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I recently did some consulting for
a large retail company and sat in with their help desk
department, which was probably the worst I have seen
in my 10+ years in business. This was an internal help
desk, with the end-users being employees from the various
retail stores and warehouses. Not surprisingly the perception
of their company's IT support was not flattering to
say the least.
Some of the problems I noted were:
· Poor (often rude) phone answering skills with the
majority of calls being answered on speaker-phone, whilst
swearing with heavy metal music in the background.
· Lack of management.
· No system(s) or procedures in place to keep track
of calls and problems.
· No central call person (anyone could answer the phone).
· And a lack of morale within the help desk team. Here's
some of the suggestions
I would make to resolve these problems...
1) Team bonding The nature of customer support/help
desk is problem solving. No one calls in to say that
everything is going well. It's a bit like being a policeman.
People only call you when a crisis occurs. That in its
self can become daunting for workers. Dealing with unhappy
customers all day, every day, can negatively affect
your team's morale.
The first thing that an IT manager
needs to make sure off is that their help desk staff
feel supported. Give them somewhere they can vent safely
without any information being passed on to anyone else.
Also rotating your staff so that it isn't always the
same person answering the phone. The second thing an
IT manager needs to put in place is respect between
all the team members. Too often, the help desk is seen
as unprofessional because of their lack of respect towards
the competence of their fellow workers. Make sure that
people are able and willing to work as a team, and you
will without a doubt, increase the efficiency and morale
of the department.
2) Hire Competent Support Officers
There's nothing worse than having your computer crash
just when you're pushing to reach a deadline. Actually,
having no one who can fix your problem is even worse.
Computer technology is a mystery to so many employers.
Many seem to think that if someone can install software
or surf the internet, that they are competent enough
to run or work in their IT Support department. There's
a lot more to it than that.
First and foremost, you want someone
who is going to represent your company to have a 'can-do'
attitude. Look for someone that genuinely wants to help
others, whether or not they know the answer to their
problem. Secondly, you want someone that has the basic
tools and technologies used in the customer support
industry. Depending on the end-users your help desk
supports, either fellow company employees or external
customers, you will need different types of help desk
staff.
If you're looking at hiring an internal
support officer for your IT infrastructure, you'll need
to make sure that they have a good knowledge of the
type of network, and hardware you have as well as a
general working understanding of your software applications.
If you are supporting external customers, you will most
probably need to train your new support staff on your
own support software. But, as I said before, the most
important quality you want in the people you hire to
take care of your customer service is the 'can-do' attitude.
Add to that excellent phone manners, patience, confidence
and logic. This will make the difference between getting
customers that come back to purchase again or them spreading
the word that doing business with you was a big mistake.
Because there's more to customer support
than merely answering phone calls, you'll want to make
sure you train your staff appropriately. Remember that
your help desk staff are usually the first people your
clients will come in contact with at your company. Having
someone competent and helpful at the end of the line
will make for a great experience for your customers
and will build trust towards your business.
Training your support staff is therefore
crucial to keeping ahead of your competitors. You will
also save time and money if your support people have
procedures in place to solve problems and take charge
of difficult situations, promptly and efficiently.
Take the time to fully prepare a training
program for your support staff, in the likes of videos,
books, one-on-one sessions with an experienced work
colleague, training sessions over a few weeknights,
etc. Anything to make sure that the people servicing
your customers have the knowledge and skills to exceed
your clients' expectations.
3) Get Proper Tools to Support your
Support Team The help desk industry has one of the highest
turnovers of staff, meaning you not only need a system
that is fast and effective in helping solve problems,
but that is also easy for staff to learn. A help desk
system to easily log, track and assign calls to staff
for resolving issues, will improve the efficiency of
your help desk and will ensure that no calls get lost,
thus improving your customer service.
Allowing your customers to log their
own calls (through the web) and to see the progress
of their issue(s) can reduce the number of phone calls
placed to your support team by 78%.
Having a database where every employee
and/or customer as well as the help desk team can find
previously resolved calls can make for an effective
way to solve new issues, faster.
As the IT Manager, it is always prudent
to know what your help desk team is working on and what
issues are common. One way to ensure that your customers
are not left waiting for days to get an answer, is to
have an issue escalator. This way, if an issue isn't
resolved in a timely manner, you will receive a notice
in your email saying so. You can then make sure that
actions are taken to fix the problem.
To get the best out of your support
team, give them all the training they need and easy
to use tools, that take minutes to learn. A good help
desk system is THE ingredient that will take you to
the next level in customer service. It is with this
tool that you can blow away your competition. If you
want more information on how a help desk system can
help your business, please check out the following link:
http://www.helpdesk-support.com/webciss
About the Author
Paul Smith is the manager of Auratech Software, a company
that specialises in Help Desk Software to help businesses
with their customer support. If you would like to read
more articles on improving your support or would like
to check out Auratech's range of Help Desk Software,
please visit: http://www.helpdesk-support.com/better-support.htm
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