilitates data sharing and surfaces information quickly can allow for much faster responses.

    It’s also a good practice to create an effective alert system and test it frequently. Automated threat detection tools should also be tested and evaluated on a regular basis to make sure they’re still working at maximum capacity.using AI to deliver a differentiated customer experience.

    Reducing Alert Fatigue

    Alert fatigue is all too common for people fighting cyber threats. Workers who deal with secure data are constantly bombarded with alarms and notifications. Naturally, after a while, a false sense of calm sets in, and alarms fail to really register.

    Obviously, if your staff are overlooking any security alerts, you’re not providing the right level of customer support. Fortunately, there are ways to avoid the burnout that leads to alert fatigue.

    Setting realistic alert levels and eliminating duplicate alerts is a good start. By the same token, try to centralize notifications so that your technical support engineer doesn’t need to check multiple platforms. AI-native automation can help organize and prioritize alerts. 

    Finally, as far as possible, minimize the overtime that your workers take on. Aim for a well-rested workforce to avoid burnout and alert fatigue.

    Assembling a Strong Customer Support Team

    We’ve talked about the strategies to handle the unique customer service challenges in data protection. Now take a look at how to develop a strong, dedicated customer support team to follow these strategies.

    During the hiring process, look for support team candidates with a deep understanding of cybersecurity issues, including ransomware, cryptography, phishing, malware, and advanced persistent threats (APT). Your customer service representatives will need to be familiar with these issues so that they can provide clear explanations to customers.

    Likewise, make sure your customer support team has excellent communication skills. Verbal and written communication are both important, as your team will likely be speaking on the phone as well as responding to emails and text-based queries.

    You’ll also need to provide a baseline of training for your support team so that they have a thorough knowledge of your products. It’s a good practice to make the training process ongoing so your staff stays informed about any changes to your products.

    Building the Right Customer Support Infrastructure

    You can set your customer support team up for success by creating the right infrastructure for them. The best customer support infrastructure has both digital and human elements.

    Creating a Support Portal

    Customers need a fast, easy way to reach you when they have questions. You can facilitate communication by setting up a support portal.

    The portal should include a messaging function so that customers can quickly ask questions, make requests, and lodge complaints. Of course, your team will need to monitor this channel regularly so that customers get timely responses.

    Your support portal should also give customers a method to create and track their issues. If a customer makes a complaint or request, they should be able to log in to the portal and receive updates about how their issue is being addressed. 

    The portal should also include articles, fact sheets, and other sources of information about your products and about data security in general. Build this library of information in different forms of media, including text and video. This allows customers to follow their own preferences when gathering information. 

    You should also provide portal users with an updated list of any ongoing security threats. Even if those threats don’t directly impact you and your customers, sharing this information with end users gives them a more comprehensive picture of what support they may need.

    Harnessing the Power of AI Copilots

    AI copilots provide a fast, easy point of contact between the customer and your business. They can answer common questions and refer more complex matters to the right customer service representative.

    You can make your AI-powered co-pilot available in your customer support portal and on your website so that customers will have access to the service at all times.

    Connecting with Technical Staff

    Your customer service team should have open channels of communication with your IT staff. It’s sometimes easy for information to get siloed in one department, with the result that customer support staff don’t have access to the latest information.

    This problem can be easily resolved by choosing the right solutions. Look for a platform that harnesses the power of AI to connect your teams and eliminate data siloes.

    Whenever possible, schedule regular meetings so that technical employees can brief customer-facing staff on recent developments. This can also be an opportunity for your support team to update engineers and product designers on customer concerns. 

    Planning for Every Eventuality — Including a Breach

    Customer service teams have a few overarching purposes. First, they need to be capable of explaining your products to end users. That includes answering questions, troubleshooting, and explaining the differences between your products and others.

    Beyond this, customer support teams must be capable of assisting your end users if you or your clients ever experience a data breach. It’s important to plan ahead so that your support staff know exactly what to do when customer data is threatened.

    Build a Response Team

    Creating an incident response team for data breaches adds a layer of protection so that your whole organization will be well-positioned in the case of a security event.

