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Archive for January 2010

Help Desk Software

By Steve · Comments (1)
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

2010 image for Help desk agents

There are 5 distinct ways that Help Desk Software can improve your business in 2010

1.  Help Desk Software will give you a way to keep track of tickets that you have posted for a client or customer.  These tickets can be escalated automatically so nothing falls through the cracks.  They can also be monitored so that anytime a change takes place, the ticket owner can be notified of the change.

2.  Help Desk Software can also contain a calendar that allows the user to schedule installs, moves, adds, changes, just about any event that takes place can be scheduled and tracked.  These scheduled events can also be alarm coded to notify people prior to the event so they don’t lose the date or schedule of the event.  This also allows management to view all of the users and their status on any given day.

3.  Trouble Ticket Software systems generally contain a KnowledgeBase module that can help the agent solve issues.  The knowledge center or knowledge library can also give the agent a resource for getting to resolutions in a short amount of time.  Some of these modules will even allow end users to submit tickets to their portal, or use email to submit trouble tickets in an efficient manner.

4.  No Help Desk Software would be complete without a robust CRM (customer relationship management) or Contact Management system.  Generally this system will give you multiple addresses for contacts, companies, jobsites or divisions, as well as places for additional phone numbers, notes, and user defined fields to further describe the contact or client company.

5.  Imagine being able to see a listing of ALL of the customer service issues within your organization that are outstanding, along with the status, user assignment, and estimated time of resolution.  These helpful dashboards are a great way to allow owners and managers to be able to keep track of their help desk tickets, and improve their business.

Help Desk Software does not have to be expensive.  There are many affordable systems available today.  Just make sure that you choose one that is easy for your agents to learn and use, and one that you can grow into.  Because as you improve your customer service, you are going to improve your business.

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Customer Support Software Changed the Way We View our Customers

By Steve · Comments (0)
Monday, January 25th, 2010

Customer Support Software Changed the Way We View our Customers

Today’s customer support software not only tells us what our customers do, but tells us why and shows us how to change behavior patterns. Customer support software gleans a wealth of information which, if not acted upon, can be like leaving money on the table.

How do you view customers? Most of us view our customers through the eyes of “what did they do?” which is past experience and their past behavior. Since adding predictive analytics we can look forward and make educated decisions which anticipate the future needs of our customers. CSM software helps us solve problems, achieve business objectives, uncover patterns of customer behavior, and ultimately, improve performance.

Fewer than 25% of companies conduct any business-case models for IT investments such as analytics. However, a 2004 report of dozens of companies found that the median ROI for projects that incorporated predictive technologies was 145 percent. That compared to a median ROI of 89 percent for those that employed only traditional methods of analysis.

In the traditional view customers are seen as a group such as “all holiday shopping increased by x percent in online shopping.” However, today’s company needs to dig deeper than that to understand changing customer attitudes and spending patterns. Those attitudes and patterns must be leveraged into deep, long-term connections with high-value customers.

The new view we have of customers is “why did they do what they did?”, “what were they responding to that we did?”, “what influenced their change in behavior?”, and “Will they make the same decisions in the same circumstances next year?” Answers to these questions allow us to do things like discount, offer free shipping, cross-sell, or up-sell at prime times to garner the greatest returns.

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Customer Relationship Management Around the World

By Steve · Comments (0)
Monday, January 18th, 2010

The Genesys study I cited on Jan. 15 also has a version that includes 16 key countries, measuring customer satisfaction and the cost of customer dissatisfaction, and outlining some possible solutions to keeping customers and keeping them satisfied. The main purpose of the study is to continually gain perspective on the changing nature of customer service as well as consumer perceptions of it. This shapes the way companies deliver great customer service.

Surveys were conducted in the following countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Czech Republic, France, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Enterprises in these countries (combined) lose an estimated USD $338.5 billion each year due to defections and abandoned purchases as a direct result of a poor customer service experience! Nearly 70% of those surveyed had ended at least one relationship due to poor customer service.

