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Building Up Sales With A CRM Strategy

Leading organizations typically look to implement POS software and CRM software as part of ERP software implementation.

One of the main advantages of using CRM strategy is it facilitates in the growth of your sales. You will see the number of your sales go up dramatically once you have successfully put a Customer Relationship Management solution in place.

Sales will definitely decrease if a company is reputed to provide bad service to customers. This is because the level of customers returning for more business is extremely low}.

When employees feel useless and unimportant, they would become unhappy – and customers can sense this with the way they are treated by these employees. Their interaction with customers is detached, forced and not altogether warm.

Employees need to work on creating a great customer experience. A customer who is not happy with the service will not bring their business to you. Or even if they once did, chances are, they won’t return to your store for more business transactions.

To make Customer Relationship Management work to the fullest, a plan must be designed and strictly implented. Employees must be educated and motivated to feel that they are an important member of the company and that their position contributes to the success of the company.

Why? Service representatives are the first people customers see in stores and business companies. They represent the company and are the first people customers see and talk with. When reps are happy and their morale is uplifted, they will take care of customers better.

As a result, customers who are happy and satisfied will likely spend their money in your store and shop more. And chances are they will also be recommending your company to their family and friends.

CRM strategy is the right approach to take if you are aiming to boost your sales. Every member of the company – both owners and managers – must care for their employees so they in turn, can take care of the customers better.

Can You Hear Me Now?

Once you take heed to a customer (or co-worker, spouse, vital different), your brain is continually making tons of of assumptions. Every phrase, inflection, and tone of voice is interpreted, but not always because the speaker intended. Research exhibits that 2/third of all staff really feel administration isn’t listening.*

We all assume we know how one can listen, yes? The very fact is that very few folks know tips on how to really listen. In our earnestness to serve, we get pulled out of a conversation by getting ready for the reply while the opposite particular person continues to be talking. We anticipate a pause and when the person takes a breath, we bounce in to enhance or treatment the situation.

Or, we worry about the question that we may be asked that we would not have the ability to reply intelligently. Will we all know the answer? Will we be able to respond appropriately? What if I’m requested a query I don’t know the answer to? What if I don’t understand the query? What if they find out that I’m new on the job/on the gear/at this company? What in the event that they get angry at me? What if I frustrate them? What if, what if, you fill in the blank. We’re anywhere but listening to the opposite person.

Our intentions are good. We wish to give the most effective response we can, hopefully the precise answer. However, if we’re not current to the dialog, the opposite particular person feels not heard, unimportant, ripped off, and the like. If there was no upset on their aspect to begin with, it now exists huge time. Reality: if you’re not listening to the client, there isn’t any way you may answer the question. The reality is you in all probability have not even heard it.

Listening is our least used and weakest communication skill. None the much less, great customer support professionals are at the start great listeners. Lively listening forces us to tune in to what the shopper is saying, instead of making an attempt to consider what our responses will be.

Hearing and listening aren’t the same, though many people use the words interchangeably.
Listening to is a physiological process whereby auditory impressions are obtained by your ears and transmitted to your brain.
Listening entails decoding and understanding the importance of the sensory experience.

The by-product of pay attention is ‘list,’ which implies to lean toward one side. Have you ever noticed how you lean in when someone is talking to you, or vice versa? Even on the cellphone?

While you pay attention, you win and the other particular person wins. But it’s not enough to simply listen, it’s a must to talk to people that you just’re listening. Typically individuals do not think you’re listening when you’re since you’re not speaking that you just’re listening.

*Coaching, December 2006, p. 9.

Dagwood’s Help Desk Experience

Did you see the Blondie cartoon yesterday? If not, here is a brief synopsis:

Dagwood is shown at his desk with his computer blowing smoke and sporting a huge “ALERT” on the screen. Dagwood is on the phone saying, “Tech Support, I’m gonna stay calm, cool, and collected. This computer is driving me nuts!!

In the second frame, Dagwood is being told by a help desk agent, “Sorry, this is the help line for irate customers who are screaming their lungs out! Our cool, calm, and collected line is 1-888- . . . .”

In the last frame Dagwood is standing up and screaming, “ARE YOU KIDDING?!! The help desk agent is answering, “Attaboy! Much better! Now . . . what seems to be the problem?”

How many of us have felt that way? How many companies have customers who feel like that is how they get treated?

What is the solution to frustrated customers? How can we help our customers?

