Improving Your Business with A Support Ticket System
Tuesday, June 15th, 2010
Most businesses realize that a great customer support ticket system software can work with monitoring complaints and issues with different services that a business can provide. However, many of these organizations are not aware of some of the other things that a good support ticket software system can do. Here are some of these great things that you can find in Cynergy. These can be used to make this one of the best help desk software options for a business to use.
A customer support ticket software program can work to manage individual projects. It can segregate projects between the different users. This allows the different tasks to be arranged between specific people in a business. This also adds to the organizational tools that the business has to work with.
One addition to this first feature is that group support can be administered by a number of help desk solutions. Project support works in that it helps to direct certain activities to specific members in a business. The service that is offered here will help to ensure that the organization is going to get its critical projects well taken care of.
A customer support ticket software system can also be used as web based CRM software. This means that it can be accessed online on any computer at any moment. This is a critical part of help desk software in that it will allow a business to keep in touch with its customer support needs at any time.
Various facility management services can also be delivered with the proper organization. This can include things that relate to practices within the business. This part of the software will work to ensure that the business that is using the customer support ticket software and will be able to function in a proper manner. A well-functioning organization is more likely to be successful and productive than others and profitable as well.
Finally the software can work to handle various call center transactions. This includes looking up information on customers that call into a business.. Getting information ready can help to make calls more personalized and easier to handle.
These are all very important features that any business should seek out when looking to get a customer support ticket application ready. These features mentioned above will work to ensure that the business is going to keep tabs on everything that it is doing. A great software program like Cynergy will truly go beyond just looking at defects and product concerns that different customers might have to deal with.
Web Help Desk
Monday, May 10th, 2010
Web Help Desk Software
Providing Happy Customers!
You can spend literally years building a brand name, to have it erode by bad customer service. Just ask some of the famous brands that have allowed their service to slip over the years. They built brands as a result of brand awareness through marketing. Yet other brands like Mercedes, Volvo, and now Ford built their reputations on good quality and excellent service.
If you have a small or medium size business, you too can deliver the same world class service. A Web Help Desk is a foundation that will assist you in building this trust. It will give you the components necessary such as customer information, customer history, and escalation that gives managers ways to track these customers and their issues so they don’t fall through the cracks. Everyone has customer issues if they are serving others. Thus it is not the issues that cause you grief, it’s the lack of response to those issues. Most clients are more than willing to go through issues with you, as long as you communicate with them in a professional way that insures their issue is going to get fixed.
A web help desk is a great place to begin. Recording the customer information, along with any history gives your help desk agents a way and means to assure them that you are on top of the service they can believe in. Electronic service using web forms, and email can help this service to be more convenient for your customers, but you have to have a way to escalate these issues so they don’t get missed.
Before a help desk agent composes a response, web help desk software will assist the agent to rectify problems and issues by accessing a knowledgebase of answers and resolutions to those problems. If the resolution is not easily solved by the agent, they can rapidly move the ticket to management and get their approval or input on a proper fix.
Some of the more notable features of this software may be:
• FAQ knowledge base
• Email ticketing system
• Ticket routing
• Reports
• Asset tracking
• End user portal
You may think this is an expensive undertaking, but it is not. These tickets are worth a lot of money to your organization, and the history that they contain can save your organization thousands in lost revenue and make you even more through the customers they save whether using a help desk or not.
Cynergy Knowledge Center Software
Define Valuable Customer Experiences
Thursday, March 18th, 2010Valuable Customer Experiences
A CRM strategy is necessary, but most managers have no idea what it entails or how to build one. Start by looking at company goals and strategies. Then think about the people being served. Brainstorm with a team of people what each customer will feel is a good experience and keep detailed notes. From this you can build some customer profiles of satisfied customers, customers who will purchase again, customers that will upgrade or purchase due to an up-sell or cross-sell, etc.
Measurable Objectives
Then brainstorm what it will take to accomplish each of the pieces in that profile. For example, if part of the profile of the satisfied customer is that he gets his questions answered in one phone call or e-mail, what has to happen on the company’s end to accomplish that? It may mean investing in Knowledge Base software. That is a measurable goal because you can later look at that goal and answer the question: Did we accomplish this? If you bought the software and it works, the answer is “yes.”
Steps to Achieve Objectives
The goals may take several steps to achieve – and have several checkpoints along the way. If one goal is purchasing Knowledge Base software, the steps will include investigation of several versions to see if they fit your needs and requirements. In order to know that, you will have to create a list of needs and requirements. You may need to have demonstrations or trials of two or three after narrowing down the choices.