Consumers in Poland, China and Mexico have the largest number of interactions per year with customer service. In countries that have fewer interactions, the responsibility to make each interaction count positively is much heavier on the company.

Amazingly, there are three common threads to the demands of those surveyed. The first two are somewhat related.

“Don’t ask me twice.”

Consumers want better integration between self-service and assisted service, including voice self-service and eServices. They want to be able to start in voice self-service or the Web and get live assistance from an agent, and to start in e-mail and have better integration with agent-assisted service.

“Treat my interactions as a conversation.”

Consumers are demanding the ability to communicate across multiple channels. More than 40% said they would like to see companies deploy at least one new channel of communication with all channels being fully integrated.

“It’s okay to give me a call or ask me if I need help.”

When they are stuck on the Web or in self-service, 86% of consumers said they would find proactive engagement either a “strong benefit” or would see it as “welcome assistance.” The most frequently cited reasons for poor service included being trapped in automated self-service, being forced to wait too long for service, repeating themselves, and dealing with representatives that lacked skills or training to answer their inquiry.

As might be expected voice (by phone with an agent) is still the number one choice of method to solve a problem. However, e-mail and web combined now overtake voice, especially if the communication channels are well integrated.

Consumers overwhelmingly want more proactive outreach, with more than 83% calling it a “strong benefit.” This is the strong suite of customer relationship management software.

They want an easy to use interface for reporting or following an issue. And they want continuity from one channel to another, so that everyone is updated on what has been said and done.

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Categories : CRM, Customer Service Management Software
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Customer Service Can Be Costly

By Steve · Comments (0)
Friday, January 15th, 2010

Customer Service Can Be Costly

A recent study conducted by Genesys in collaboration with leading industry analysts at Datamonitor/Ovum shows that poor customer service is costing US businesses $83 billion annually! Most businesses are aware that excellent customer service positively impacts their bottom line, but fewer than one third of businesses have any way of tracking or measuring revenue per call or how much revenue is lost with an unhappy customer.

Almost two thirds of customers end a relationship with one company and deflect to another company within the same industry, causing individual companies to lose $50.6 billion each year. Not accounted for in the survey is the high cost of another company in the industry to gain that customer.

However, about a third abandon the relationship altogether, causing the entire industry to lose $32.4 billion annually. While some industries are essential to the well-being of the consumer, others become “unneeded” if the consumer is upset with the level of service.

For every 10 interactions, the customer will end a relationship with a company! The average value of each lost relationship is $289 per year.

Two amazing numbers from this study:
- 40% of consumers said it is critical to provide more intelligent self-service to reach a human so they are not trapped in automated systems.
- 90.5% of consumers would welcome proactive engagement to improve their experience through extended offers or help during self-service transactions.

Conversely, 78% of American consumers say their most satisfying experience occurred because of a capable and competent customer service representative.

These numbers are staggering, but what do they mean to your business on a day-to-day basis? How can you improve? How can you keep satisfied customers?

Most people are happy with their experiences with live agents, Web chat, and Web self-service. Therefore, those are areas in which the current products and practices are working.

Consumers want consistency and continuity. Those are easily achievable with good customer service software.

Consumers want improved personalization. That includes proactivity and outreach. For example, if they are stuck in automated service for a specified period, they would love to have an agent break in and assist them or for there to be a “chat” button to click to talk with an agent. It would be even better if that agent already had whatever information they had inputted into the system so they would not have to repeat it.

Consumers want to be valued. They want their time respected and they want their issues resolved politely in a short amount of time. This might mean submitting a “help ticket” and receiving an e-mail with instructions. Or it might include being able to schedule a time with an agent.

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Help Desk CRM – Getting to Know Customers

By Steve · Comments (0)
Wednesday, January 13th, 2010

Help Desk CRM – Getting to Know Customers

Gold and Silver Customers

Gold and Silver Customers

The words from a song from my childhood said to “make new friends, but keep the old; one is silver and the other gold.” It was true then and it is even more true in today’s business environment! New customers/friends are a new stream of money (silver) while old customers/friends are a dependable, constant stream of income (gold).