    It also gives your customer support team a clear protocol to follow. Your incident response team can brief the support staff on exactly what’s happening so that they can pass the news along to customers. 

    A good response team should have representatives from key departments in your organization, such as IT, engineering, and legal affairs. If possible, a member of your support team should also sit on the response team.

    Put Together a List of Legal Obligations

    Data privacy is subject to local, national, and international regulations. Prepare ahead of time by creating a list of the regulations that impact your company. Make sure your customer support staff is fully up to date on these laws and prepared to answer customer questions about them.

    Establish a Company “Tone” for Public Communications

    Just as every company has a brand, every organization should have a trademark communication style. This guides your level of formality, openness, and interactivity with customers.

    Of course, every company should have a baseline of transparency and accessibility when it comes to customer communication. That’s an important part of earning customer trust. 

    At the same time, each business will have a unique spin on how to most effectively interact with end users. It’s best to decide that tone before any major security events so that your customers already know what to expect from you in terms of communication.

    10 Tips for Providing Top-Notch Customer support

    Every company is different, but every support team deals with some of the same basic challenges. Here are 10 top tips for optimizing your customer support.

    1. Be Proactive With Communication

    Wherever possible, take the lead in communicating with customers. Don’t wait for questions; if there is a data security concern, get ahead of it by informing your customers right away. Provide as much information as possible. This will increase customers’ trust in you and build a long-lasting relationship.

    2. Focus on Empathy

    It’s a good practice to put yourself in your customers’ shoes and imagine how they must feel. Build an understanding of your customers’ concerns, their fears, and their goals. Ask yourself what they need from you in order to feel confident and secure. 

    3. Deliver Fast Turnaround

    No matter what the business, customers struggle with long waiting times. In the data security sector, that’s particularly true.

    Customers want quick answers to their questions and concerns. They also want a seamless online experience where they don’t have to think about data security. Your job is to provide that experience.

    4. Lead With Patience

    Angry customers are challenging to deal with. Even the best customer service team can lose patience and be tempted to respond with harsh language. However, it’s important to cultivate an attitude of patience when working with customers. Having confidence in your product makes it easier to maintain patience in the face of criticism.

    5. Be Consistent

    To achieve a high level of customer support, be as consistent as possible. Maintain a solid standard of excellence in your product. Remember that your goal is always to protect customers’ data security and privacy. 

    Likewise, aim for consistent excellence in your customer support. Be consistently responsive and informative. 

    6. Establish a Zero Trust Framework

    Zero trust means being on your guard against every potential threat. To keep your customers’ data secure, ensure that your support team members have to verify their identity to access that data at all times. Maintaining a policy of continuous verification and strictly limiting access to privileged data protects your customers’ interests.

    7. Implement SOC Automation

    One of the best ways to avoid burnout is to build automation into your system. Security Operations Center (SOC) automation uses tools such as AI and data analytics to automate tedious manual processes. This frees up your staff to focus on more complex issues. It also protects you against human error.

    8. Adhere to Compliance Frameworks

    Compliance frameworks such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) are crucial parts of the data privacy landscape. Adhere strictly to the rules in the industries you serve, and keep careful records so that you can prove your compliance to your customers.

    9. Keep Your Employees Happy and Productive

    Satisfied employees are more productive and committed to your business, which means they are more attentive both to your customers and to security concerns. Minimize overtime and work to keep your team as content and engaged as possible. In the long run, this leads to greater customer satisfaction.

    10. Leverage the Power of AI

    Today’s B2B companies have high expectations: They demand fast, seamless customer support and effortless workflows. You can deliver the speed and ease your customers want by using AI tools. AptEdge, for example, curates information and makes sense of scattered data so that everyone on your team can deliver more to your customers.

    Final Thoughts

    Customer support is one of the most critical elements of any business’s success, and it’s especially important given the high demands for trust in data security. Working with a team of experts and implementing the right AI-powered solutions help your company improve its customer support and deliver an even better product to your end users.

    Subscribe for more Knowledge

    Get more insights on technical support excellence: