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Improved Business During a Tough Economy Part 1: Take Care of Customers

By Steve · Comments (0)
Wednesday, July 15th, 2009
Explosion of data needs help desk software to track

Explosion of data needs help desk software to track

There’s an explosion happening. If you hadn’t noticed, it’s a data explosion. Not only is the data multiplying at a high rate, but the means of disseminating and keeping and using data are increasing exponentially. Everyone, even those we once considered too old to learn the new technology, is using computers and phones and wireless devices to obtain and convey every type of information imaginable.  Each one of these businesses  requires some type of helpdesk software in order to run effectively.   At the same time, our economy is experiencing a meltdown of massive proportions. U.S. Labor statistics show that about 14.7 million people have lost jobs in the past year and a half.  Another 4.4 million are not considered unemployed, but are now only working part-time for their employer as opposed to the full-time job they did have. Almost 12% of the U.S. workforce has been forced to retire early.

What will business look like after this recession? And how will businesses get to the other side of the recession? What steps should a solidly run business be taking NOW to get to the other side – and get there ready to take off? Are there prescribed steps to take during a recession to build your business? Are there best practices everyone should know and automatically do during a tough economy?

There are three areas that every business should re-examine during an economic slowdown to see if changes will solidify their business and give them an advantage. The goal is to come out of the slowdown quickly with a growing business.  In order to do that businesses must examine their current customer relationships, their means of obtaining customers, and the overall methods they use for doing business.

TAKE CARE OF CUSTOMERS

A business’ customers are its lifeblood—no matter what the economic climate is. Your current customers and your future customers link your business to the present and the future. It is imperative to treat them well—to listen to their concerns and complaints and to work to solve those issues for that customer and to learn how to keep those issues from occurring for other customers. Listen to what products or services they desire. During an economic downturn, a business needs to take the chance to offer those products or services. This is a great time to communicate and listen carefully to each thing customers say.

Your business needs to track the issues your customers have and how your business solves those issues. It is important to know who worked on an issue and what they said and did. It is even important to understand how long it took to solve each issue. All those things can be evaluated to see how the issue could have been avoided, or how it could have been solved in fewer steps or with a better outcome.

Help desk software fulfills the need to track issues. It fills in the details of who did what and when it was done. Some help desk software even evaluates the process for you and gives you the metrics of how long, how many people, and how many times the same issue has been solved.

Staying in communication with your current and past clients helps them feel important and allows your business to tap their insights into how your business can be better. Personal calls, e-mails, and surveys are helpful in assessing what your business is doing right and what it could do better. Using customer relationship management software, a company can track all of its customers and keep in contact with them on a regular basis.

Once a customer is satisfied, that customer can be tapped for more business—either their own or a referral. Satisfied customers are the best source of new business and continuing business. Never be afraid nor forget to ask for more business and to ask for referrals. Think about ways to expand what you do for a customer—more products, expanded services, fulfilling other needs. Sometimes a longer term deal with a small discount helps both businesses as they plan for the months involved in pulling through the recession.

When finishing a conversation with a present company, ask what other company the representative can think of that might need your products or services. Ask him to give you the name of a contact or to call that contact and recommend your business. Ask all satisfied customers to write out a testimonial or agree to a taping of some answers to questions about how your company solved their problems. Such a testimonial or case study can serve a number of purposes for your company now and in the future.

Parts 2 and 3 coming soon!

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Web Based CRM Solutions Hold the Key

By Steve · Comments (0)
Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

A customer’s experience with customer service and helpdesk contact centers shapes his view of the entire organization. Immediate communication through a web based CRM solution is the key to improve service levels and impact the company’s bottom line.

Communication among customer service agents and their managers must be immediate, targeted and real-time. For example, contact center managers can reduce wait times and help their call center handle higher call volumes when they know wait times and can see overloaded queues. When scheduling appointments, the system needs to be able to alert agents of cancellations – especially same day and same week – so that customers can be scheduled at the earliest time possible.

A web-based CRM solution allows all users to be up-to-the-minute on parts of the enterprise computer system that are slow or down and when the expected resolution time is. It equips agents to handle customer questions by accessing an extensive online knowledge base.

Real-time awareness requires a simple and direct line of communication across disparate branches of the contact center. A web-based CRM solution delivers this type of communication.