It is important to make both the new and the old customers feel important and to keep track of them, their needs, and their purchases. It is even more important to service those customers, to take care of their questions and problems promptly and with superior service that they will remember warmly.

Help Desk CRM will help you find and track potential customers. It will also enable you to offer new information to both new and old customers, to enable present and potential customers to compare products and services, and to service all your customers.

Use your help desk CRM to make actual contacts with potential customers or to build on existing relationships. Keep all the information accessible to your entire staff – from anywhere! Provide time-sensitive and timely information to potential and ongoing customers. Make appointments, update the customer’s information, answer questions – all from your help desk CRM.

In the words of another song from my childhood (from The King and I):

Getting to know you,
Getting to know all about you,
Getting to like you,
Getting to hope you like me.
Getting to know you,
Putting it my way, but nicely,
You are precisely,
My cup of tea.

This is exactly what you want your customers and potential customers to do – get to know you and like you!

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Categories : Web Based CRM Software
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Improve Your Business in 2010 through Web-based Helpdesk Software

By Steve · Comments (0)
Monday, January 11th, 2010

Improve Your Business in 2010 through Web-based Helpdesk Software

Helpdesk Software will improve your business in 2010. The recession is over – or so they tell us. However, most of our companies are not yet in recovery mode. Therefore, the question is: How do we improve business in 2010? How can Helpdesk Software improve business in 2010?

To better understand how helpdesk software will help your company improve its performance in 2010, take stock of the various customer touchpoints. Does your company use each of these? How does each relate to the others? Which type of customers most often use which touchpoint? What do they do if that does not solve their problem or answer their question? Touchpoints include:

- Web Self-service
- Interactive voice response
- Contact center agents
- Face-to-face

Your helpdesk software must allow your clients to help themselves using the internet. Some companies call this web-based help desk software or Software as a Service (SaaS) . The software must do two things at this touchpoint: it must have a database of questions and answers that the client can access and it must generate a help ticket that alerts a contact center agent.

Often the database of questions and answers will be sufficient to answer the client’s questions and solve the problem. When it does not provide the solution, the customer must have a method for generating a help or trouble ticket that provides a live person enough information to provide help to the customer through e-mail or a telephone call. This ticket should also be trackable throughout the system. For example, if the customer calls the agent back two weeks later, both of them should be able to see that ticket and what the agent did to resolve the problem. The agent’s boss or other colleagues should be able to access the ticket to continue the process of resolving the problem. And managers should also be allowed to see the time taken, number of people involved, and other history to the ticket. Each of the agents and managers should also be able to see the same database of questions and answers that the client sees so that they understand what he is talking about and can correct any misunderstandings.

Interactive voice response, chat, contact center agents, and face-to-face techs all employ real people to solve clients’ problems. Many clients prefer to “talk” to a real person. However, this is a more expensive option for the company. There are many ways in which to slash the amount of time these people are involved in each case. One of the simplest, yet most effective, is to incorporate the ticketing process into the company’s e-mail program to keep everyone in the loop. Tickets can be initiated from the customer or from a company employee. This increases customer satisfaction and professionalism, decreases time for each task, and increases the accountability of each company employee as well as increasing overall company profitability.

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Sales Force Benefits Web Based CRM Software

By Steve · Comments (0)
Friday, January 8th, 2010

Benefits from Web Based CRM Software

Using the phone and pen and paper is costly and time consuming, making it administratively intensive, often inaccurate, and rarely up-to-date. It is also very slow to inform sales reps about new target customers or share information on customers-in-process using the phone and paper lists.

Change all of that with web based CRM software. Maximize the productivity of the sales force by:
- tracking sales activities
- handling territory management
- creating accountability for the sales reps in the field

It’s an advantage to have all the information in one place. It gives the mobile sales force and management back in the office the ability to look up records, receive leads, edit and manage records, set and track appointments, and report results immediately.