Try this 3-step process:

1. Purchase help desk software

2. Train help desk agents

3. Be proactive

Customer Relationship Management: Weathering the Economic Storm

Use CRM to Weather the Economic Storm

Use CRM to Weather the Economic Storm

What do we all know about the economy today? Plenty. Customers are not buying. Customers expect more for their money – more products, more services, more complete solutions! And they expect immediate answers to their questions delivered in a way that is convenient and trustworthy. By building on these tried-and-true methods, the economy will slowly begin to recover and grow.

How can you keep the customers you have? You can and must deliver the best products available. You must deliver the best and most complete services and solutions available, but how can you do that? Start with Customer Service Software that helps you build relationships in ways that are convenient for your customers. For those under age 40 that would be using internet and e-mail solutions including web-based knowledge bases and internet chats and forums. For those over 40 it includes telephone calls with knowledgeable agents who have answers at their fingertips. A keyworded, searchable knowledge base will benefit both your customers and your help desk agents. The use of multiple channels to deliver information and help will appeal to a broad customer base.

How can you gain the confidence of prospective customers? First, you have to find prospective customers. This is the job of lead generation software. Then you have to keep them interested and you have to prove that you are trustworthy and understand their problems. One of the oldest tricks is through reliable information delivered piece by piece over a period of time. This is the function of a good e-mail strategy that is built into CRM software. By building a relationship with each prospect and delivering useful information related to their issues and problems, you will be assured of a long-lasting and mutually beneficial relationship.

A great and ongoing relationship with a customer will yield benefits in further sales and in recommendations for years to come. This type of relationship weathers economic storms.

Help Desk CRM Software

Help desk CRM software provides internal service and support solutions that automate the help desk and service desk function. Typical help desk CRM software functionality includes call management, call tracking, knowledge management, problem resolution, remote control, and self-help capabilities.

CRM and call center software specialize in solutions that help automate the call center and customer management process including customer identification, communications, segmentation, analysis, sales and marketing. Some vendors in this category offer complementary solutions in the form of sales force automation (SFA), help desk software, and related front/back office solutions.

Knowledge management enables companies to more effectively manage structured data, unstructured information, collaboration, and document management. While a majority of these vendors focus specifically on knowledge sharing, search and categorization tools, some offer complementary products in the form of help desk automation, customer relationship management (CRM), call center management, and related front/back office solutions.

Web-based Software

Web-based software, or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions, will account for 25% of all new business software by 2011, according to Gartner. Why are decision-makers increasingly turning to SaaS for application deployments?

Find out how to achieve business benefits through SaaS, which include:

• Higher productivity and ROI
• Lower upfront software license and staff costs
• Increased agility to scale software in meeting business change
• And more!

SaaS can make a great impact on your business’ bottom line.

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) or web-based software is software that is delivered via the web and priced as a monthly, quarterly, or annual subscription. It transfers the burden of implementing, maintaining and keeping the application up to date and running smoothly from the customer to the vendor. It eliminates the costs and complexities of installing and integrating hardware to support the software and hiring additional staff to support the application.

SaaS permits users to more quickly and fully leverage the software functionality. It also enables users to immediately benefit from the software vendor’s latest technological features without the disruptions and costs associated with software updates and upgrades.

All types of businesses and all sizes of organizations can benefit from web-based software. Mid-sized organizations using help desk software or customer management software stand to benefit most from this new innovation.

Today’s economic environment has intensified these companies’ needs. Customers expect more service than they got in the past couple of decades – and research shows that customers’ expectations are rising. Customer loyalty is fleeting. Competition is rising and intensifying due to globalization and eCommerce. Employees are being encouraged to work from home or forced to spend more time on the road meeting with customers and partners face-to-face. Rising costs and tightened credit are forcing organizations to tighten their operating and capital budgets.

If you are wondering if SaaS, or web-based, help desk software or customer management software would work for your company, please contact Cynergy Software at 800-349-0527.

Web-Based CRM Software Features Online CRM

Cynergy Help Desk software is web-based software that can be utilized for online CRM. It features tools to submit and track sales activities as well as lead generation activities.

CRM Performance Tracking allows sales staff to view the percentage of deals they have closed. Staff members can view or attach files when updating customer requests. Pending sales and forecasted closings are shown on the screen. A knowledge base management system is incorporated for quick solution of problems.

Cynergy Software allows managers to create user accounts, view staff performance and response time, and configure the software and displays to fit their needs. It allows easy access of customer databases and easy creation of templates.

Cynergy Software is the choice of software for many sales and support-center organizations. Many of the features that are optional in other software packages are standard in Cynergy.

