Fast, accurate, and empathetic. How Airbase delivers quality support.

“[The Airbase] Customer Support function is unmatched in the industry. They are very quick to respond and always making product improvements.” — Airbase review on G2

As the Director of Customer Support at Airbase, reviews like this inspire me. They’ve also helped us earn a rating of 9.4/10 for Quality of Support on G2. That outpaces legacy solutions like Expensify (8.8), Coupa (7.6), and Tipalti (8.6).

We’re committed to making the Airbase Customer Support experience exceptional and to setting the standard for the industry. Central to our success is meeting the needs of all customers, no matter how they prefer to engage with Support.

For example, I’ve always loved problem-solving and figuring things out independently. My wife, on the other hand, would rather connect with support to quickly reach a resolution. That’s why I’m radically committed to providing a customer support experience that lets you do both: connect directly with a person or easily find an answer in our Help Center, all from within Airbase.

Let’s take a look at how we work to make the Airbase Customer Support experience better every day and what we’re doing to set a high bar for the industry as a whole.

The right team.

When I first started at Airbase, I was thrilled to learn that many of our team members were highly experienced former accountants. Others had spent years supporting accounting platforms and software, so they also deeply understand accounting workflows.

The team’s depth of experience helps them empathize with any frustrations a user experiences and understand what they want to accomplish. We also have regular training sessions on developing empathy and problem-solving skills, and it’s something we prioritize in hiring decisions.

By truly understanding the customers’ day-to-day experiences and challenges, we can help advise them on best practices.

Toward a seamless experience.

Being able to get the help you need as soon as possible is important for a good experience. That’s why Airbase has an easy-to-find in-app support widget, which is represented by a question mark “?” icon on all pages.

When you click on the icon, it opens our in-app support widget. From there, you can choose:

• Live Chat, so you can receive help on your issues without navigating away from the page you’re working on.

Our data show that resolution times are faster through chat than through a support ticket, and satisfaction scores are higher. Chat support has become an integral part of our customer service offering. It reduces back-and-forth interactions and enhances the experience by providing quick and effective resolutions.

• A link right to our robust Help Center, where you can search for info on all things Airbase.
• A link to What’s New, which features our product updates to help you stay up to date on the latest developments.

This in-app support is crucial to meeting your needs, whether you’re like me and want to find the answer for yourself, or like my wife and want to speak directly to someone for help.

The Airbase Customer Support team + AI (the cherry on top).

Exciting recent advances in AI make it an obvious solution to help support our customers and agents. One study found that companies who integrate AI capabilities into their support have 3.5 times the customer satisfaction rates of those who do not.

However, despite the obvious advantages of AI, I want to ensure that we continue to meet our customers where they are — understanding their needs and exceeding their expectations.

With this in mind, we’ve implemented Forethought’s generative AI in two primary ways to improve customer experience:

1. Triage.

One of the most important challenges of Support is ensuring the appropriate triage and routing of a customer’s requests (tickets).

Using AI to streamline and automate this process has been a great way to ensure optimum routing and prioritization. This has reduced manual efforts on triage, freeing our Support team to spend more of their time focusing on resolving customer requests.

2. In-app conversations.

For those of you who want to find the answer for yourself, we also use AI in conjunction with our Help Center to create an “on-demand” experience.

When a customer asks a question, generative AI helps provide an answer immediately. Drawing on the over 1,100 articles in our Help Center, AI quickly sends a conversational response summarizing the answer, including step-by-step directions and links to the relevant Help Center article.

This means users can quickly ask questions and receive answers right from within Airbase. Customers can ask questions by going to the in-app support widget and selecting Support. Anything that requires a more in-depth investigation is routed to a Support agent through chat or email.

The interaction between AI and our Support team confirms my belief that AI is at its most powerful when it complements human support instead of replacing it. I like the analogy of power tools being used for construction: the tools help you do the job better but you still have to do the work.

AI enhances our Support team’s capabilities, allowing them to focus on high-level support issues and providing a more personalized experience for our customers.

The implementation of AI has led to a notable decrease in resolution time. Internal Service Level Agreements are consistently met at a high rate, showcasing the efficiency gains achieved through AI integration.

Constant improvement.

Here at Airbase, Continuous Improvement is one of our core values, and our Support team epitomizes this value.

Airbase implements new features at a breakneck speed, and our Support team focuses daily on mastering Airbase’s new and existing features. We want our Support team to quickly and accurately answer customers’ questions and provide consultative responses so users can fully leverage the platform.

Because of our rapidly evolving product capabilities, I often describe leading a Support team as “building the plane while it’s in flight.” It’s necessary to maintain altitude (i.e., continue to provide support to your customer) all while fitting new, more efficient, and effective engines (streamlined processes, improved tools, etc.).

We do this through ongoing training and enablement and by reviewing our customers’ requests weekly and monthly. We use this data to improve our support processes, our product, and the customer experience.

Our Support experts are deeply connected to our Product team, and they work closely together to review the voice of the customer. In fact, our product roadmap is largely driven by customer enhancement requests and revealing conversations about what would improve workflows for them. The close partnership between our Product and Support teams is a win-win for everyone involved and has created an exceptional support experience.

You’ll see this reflected in our reviews and case studies. For example, one G2 reviewer wrote:

“Airbase’s Product team has been very receptive to any sort of feedback and turning that feedback into concrete improvements at a fast pace, which we love.”

We also work closely with the Help Center team and Customer Success team, with regular meetings and data sharing.

As we progress, our Support and Product teams will continue to work together to listen to what our customers are saying and, at a minimum, meet their needs while exceeding their expectations whenever possible. The measure of our success is our customers’ satisfaction, and we will always strive to ensure that they are not just satisfied, but delighted.

In the ever-evolving customer support landscape, Airbase remains committed to delivering fast, accurate, and empathetic assistance provided by accounting and product experts, guaranteeing our customers maximize their Airbase experience.