Whether you are supporting internal users, third parties or a mixture, the simple answer is IMPROVED CUSTOMER SERVICE…
A good, modern helpdesk system, will improve customer service by helping you respond more quickly to helpdesk requests; by ensuring you deal with helpdesk requests within agreed service levels; by ensuring high visibility of helpdesk requests, updates and resolutions via email and/or web integration.
In essence a help desk will deliver efficiencies in your helpdesk processes. How does helpdesk make support more efficient? Ask yourself what happens when a customer contacts your support personnel with a new call?
- It depends if there is someone there to take the call; and it depends on who does take the call.
- The details captured vary depending on who took the call, and who called
- The new call becomes the priority, disrupting what was happening before the call
- All the calls get the same priority.
Ask yourself what happens when a customer contacts your support personnel for an update? Well, the following scenarios are common:
- It is not possible to track what has happened or is happening unless the person handling the request is free because only they know.
- Or the request for an update disrupts what was happening while you find the information for the customer.
Ask yourself how you track, monitor and assess helpdesk performance? Well, the following scenarios are common:
- Call a meeting to discuss known support issues in order to understand priorities, volumes and general performance.
- Manually compile call statistics.
- Respond when the customer complains about the lack of service.
Ask yourself if you can retrieve the resolution to past issues or see how often certain problems come up?
The following scenarios are common:
- We’ve had this problem before but would have to start from scratch.
- We can’t quite remember exactly what happened to cause it/ fix it.
- Joe Bloggs; did this last time, but he’s on holiday/ left the company/ not in right now.
Ask yourself how you ensure support work is evenly, fairly or appropriately distributed across your support resource? Well, the following issues are common:
- Easy issues are cherry picked first, while difficult calls can go unresolved.
- Some time is spent manually deciding who to give the call too.
- Even simple calls are passed straight to the subject experts.
If you recognise any of these scenarios as features of your current support process then a help desk will offer many benefits that will help you:
- Save time during call registration by allowing customer self-registration via the web or email. You may still offer a telephone service for urgent issues.
- Save time by ensuring that mandatory and important call details are captured consistently during registration or at initial call review.
- Save time be providing logic to default the call to specific support resources based on the type/ classification of the new call.
- Save time by automatically determining target resolution dates based on the service level agreements defined for the customer.
- Save time by automatically distributing call updates internally and to the customer by email.
- Save time by setting “diary” reminders internally and for the customer to ensure that calls are actioned when necessary.
- Save time by providing access to a knowledge base built-up from call history that allows first line resources to resolve commonly reported issues; and provide details of past resolutions to less common issues for second line too.
- Save time by automatically flagging calls approaching or past SLA targets.
- Save time by automatically generating call statistics for reporting internally and to your customer.
In essence a help desk will ensure that customer help desk requests are handled in a consistent and structure process.