Is it possible to have an efficient help desk and still meet customer expectations? Have you ever made a help desk call and gotten: “please press 1 for customer service. Please
press 3 to enter your language. Please wait. We appreciate your call. All our lines are busy. We’ll be with you shortly.”
Help Desk Focus: Customers
If a company is solely focused on cutting costs, it will more than likely outsource or offshore its help desk functions. What does that do for the customer? It alienates the customer because the customer cannot understand the help desk agent and does not get the help he/she needs. A once-loyal customer becomes an ex-customer.
Do you know what customers expect? What do you expect when you need a help desk?
- Convenience
- Reliability
- Speedy response time
- Full resolution of the issue
- Courtesy
Help Desk Features: Convenience and Reliability
Put yourself in the place of your customers. Think about how convenient it is for them to get the help they need. The buzz word today is ‘channels’ but the truth of the matter is that the more ways (channels) a customer can find help, the more likely he is to get his problem resolved or his questions answered in a reasonable amount of time. Today people don’t always expect to talk with someone, especially if they have a question or problem after business hours. However, they do expect your company to have a presence on the internet and to have customer service available through a database or list of most frequently asked questions (FAQ), a forum, or a live chat service – or a combination. And being able to submit a ‘trouble ticket’ that details their problem and requests assistance is Standard Operating Procedure (SOP).
Reliability relates to how well those channels work to solve the customer’s problem. If he or a friend had found the information they needed on your FAQ at a previous time, they will feel that your FAQ is reliable and use that channel again. They will also feel that if they don’t find their particular problem in the FAQ that it is not a frequent problem, but that they can expect help in one of the other methods.
Help Desk Agents: Courteous as they Speedily Resolve the Issue Completely
Reliability also refers to the help desk agents who deal with the issue through chat, a forum, a telephone call, or a trouble ticket. Your customers should be able to rely on the help desk agents to be courteous to them. That means that their attitudes should not be condescending (no 20-somethings calling everyone “honey”), they should speak and understand English well, and they should be polite even if the caller is upset. Your customers should also be able to rely on your help desk agents to be able to resolve an issue completely and to do it as speedily as possible. Granted, not every help desk agent will know the answer to every question, but they should be able to find the answers to at least 80% of the questions quickly from a database and they should be able to refer the question to the person who can answer it. Customers should not get a ‘run-around’ or after to play ‘phone tag’ for days or weeks to resolve an issue.
Help Desk Database: An Aid to Customers and to Help Desk Agents
You may have noticed that the customer should be able to access a database of issues and their resolutions. If you do not have such a database in place, perhaps you need to upgrade your software to include such a database. Help Desk Agents should also be able to access a knowledge base in order to help customers. Evaluate your knowledge base to make sure it is quick to access and contains as many possible scenarios as possible. Update it often. Question your agents to make sure it is helpful and to see what needs to be added or changed to make it more responsive or more complete.

More and more companies are realizing that helping a customer when they have a problem is not enough. Help Desks and
It’s true. Help Desk Software makes me happy . . . and the “me” can be the CEO of a company using Help Desk Software, the helpdesk agents using the Help Desk Software, or the customers of the company using Help Desk Software.