Restructuring, combining with other companies or rapid growth present new challenges to companies. Multiple technology systems often do not communicate well. Employees do not know who or what department now handles particular questions or functions. However, a web-based CRM solution can easily serve the employees as well as the customers.

Often a single helpdesk or call center services both employees and customers, but through a jumble of technology. The web-based CRM solution solves this jumble and makes quick, direct connections at the time they are needed.

Service levels and customer satisfaction are greatly increased by using a web based CRM solution. The potential for growth is greatly expanded. Internal communication is drastically improved. Customer service reps are seen as competent and helpful. And the company is perceived as trustworthy.

  • Is your call center ready to take a leap forward?
  • Is your CRM solution working for you?
  • Are you ready for a web based CRM solution? Why or why not?
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Is Your Customer’s Call Important to Your Company?

By Steve · Comments (0)
Monday, April 27th, 2009

How many times have you been put on hold with the recorded message: “Your call is very important to us”? Last week I read about a book called Your Call Is (not that) Important to Us by Emily Yellin, a journalist who has frequently written for The New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek and other publications. She knows all about the frustrations of those of us who feel like we’ve been taken advantage of. The review was on Brent’s CRM Blog and was entitled appropriately Is Your Customer’s Call Really All THAT Important to You.

Did you realize that Americans make an estimated 43 billion customer service calls each year? That means each American makes two to three calls to a customer service call center every week! And how many times do you make a call only to get put on music and told repeatedly “your call is important to us”? According to Yellin 67 percent of Americans sometimes have to “make a fuss to get a problem resolved.”

Ms. Yellin decided to write the book while waiting on hold one day in her freezing cold house, only to argue on the phone for hours with customer service at a home warranty company before convincing someone to come fix her broken furnace. While the book is written with humor, Emily shares great insights from her conversations with Fedex CEO Fred Smith and Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh. She talks about the Customer Rage study. And she explains what surprised her as she visited call centers in Egypt and Argentina.

Good customer service, according to Smith of FedEx is “baked in from the start” which Yellin says is much better than “just sprinkling customer service on top after the whole thing is already cooked.” Smith elaborates by explaining that his company spends an “inordinate amount of time asking their customers what constitutes an outstanding experience and what meets their expectations.” He feels that problems usually come down to one of three things:

  • The customer service person does not have the information to deal with the problem.
  • The customer service person has the information but does not have the authority to do what needs to be done.
  • The customer service person expresses no empathy for the customer’s situation.

It is an eye-opening account of how companies treat their customers, how customers treat the people who serve them, and how technology, globalization, class, race, gender, and culture influence these interactions. For example, Pablo who is a supervisor of a call center in Buenos Aires does not understand Americans calling to complain about a delivery that is a half-hour late. Delivery times and dates have no meaning whatsoever in Argentina.

The Wall Street Journal describes Ms. Yellin’s book as ‘an illuminating guide whose conclusions are sound: “The intangibles at the heart of each positive encounter remain constant on all sides: trust, respect, empathy, caring, and even some fun” Who would complain about that?’

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What is a Help Desk?

By Steve · Comments (0)
Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009

Helpdesk is a broadly applied term referring to a staffed resource that can answer questions for customers about their products or about how to use resources or software applications. A help desk can be as simple as a person with a phone number who is prepared to answer questions and handle problems or can be as complex as two or three levels of groups of people to handle problems and track the status of problem solutions.

A helpdesk may serve one or more various functions. Companies often provide help desk services to their employees as well as their customers. In some cases, both customers and employees use the same help desk to obtain assistance, while in others separate helpdesk services are used. In addition to those set up by corporations, there are many other types of help desks. Smaller companies, private organizations, and educational facilities often provide various help desk services to their customers, employees, students, or members. Some help desks are even available to anyone in need of help.

A helpdesk typically manages its requests via helpdesk software, such as a trouble ticket, that allows the company to track user requests with a unique ticket number. Helpdesk software can is an extremely beneficial tool when used to find, analyze, and eliminate problems.

By 1996 research by Middleton recognized that the real value of helpdesk(s) derives not solely from their reactive response to users’ issues, but from the helpdesk’s unique position of communicating with numerous customers and/or employees. This gives the helpdesk the ability to monitor the user environment for issues from technical problems to user preferences and satisfaction. Such information gathered at the helpdesk can be valuable in planning and preparation to other units in the company.