Web based CRM software available on the sales reps’ smartphones results in:
- More effective sales teams
- Better analytical information
- Less paper
- Reduced administration
- Enhanced growth strategy

Data can be used to coach sales reps, watch daily activity, and spot trends quickly. This eliminates the use of raw sales numbers at the end of sales period to determine whether goals are met. Instead, the sales reps are kept sharp in a competitive environment.

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Categories : Customer Support Software, Web Based CRM Software
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Customer Service Experience

By Steve · Comments (0)
Wednesday, January 6th, 2010

The Customer Service Experience

The customer service experience should be positive and consistent across multiple channels. Many businesses are not able to provide a truly consistent experience across multiple channels during any given inquiry process.

Customers should be able to seamlessly transition between online (self-service) and offline (assisted service) channels.Organizations should provide consistent and integrated views of their companies and products across a variety of self-service and assisted channels.

Defining the key elements of an effective customer interaction ecosystem may help bring some clarity to the situation. Most customer interaction platforms require the capability to manage customer queries across two primary sub-categories: Assisted Service and Self-Service.

Assisted Service provides or enables human interaction with customers via phone or face-to-face interaction as well as the Internet through e-mail, chat, or click-to-call. This type of service is best suited to complex, multi-faceted interaction which requires a trained customer service agent.

Self-Service solutions offer support via electronic means and allow customers to access information quickly or to perform simple transactions, usually via the Internet. They include signing up for a variety of status quo offerings, searching for answers, gaining information, or perusing FAQs. They also include next generation solutions such as virtual assistants and instant answer agents.

Effective Self-Service transitions qualified sales and service leads to the most appropriate assisted-service channels. The Assisted Service agents must be able to access the same information the customer does and must be able to see the information entered by the customer.

A positive cross-channel experience increases the ability to achieve first contact resolution. Today’s businesses must deploy the software and train their agents in order to:
- identify the customer goal or need
- enable the customer to access consistent information quickly
- connect the customer to the best service channels for the identified need or goal
- provide clear, consistent answers

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Customer Relationship Management and The Company Web Site

By Steve · Comments (0)
Monday, January 4th, 2010

Customer Relationship Management and the Company Web Site

The cornerstone of any company’s customer relationship management (CRM) is its own web site. The journey may be started by the customer on a smart phone, a desktop computer, or any one of a variety of other media, but the first point of contact is through the company web site.

Did you know:

- Over 90% of all consumer purchasing decisions begin online?
- 83% of customers use company web sites for service info?
- 4 out of the top 5 reasons for abandoning a web site relate to “couldn’t find the information I was seeking“?

Those facts should cause you to want to look at your own company web site through the eyes of a customer and ask some critical questions. Businesses can and should strive to differentiate themselves on service that involves the use of the internet. The experience of the customer should be consistent through all channels and it should be productive, informative, and in line with their expectations. Site design and static FAQs are two of the biggest roadblocks to effective Customer Service Management.

Site Design

Many web sites are not designed with a clear customer focused approach. As a result, customers and potential customers struggle with navigating the site, finding enough information, finding updated information, or sorting through all the links and FAQs. From the home page, a customer ought to easily find pages for contact us, help, FAQ, instant answers or chat, various types of support (hardware, software, parts, or whatever your company offers), and a variety of pages of information on products (or services) and what they are, how they work, how to get a demonstration, where or how to purchase them, etc. Make the links obvious and easy to navigate.

Static FAQs

Many FAQ systems are simply a web page of questions and answers formulated at least 5 years ago which are not really “Frequently Asked” or relevant to any questions the customers really have today. At least 1/3 of customers are looking for a single accurate response to a specific question or an advanced FAQ tool that will return an answer or a link to their question. At the very least, FAQs should be updated every 6 months with the real questions that are being asked and the real answers to those questions.

The most cost effective communication medium is the internet. It is not surprising that it is also the quickest communication medium – but that is only when the information being sought is easily available. Remove the roadblocks of ineffective site navigation and static FAQs and you will see your customer satisfaction soar.

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