Help desk software
Nobody likes a dumb question. This includes the members of your online business team who ensure that customer complaints are met with helpful answers. Unfortunately, most customers are so excited to use their new product that they neglect to educate themselves with the user manual. These same frustrated customers will call support with questions that are easily answered, tying up the phone lines as customers with more complex complaints anxiously wait.
However, there is a solution – it’s called help desk software or customer support software. This software is designed to either help customers help themselves or to assist customers in contacting technical support. There are a couple ways that help desk software accomplishes this task.
Most customer support software will include a list of frequently asked questions (FAQ). An FAQ is a relatively short list of some of the most common questions that are asked of customer support and their answers. When customers first use help desk software, they should be exposed to a program or self-help list which will attempt to answer their questions before they ever get a chance to make a call.
Most major retailers are performing this task today by funneling customers needing support into a short questionnaire or troubleshooting session, handled by software, which will either answer the customer’s question or display contact information for phone support.
There is another option which separates the customer from costly phone support – text support in the form of chat messaging and email. The email option allows support teams to handle customer questions on their own time, allowing for more efficiency in handling complaints. It also allows more severe complaints to be handled before all others as support employees can choose which complaints they address first.
Chat messaging does not offer this triage effect for severity of complaints, but it does connect customers and support employees in a way that minimizes wait times and confusion. When on the phone, poor connections and differing accents can result in many poorly transmitted messages causing confusion and frustration. However, text is always clear and, in most cases, understood.
So you see, help desk software can do wonders for your company’s online business. While your competitors’ support teams are gridlocked with customers asking simple questions, you can educate your customers on how to use your product without even answering a complaint.
As your competitors’ support teams struggle to hear customers with bad cell phone reception or different accents than their own, your support employees will be sending satisfied, educated customers on their way. In business it all boils down to who can provide the most value to their customers. By contemplating adding help desk software to your online business, you may give your company the edge it needs to outclass the competition.
If you invest in help desk software for the benefit of your business, you will be able to automatically notice the difference and reap the benefits, whilst watching your business grow and enhance within its competitive market place; let me explain how.
You have to think about how running your business would be without this vital software; you could, in a worst case scenario, potentially risk losing your existing customer base, future sales and prospective sales opportunities. Furthermore, by not investing in help desk software it may leave important emails and tickets unanswered, leaving your customers in dismay! You’re probably thinking how do I avoid this happening? Well, the first and foremost reason why introducing help desk software will help you to grow your business, is that you will be able to provide better customer care to your existing customer base. Furthermore, another feature of help desk software, is that it will help you organise yourself, which will help you provide better customer service, as it will be more time efficient (due to the update facility, which gives you an idea of when to contact your customer, which is embedded within the software).
Additionally, the help desk software should be able to provide a better level of support for your current customers, as well as your future customers (this point could form a part of your sales strategy which could entice future customers), again because it is organised, but additionally because your staff will be able to access one shared location, where all your customers’ information is kept. Therefore, reference to it, is fast and simple, so it doesn’t provide a huge amount of inconvenience to your customer and ultimately, this will keep your customers’ content.
Another business benefit is the fact that through installing help desk software, your company will notice a substantial saving in costs and reduction in overheads, as many processes will be made automatic and customer queries will be dealt with quickly. This is whilst still simultaneously encouraging your current customers to engage in further business with you through increasing the interaction between the help desk analyst and customer. Help desk software also provides the facility for your customers to email their query directly to the help desk, thus reducing the costs of expensive telephone calls.
From an internal point of view, the help desk will allow you to organise your customer’s enquiries in a logical manner, therefore if needing to be actioned, it’s easy for your Analysts to locate the call and action it accordingly. Importantly, the calls with a high level of urgency will be prioritised, automatically through the help desk software.
To ensure your customers stay loyal to you, you need to have the best help desk software in place. By allowing the help desk software to flourish within your business, your organisation will be able to reap the benefits of improved efficiency, happier customers and lower overheads with an overall growth in your business.