Large helpdesks have different levels to handle different types of questions. The first-level helpdesk is prepared to answer the most commonly asked questions, or provide resolutions that often belong in a Frequently Asked Questions area or knowledge base. Typically, an ticket or incident tracking system is implemented that allows a logging process to take place at the onset of a call. If the issue isn’t resolved at the first-level, the incident ticket is escalated to a higher level that is equipped to handle more difficult calls. Some organizations even have a third level of support.

Large-scale helpdesks have a person or team responsible for managing the tickets which are commonly called queue managers or queue supervisors. Larger helpdesks have several teams that are experienced in working on different issues. The queue manager will assign a ticket to one of the specialized teams based on the type of issue. Some helpdesks may have phone systems with that ensure that calls about specific topics go to people with experience or knowledge on that topic.

Many companies have custom helpdesk software. Not all of the helpdesk staff and supporting IT staff need to be in the same location. With remote access applications, technicians are able to solve many helpdesk issues from a home office or another location. Remote software can be used to troubleshoot computer-related problems. This enables support personnel to access the user’s computer to analyze the problem and apply the correction. Using remote software, a help desk technician can assist an end user located in virtually any part of the world.

Though some helpdesks do involve a support person working at a physical desk, often services are provided via a call center or over the Internet.

Some common names for a help desk include: Computer Support Center, IT Response Center, Customer Support Center, IT Solutions Center, Resource Center, Information Center, and Technical Support Center.

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A Hosted Help Desk Means Live Help

By Steve · Comments (0)
Wednesday, April 15th, 2009

From Marianne Cotter on http://www.business.com/directory/advertising_and_marketing/customer_service/live_chat/

Customer service is at its best when it happens in real time and is captured to your database. Hosted help desk customer service is a great customer retention tool that keeps service center costs low. It can be in the form of chat, instant messaging, or voice. A hosted help desk resolves customers’ issues with speed and satisfaction.

Live help solutions improve customer service for businesses of all sizes, whether you run a simple website or a large call center. An abundance of live help customer service software options are available — from simple add-ons to full-featured CRM and call center solutions — so small and large businesses can find an appropriate solution.

A full-featured call center solution integrates phones, email, chat, skill-based routing, monitoring and reporting, a knowledge base, and more. Enterprise-level online customer service software is designed to integrate with CRM and ERP solutions to become part of an enterprise’s complete technology profile.

Call center agents rely on reference material to respond to customer inquiries. Aggregating your product support information in a knowledge base that is integrated with live help customer service solutions allows your agents to respond quickly and knowledgably in live help situations, helping them open and close trouble tickets in a single encounter.

When choosing a hosted call center solution:
• Consider a hosted call center solution in which the live help customer service software resides on the vendor’s server.
• Choose live help solutions that support multiple channels of communication, including chat, voice and email.
• Choose online customer service solutions with reports and analytics to monitor and improve the effectiveness of your call center.
• All forms of online customer service should be supported with a knowledge base for effective response to customer inquiries.
• Live chat support software allows call center agents to handle multiple customers simultaneously.
Remember that live help solutions resolve your customers’ issues with real-time efficiency.

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8 Ways to Make Your Help Desk Unique

By Steve · Comments (0)
Wednesday, April 8th, 2009

Every company has a help desk of some type. Some are the type where the customer logs into a web site and tries to diagnose the problem himself and find his own solution. Some include a web-based chat. Most also include a call-in help desk with a real person in front of a computer answering a telephone. Nobody doubts the necessity of a helpdesk. Every company wants their help desk to be better and to give their customers a better experience. Here are eight tips for making yours uniquely better:

1. Speak English Please. It is very annoying to call a help desk and not be able to understand the person at the help desk. Customers will hang up if the help desk person’s English is hard to understand. Most people do not like having to “press 1 for Spanish and 2 for English” as if English is the secondary language, so if you must have such a scenario, at least make it “press 1 for English and 2 for Spanish” or “stay on this line for English or press 2 for Spanish.” (By the way, people speak lots of other languages too.)

2. Be Polite and Courteous. There is nothing more demeaning than a 25-year-old calling a 65-year-old “hon” or “dear” so make sure that help desk trainees understand correct methods of addressing the callers. Words and phrases like “I’m sorry you had that experience” or “we appreciate your calling to let us know” go a long way to making the customer feel good, especially when uttered with sincerity.