Long-Term Valuable Customer Experience
This is not a quick and easy process, but keeping a customer for the long-term is well worth the time and effort (and money) invested in formulating the profiles and goals and meeting those goals. Even as you successfully check off various goals, you may find that new issues arise which necessitate new goals. You may also find new uses for various pieces of software which can give you new goals for development. Or a competitor may start doing something that customers will quickly feel is a requirement in the industry, necessitating a new goal.
Help Desk CRM Software
Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010Help 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.
Old Time Customer Support
Monday, February 15th, 2010That Dog Won’t Hunt
What is it going to take to be able to compete in business over the next 24 months? As the economy improves (it can’t get any worse, can it?) we are all looking for ways to increase our business faster and better than the next guy. And I don’t think things have changed much since my Granddad was around.
My granddad was 104 years young when he left this earth, and was probably one of the most stable people I ever knew. Nothing much ruffled him. Even when I was a kid, I don’t remember him ever really losing his temper or throwing a tantrum, but of course in those days, the adults took great pains to take their personal issues behind closed doors. One of my granddad’s favorite sayings was, “that dog just won’t hunt” when something was not going his way. And like father like son so to speak, I picked up some of his slang over the years and use it as well.
When I was a kid, I would ask my granddad, “what does that mean?” And he would always respond with, well, “we’ll just have to see if this dog can pick up a scent or not.” Generally he would be referring to the level of customer support that he was receiving. And more often than not, if they could not resolve the issue, my granddad would walk away shaking his head saying, “well that dog sure ain’t gonna hunt.” Generally that meant that he was going to take his project or business elsewhere.
Old Fashioned Customer Support
The latest Accenture study that surveyed more than 5,000 customers in 12 countries underlined that there is no end in sight to the rise in customer service expectations. Are you kidding me? They actually did a study to determine if people still expect good customer support? I was trying to come to grips with anytime in my history here on earth that people did not expect good customer support. And guess what? You’re right! I couldn’t think of a time! Thinking back to when I was a kid and the filling station attendant would gas up your car, clean your windshield and check your oil, I suppose was a time that service may have exceeded peoples expectations, but that is doubtful, because I remember working at one of those stations, and people expected that level of service. Even now, when I pull into my regular oil change place, they jump through hoops making sure that I get a fresh cup of coffee, and rush to get the car out of the bay so I can be on my way. The other day I pulled into a tire supply store for new tires. The floor rep was very detailed as he told me about the tire that he recommended for my SUV. It wasn’t the most expensive tire offered, nor was it the cheapest. But he showed me the difference, and allowed me to choose. He also took me to the lounge and showed me where the free beverages were, along with remote control to the tv.
This same Accenture study mentions that companies that fail to meet expectations will lose customers. Well, duh….it goes on to say that 87 percent of the people had changed vendors due to poor customer service. I hope they didn’t pay a huge amount for that fresh insight….my granddad would have given it to them for free…..
Help Desk Software Saves the Day!
Thursday, February 11th, 2010
About 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!
3 Help Desk Solutions
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009There are any number of ways to Organize and run a help desk. This blog post is for the existing helpdesk organization and is meant to give them 3 ideas to improve the environment of the service desk organization.
3 Ways to Improve Your Help Desk
1. Are you surveying your customers at the end of each month? Or just when business hits a low?
How happy are your customers really? The only way to really find out is the call them. If you have a thousand customers, sending out written or electronic surveys may possibly send up a few flares, but most customers don’t have time to sit and fill out a survey, and if they do, they don’t really give you enough details to allow you to improve your organization. The only way that you are going to do that is to work at it each month. Set aside 4 hours every other week to sit down and call your largest clients. Just check in with them to see how things are going. Look at the sales trends within your organization, if you have a customer that shows promise in the upward curve, make it a point to check in with them to see how you can improve their business. Pay little attention to the bottom 50% of your customer sales report unless you can pick out one that is climbing the chart. In most cases, the top 20-30% make up 80% of the sales anyway. And I’m not saying to ignore the bottom 50% with mediocre customer service, I am simply saying that the top of the pyramid will give you better answers to improve your business. Make the information and notes that you take away from these calls public for your staff. I suggest that top management perform this tasks, and before you know it, it will have a trickle down effect to the rank and file. And people will notice.
2. Are you surveying your Company? Or just listening to the squeaky wheels?
Your staff is a good barameter on your customer’s as well. Have short but informative meetings with them as a group to discuss the last month’s customer service tickets and how the issue was resolved. Also pay attention to how quickly the issue was resolved. You don’t have to reward your people for giving good service. Recognition is generally the best reward.