Measuring Customer Satisfaction in the Contact Center – Part 2

Measuring Customer Satisfaction in the Contact Center – Part 2

Using the automated survey tool in your help center software will give you quick and accurate feedback after each interaction with your customers. Technology alone does not assure effective post-call surveys. The makeup and delivery of post-call satisfaction surveys can significantly influence their reliability and usability.

Consider these 5 best practices based on the American Customer Satisfaction Index published annually by the University of Michigan:

      1. Use a scientific questionnaire design. Asking if the customer found the agent knowledgeable and helpful in the same question will not give meaningful feedback and will confuse the customer who may have found him or her helpful but not knowledgeable about the question. Each question should only address one issue. And each question should be straightforward and clearly stated.
      2. Define the goal. Know why you are taking the survey and how you will use it before you devise the questions.
      3. Keep it short and to the point. Your customers’ time is valuable. Respect them. And don’t forget to thank them for taking time to answer questions.
      4. Measure the right things with the right scale. Don’t give open-ended questions; word questions specifically and give respondents the choices you want to measure. Using a scale that takes advantage of the phone numbers 0-9 is easy for respondents and converts to a 100-point scale for reporting.
      5. Coordinate your survey with other departments. IT teams need to buy into and have advanced warning for any survey initiative. Various departments can make use of the survey results, so make them available quickly and let others know how to access them.

Your customers have high expectations of your company whether you realize it or not. Surveys need to be constructed in such a way as to give companies ideas for moving forward and improving the customer experience now and in the future. Think of your customer satisfaction survey as a tool to help you take your contact center to the next level, one tier higher than that of the competition!

Measuring Customer Satisfaction in Your Contact Center – Part 1

Measuring Customer Satisfaction in Your Contact Center – Part 1

“Call centers have become obsessed with customer satisfaction. Unfortunately, not all of them know how to measure it.” Greg Levin of the International Customer Management Institute made that assessment nearly three years ago and it just as true today.

How important is customer satisfaction to you? It should be key to gaining a competitive advantage and keeping it. Therefore, you must be able to measure customer satisfaction and identify satisfaction drivers that need attention.

While companies are attempting to cut costs they must still keep their customers happy or risk losing them.

Did you know:

  • 96% of customers who have had a bad experience don’t report it and 91% of those don’t do business with you again
  • Dissatisfied customers tell 10 or more others who will never do business with you
  • It costs 5 times as much to recruit a new customer as it costs to keep an existing customer
  • The probability of selling to an existing customer is 60-70%, but the probability of selling to a new prospect is 5-20%

If customer satisfaction is so important, how can you ascertain the level of your customers’ satisfaction. ASK THEM. Yes, ask them directly. And ask them within minutes of their call or e-mail to you. Feedback collected immediately after an interaction event is 40% more accurate than feedback collected 24 hours (or later) after the event.

Current contact center software contains post-call survey tools to capture customer feedback and enable you to gain insight into customer perceptions. These automated surveys have far lower costs and faster turnaround times than any other method.

In my next post, I will give you some best practices for your follow-up surveys.

Help Desk Software Saves the Day!

Win with Help Desk SoftwareAbout a month ago I got a call from a client overseas.  They were having issues keeping track of a flood of calls that they were getting from remote users.  They had been tracking the clients in the past using emails and an Excel spreadsheet.  Thus every time they would receive a call or email, they would copy and paste the email from Outlook over to Excel, or write the info from the call into the Excel spreadsheet that they had been using for several years.  Problem was, they had to update the spreadsheet on a regular basis, and invariably they would miss tickets by not pasting the correct cells, or some of the help desk ticket calls would disappear when they pasted from one place to the other.  After a short overview of Cynergy’s ticketing system, the prospect was able to see how easy it was to log a ticket in Cynergy, and keep track of it on the user dashboard.

Help Desk Software to the Rescue!

And, the client was able to see where tickets could be ordered in any way they wanted as well as escalated from one service level to the other.   In addition, the client was able to see their customer’s information on the same screen without changing to their spreadsheet or CRM system.  Thus callbacks were much easier and more orderly.

Then yesterday, the same customer called us for some additional training on our project management system.  They had been using another Excel spreadsheet for keeping track of projects and their Outlook for scheduling those projects.  After a short training session, the client was ecstatic about some of the features they learned about, as well as a much deeper understanding of how the project manager could actually save them valuable time without having to call each other on collaborative issues.

Thus, another satisfied customer!  But more importantly, we saved them time, and made their job easier.  Now that’s what I call a Win/Win situation!

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