Focusing on customer service is something no business can overlook, these days. Amidst strong competition and growing awareness among the customers, no company can rely on just promotional offers and digital marketing to woo and retain the customers. For offering great customer service, your company needs to use specialized helpdesk software. Suitable helpdesk applications come with oodles of features that bring multiple benefits.
Your company can benefit from the enhanced efficacy of employees, reduced snags, better coordination, and better customer satisfaction by using such solutions. These software solutions also sync with existing IT services and software used by the company.
Resolving various customer service related issues with IT Helpdesk solution
The customers may have varying requirements and they can approach your company with queries and problems. Deploying suitable IT help desk solution can help the company address such requirements better and faster. When the customer satisfaction level is high it leads to high retention level. However, the support agents have to utilize the features of these tools in the apt ways to extract maximum benefits.
Listed below are the ways an IT help desk application can be used to resolve numerous customer service issues better:
#1 Automation of repetitive, simple tasks-
In every company, the customer care representatives have to deal with some commonplace issues on a daily basis. This can include answering some basic queries on popular products/services and resolving commonplace problems. Instead of going through the same procedures everyday to resolve such issues, the agents can automate the task to address customer needs.
Some of the automation can be done through email templates and chatbots can also be engaged with live chat setup for the same purpose. Most helpdesk tools will let you set such automation related to support operations.
#2 Tweaking ticket management settings-
A majority of businesses use helpdesk tools that come with ticket generation and handling features. However, the agents need to tweak the default ticket management settings in the software to get the best results. Typically, these software come with ticket creation with conditions and filters. Provisions are there to convert social media posts into tickets and emails can also be turned into tickets.
This helps reduce tasks of the agents and time can be saved too. Additionally, filters can be set to prioritize and tag the tickets as per priority. By changing the ticket management settings in the IT Helpdesk tool, productivity can be increased and risks of conflicts or delay can be reduced. Filters can also be set to assign tickets to specific agents- based on type of issue.
#3 Guiding the customers to self-service portal-
Not all customer queries need intervention by the support agents, as it is. A lot of customer queries and grievances can be tackled by directing the concerned customers to the company’s self service portal. This section typically contains the FAQ, video resources, and knowledge base.
While a section of customers try to find the self service section without being prodded, that is not the case with the others! The support agents can resort to numerous measures to motivate those customers to use the portal to resolve less serious issues.
This can be done by including link to the portal in emails and at the end of chat sessions. In fact, the link can also be provided in the company’s social media profiles. This will eventually help in reducing load on the support staffs and they will be able to engage in complex and important tasks.
#4 Managing SLAs-
The majority of help desk tools have features to create and manage Service Level Agreements. The SLAs define scope, quality and responsibilities of a service offered by the company. SLAs can be created for dealing between two companies but it is used by the companies more often to deal with the customers.
An SLA outlines exactly what can be expected from both parties and the consequences for service provider if agreements cannot be met.
Creating and managing the SLAs can be complicated and time consuming for the companies, as it is. This can be eased by deploying the helpdesk tool. SLAs in the help desk solutions are deployed mostly for ticket management.
#5 Linking with the CRM database and other software-
To utilize the potential of a helpdesk tool it should be linked with the existing software of the company. It should be linked with the CRM database, to start with. This makes work easier for the support agents. The helpdesk should also have integration with other cloud services used in the company and its social media profiles too. The sync makes sharing resources and collaborating with other teams of the company easier.
#6 Utilizing the analytics and reporting features-
Most of the present generation IT helpdesk tools are laden with robust analytics and reporting feature set. The reporting tools can be utilized by the company to evaluate many aspects of the support operations properly. This includes performance of agents, customer satisfaction rating (time wise), software and service performance etc.
These software solutions can extract information from phone call logs, saved chat sessions, emails and even social media feeds. The reports will give the company management clear ideas on areas that need improvement and they will be able to address important issues. It is also possible to define schedules for the system to auto generate reports.
#7 Using customer opinions to improve IT helpdesk services-
The helpdesk tool is primarily used to resolve several queries and grievances of the customers. However, the tool can also be deployed to get feedbacks of the customers on various IT services used by the company. The live chat session can be used to take a small survey on this.
A small questionnaire can be made to take opinion of the customers on website, mobile app, self service section and overall support offered by the company. The feedback can be analyzed to figure out which part of IT based helpdesk service can be enhanced to address the customer needs better.
#8 Setting options for generating alerts-
The IT service desk software is used extensively to monitor various aspects of support operations and enhance the efficacy of various processes. So, the users (agents) need to tweak settings to let the software issue alerts when some conflict takes place. For example, the software can issue an alert if it detects two agents are working on one ticket- by mistake.
The application can also issue alerts if attempts of unauthorized access are made to the CRM database. It can also be set to issue alerts if a ticket is kept pending over the expected period. This way major hassles and conflicts in support operation can be evaded.
Selecting the right IT help desk solution
It is imperative that you choose the apt IT help desk software for your venture. You have to analyze if the software you have chosen has the required features, to start with. Next, you need to check the extent of customization possible with the software. You may try few such help desk applications in trial mode- which the vendors allow, mostly. Thereafter, you can make up your mind about the most apt tool and invest in it.