3. Ask Relevant Questions. Many questions asked of the caller are relevant. However, there are questions that are relevant to the company that the customer thinks are totally irrelevant to his problem. It helps if you can preface those questions with a phrase such as “we are collecting some data for improving our customers’ experience, so could you help us by answering the next three questions?”

4. Get the Details Right. After listening to the information, repeat it back the way you thought you heard it (or the way you typed it into the system) and ask the customer if it is correct. Key details that are changed or misunderstood tend to change the entire problem – and, therefore, the solution.

5. Give the Caller an Exact Day (and Time) the Problem will be Resolved. Do not simply tell the caller you will ‘report the problem.’ Be specific in telling him how the problem will be resolved. While you may not be able to tell the caller exactly when the technician or package will arrive, you can tell the caller that it would be a good idea to call a particular phone number if it has not arrived by a particular day (or time). The caller will feel he got ‘results.’

6. Use Help Desk Software that Interfaces with Order Software. By doing this, you will not ask questions that have already been answered. In fact, you may even have information you had not thought to ask.

7. Use Help Desk Software that Interfaces with Dispatch Software. In this way, you can tell the customer when the replacement part will ship or when a technician will be dispatched. It also eases the problem of ‘exact directions’ to the customer’s home and making sure the customer’s correct telephone number is easily available.

8. End on a Positive Note. Always make sure the help desk call ends with the customer feeling good. Don’t be afraid to ask if all the customer’s concerns have been dealt with or if the customer has any other questions. And make sure to let the customer know that you have enjoyed helping him or her today.

No matter what type of customer you have, the person calling your help desk will be impressed with your help desk. Their experience will be so refreshingly positive, they will be trying to take notes on what was different so they can replicate it for their own help desk.

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More Around the Bend…

By Steve · Comments (0)
Friday, March 27th, 2009

We often hop on our motorcycle or in the car “just to see what is around the next bend.” Whatever is there can be interesting, intriguing, challenging, frustrating or a nonevent. The same is true of our businesses. It is often difficult to know “what is around the next bend” in a business environment, but whatever it is will be interesting, intriguing, challenging, frustrating, or a nonevent. . . . and we must be prepared.

What is the best way to be prepared for an unknown future? In any industry, customer care is paramount to future business. When your customer calls or e-mails with a problem, you must have processes for responding. Your response must be quick and it must address the actual problem in a way that is acceptable to you and your customer.

Let me give you an example from real life. A friend’s daughter who is in college had a problem with her computer. The friend filed a help desk ticket with the company that made the computer and with whom they had an extended warranty which called for on-site service within 24 hours. The ticket clearly said that the computer was located at a specific address in another city and gave the daughter’s cell phone number. After two more filings and a phone call during the next week, the mother finally got a phone call from a service tech to say he’d be at her home in an hour to fix the computer. When the mother explained that the computer was with the daughter, the tech agreed that he could see that if he scrolled down on his request for service. He also reported that the delay in service had been due to the company’s sending the parts to the wrong city twice already that week and now the company would have to re-send the parts again – to the college city’s technician. Three days later a technician called the daughter and arrived to work on her computer the following day. However, when he arrived, he said he thought from the mother’s description the computer might need a new video card which the company had not sent him. Instead, he had been sent a new motherboard and LCD screen to install. Sure enough, those did nothing for the problem. He then spent more than hour on the phone to the company to talk them into sending the video card. It is now three weeks since the problem was reported and the computer still cannot be used due to the screen flashing like a strobe light.

What went wrong? This company appears to have a problem with their help desk ticketing system. However, it is hard to tell if it is the software system or the human users of the system. Obviously, both have to work. If nobody is going to read the section that says “physical location of the computer” then it should not be a part of the ticket. However, to do on-site service, it would appear that the physical location of the computer would be important to know. If the company sub-contracts their service, then they need to understand the geography (using zip codes or GPS or names of the cities) so that the technician is somewhat close to the location of the computer. They also need to trust that technician’s assessment of the problem. No technician should have to argue for over an hour – in front of the customer – in order to get the necessary parts!

Is this company ready for what’s around the bend? Not so much! What should have been a slight bend in the road that took 2-3 days to get fixed has now become a series of hairpin turns on an insurmountable mountain of over three weeks. I think this computer company may be down an embankment!

The real question becomes: Is your company ready for what is around the bend? Does your ticketing system work? Are there processes in place to make it more effective? What about response time? Your company is only as good as its customer care. Not only is the “customer always right,” but the “customer needs help now” in today’s world!

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