From snail-mail correspondence, to the telephone, to self-service knowledge bases, to social communities, customer service continues to evolve and expand its footprint across a range of delivery channels, according to Parature (News - Alert) officials.

Parature, a leading provider of Web-based customer support software, has a white paper giving a good overview of channel choice in customer service today. They find it is best determined by a company's business model, but that "most successful businesses today offer a multi-channel approach that gives their customers options in seeking service."

In other words, companies don't need to offer every possible channel to their user base - just the ones they find to be most effective, based on their constituency. Determining which ones will be most effective is, of course, the fun.

Rosanne D'Ausilio, president of Human Technologies Global, said "support organizations have to make sure that the channel chosen resolves whatever the issue is, because if a customer has to try three different channels and hasn't resolved their problem, they're not going to bother anymore - they're going to get frustrated and tell several people."

According to a recent survey conducted by Supportindustry.com, the telephone is still the most oft-used channel for both B2C and B2B companies, with 95 percent of respondents providing it.

In the white paper, Parature gives thumbnail rundowns of some of the other most popular channels:

--Chat: Like the telephone, chat provides customers with assisted service, but can be used more efficiently by agents, many of whom can juggle multiple sessions simultaneously. Not only has chat made solid inroads into support organizations for post-sales service, it's gotten a nice foothold in pre-sales situations, increasing the likelihood that customers will buy. Because chat is text-based, agents require different skill sets than phone-based support demands, so hiring and training should be tailored accordingly.

--E-mail: A long-used alternative to the phone, e-mail has been a very effective channel, but only when backed by response-time guarantees. To streamline email transactions, support shops take advantage of autoresponse capabilities, pass-thru authentication, and other features.

--Social networks: Social media in various incarnations: Facebook (News - Alert), Twitter, homegrown forums, and dedicated third-party communities - bring users together to praise, complain, and offer suggestions about their providers' service performance. When companies use that correctly, they can improve products and service delivery.

To download a free copy of this informative white paper, click here.