3. Are you surveying your employees?
Surveying your employees is necessary if you are going to continue to deliver first class customer service. Are your people happy in their jobs? Do they have the tools necessary to be able to do their jobs correctly. Are there particular customers that are making their jobs more difficult, and could these clients be shifted to other reps for efficiency? Nothing can tarnish your customer support faster than a bad apple. We strongly suggest that our clients record every phone call that takes place on the system. By monitoring these calls on a frequent basis, you can determine the level of service that your customers are getting. Just by having the recordings take place let’s your staff know that you are going to be checking in with them on a regular basis.
Selling Services
Monday, November 16th, 20095 Solutions to Selling Services
Are you having trouble selling services now? One of the things we all tend to do when selling services is to focus on the features and benefits. And often those benefits are more for us than for the customers. Instead we need to put ourselves into our customers’ shoes and focus on the benefits they need and the value those benefits add to their lives and their companies. Learn to be your customers by trying these five ideas this week on your web based help desk.!
1. Adopt your customers’ objectives – and their problems – as your own. Invest time getting the straight scoop on their key performance indicators, strategic imperatives, and top priorities. Ask yourself, “How can I help my customer achieve these objectives? How can I help my customer overcome his obstacles?” Continually look for any ideas that could have an impact.
2. Challenge your customer’s thinking. Ask provocative questions, bring fresh insights from outside the industry, offer a different perspective, and address assumptions or business directives that don’t quite make sense.
3. Frame everything from your customer’s perspective. Phone calls, meetings, presentations, and proposals are always about how you can help your customer achieve his or her objectives. Remember, your offering is simply a tool; it’s not what she wants.
4. Help customers understand and navigate the internal barriers to changes. The complexity of today’s solutions, combined with the challenge of getting internal buy-in and support, can be overwhelming for people who make these decisions once every few years. Give them guidance.
5. Use changing priorities to continually bring value. Keep up-to-date on what’s happening in your customer’s organization, and always be asking: “What ramifications does this have for his business? How can our products/services make a positive impact?” Bring your ideas to your customer.
Turning to Web Based Customer Support
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009Turning to Web Based Customer Support for Improved Customer Retention
I had searched for different ideas to improve our customer support for quite some time. In our business, clients don’t wait for solutions; they either get them from us, or find another vendor. And our current method was costing us clients. We tried excel spreadsheets, whiteboards, and writing our own system, but our people just wouldn’t use them because they were either too difficult to use, or took too much time.
I tried outsourcing thinking that if the company providing the customer service was able to focus solely upon our customer support using supplied scripts and answers, they would be able to answer our clients questions and provide them with a better level of service than our internal people. Plus I figured that I could finally get some reports on how many of our clients were calling, what they were calling about, and how long it would take us to get a resolution for their issue. Well, the outsourcing was a disaster. Clients kept asking questions that we failed to get into the knowledge base for the outsourced help desk. Even though we used a US based help desk, and they in turn had an impressive Web Based Help Desk Software system that was giving us answers each week regarding the number of calls, subject of the call, and resolution, our clients were still frustrated at the lack of information or response time for answers. I called the outsourced help desk one day and experienced the same result so I knew something had to change. I asked the help desk company executives what they were using to track issues and deliver reports but they were hesitating to tell me because they obviously knew I was frustrated, and didn’t want to lose my business.
So I called back into their help desk one day pretending to be a customer of my own, and after a lengthy description of my problem, as the help desk agent was reading from the knowledge base article they had looked up, I complemented them on their great customer service. They said, well, “this software makes it easy.” And I asked, “Really, what kind is it?” And they responded, “Well, I think it is ours, because our company information is all over it, but the powers to be around here refer to it as Cynergy Help Desk, so I think they developed it for us
So I did a web search for Cynergy Web Based Customer Support, and found a company named Cynergy Help Desk Software. Their engineers listened to my issues, and showed me how Cynergy could improve our organization. And it was more affordable than I expected. Cynergy delivered the solution in less than 10 days, trained my customer support people on the application, and were there every time we needed help on the system. And the best part? Our people loved it! It was easy to use, easy to get reports from, and our customers appreciated the extra effort we put forth to give them a system that delivered great service in a timely manner.
We still work hard to deliver great customer support, and it is truly hard work, but saving clients and improving our customer support has just gotten better and better and that’s what our business is all about. I love a happy ending.
Willam Kary
CEO
Impact Sales Solutions
William Kary is CEO of Impact Sales Solutions. A medium sized company with over 100 employees in Toledo, OH that delivers customer contact and support to some of the leading newspapers in the U.S. Mr. Kary lives in Long Boat Key, FL.