Technology drives efficiency in nearly every aspect of a business today. It will be fair to say that companies are dependent on technology to drive productivity. But not unless your processes are efficient. The same is true for customer support departments too. Every company needs practical support tools (or helpdesks) and successful strategies for its implementation. A proficient helpdesk can prevent support employees from wasting hours on something that can be solved in minutes.
The primary goal of a helpdesk is to assist end-users, solve their queries and maximize the overall technology value. A company can only meet these goals when they utilize the helpdesk fully and in a correct manner. This article will focus on various strategies for helpdesk implementation and how you can ace your customer support.
Value of Customer Satisfaction and Retention
The success of a support department depends upon acceptance and awareness of its helpdesk tools (by your employees as well as customers). Customer satisfaction comes from the quality of your service and its credibility. Retention is derived from active team efforts and personalization to keep the end-users engaged. Companies need to learn to deliver both.
However, it is a known fact that the customer retention rate is below 20% for most industries.
According to research:
“The probability of selling to an existing customer is around 60% and 70%. The probability of selling to a new customer is only around 5% to 20%.”
Yes, that is correct!
Customer satisfaction and retention are more important than customer acquisition. Despite this, 44% of businesses focus on customer acquisition, while only 18% focus on customer retention. And you cannot bring brand loyalty without the right strategies of helpdesk implementation in place. Here’s some more insight on the importance of customer retention:
Customer Retention Statistics You Cannot Ignore
To realize the benefits of helpdesks, end-users must believe that the help desk is capable of providing the required assistance. This belief drives loyalty and comes from real-time experience and the quality of the services provided. Hence, businesses must plan to provide a quality experience consistently with an overall strategic helpdesk implementation vision.
Helpdesk support will only have value if it functions properly. And by that, I don’t mean technically but that it generates the results you want to achieve. With the right strategies in place, companies can solve issues either in real-time or through appropriate escalations.
Now you know the importance of a successful helpdesk implementation. The correct strategies promote productivity, efficiency and make the support lucrative (because it saves money). A correctly implemented helpdesk becomes a central repository of real-time “experience” to improve plans and decision-making. Let’s find out how you can achieve this.
Six Successful Strategies For Helpdesk Implementation
Your helpdesk is the frontline for your customer support. It is at the heart of productive organizations. Embracing helpdesk best practices can help with managing costs and delivering excellent service experiences.
Whenever you are in a position to engage in a helpdesk implementation or upgrade your existing solution, you have the opportunity to meet both your employees’ needs, drive their productivity. There’s a lot to take care of between setting up new systems, onboarding new employees, agent training, and scaling at a rapid speed. Both these aspects will take care of your customer retention and satisfaction. Here are some ways to help you along the way:
1. Employ a Flexible Solution Across Your Organization
Service desk implementation is not an inherently uncomplicated affair. And it can be tempting to apply reductive thinking while working on it. It may get tricky if you’re still planning on sticking to the traditional solutions. They’re old, discrete, and restrictive in nature. In simpler words, your support tech builds the base for your customer support processes, and not using a robust helpdesk solution can (and will) hold you back.
You need a flexible and, more importantly, simplified solution to employ the best customer relationships. Also, a helpdesk that lets you scale quickly is a must. Imagine how simpler life would be when you have everything you need at your fingertips; customer data, agent performance, various support metrics, access, permissions, and on. Your agents are happier, and your support accomplishes records that no other competitor can even imagine reaching. Too utopian, right?
It is not entirely impossible. Not if you’re using DeskXpand. It is a next-generation helpdesk software embedded with features keeping in mind the latest support trends and future needs. Here’s a quick feature guide:
- Ticket management features like automated ticket assignment, ticket notifications, ticket import, automatic ticket conversion, ticket sort and filter, shared inbox.
- Self-Service content in the form of knowledge base, FAQs, Video tutorials
- Service level management: Set various rules like the first-time response, dynamic timers, ticket escalation rules, resolution time, etc.
- Omnichannel communication and unified interface
- Analytics features to give you a complete 360-degree view of your support.
- Customization features to build a cohesive brand experience.
So, would you like a personalized demo?
2. Focus on Agent Productivity
Did you know one distraction equals 23 Minutes Lost!
A study states on average, workers tend to switch tasks every three minutes. For support agents, this can be a result of agents getting diverted from one task to another. Unfortunately, it comes with a considerable cost.
Hence, it would help if you focused on agent-focussed solutions that work throughout the organization. Support manager must motivate their support agents to focus unconditionally on a single task at a time.
Nowadays, agents also expect more innovative solutions that work for them. The drive toward shared resources brings collaboration and innovation. Proficient helpdesks help you streamline your workflows and processes throughout contemporary organizations. To conclude, you must have an agent-focussed solution for your customer support. Otherwise, your helpdesk implementation and the strategies will go down the drain. Thankfully the days of a tailor-fit solution for every process in every department are behind us.
Recommended Read: Seven Tips to Skyrocket Your Agent Productivity
3. Train Your Employees
You would think that training your employees is irrelevant to helpdesk implementation strategies. But it is relevant now more than ever. Once you’ve set up your helpdesk, you need to train your employees so that they can adapt to it easily.
Support rep training is an iterative process that involves support skills, competencies, and helpdesk tools. This will help companies derive more value from their products and services. Any agent that deals with customer fore-front are eligible for customer support training.
For example, the strategies or conversations that would work in 2010 won’t work today. Especially now, when customers expect you to respond to them instantly (within 24 hours). Doing so ensures that the customer feels their issue is understood and addressed.
Train your agents to constantly tell the customers that their issue is understood and they are heard. This will help create a mutual understanding with the customers and establish a better customer relationship.
Before implementing a helpdesk, you will have an important question to tackle – “How many agents do you need in your support team?” You also need to figure out what segments and groups do your agents belong to. It will largely depend on your user base and the number of requests you typically receive.
The next step would be to make your staff well-versed with the nitty-gritty of your helpdesk system. Set aside a relevant budget and time to train your support agents. These training sessions will help them develop skills and gain the confidence to serve a personalized experience. A well-trained team of agents will take you closer to achieving a pool of delighted users.
Recommended Read: Trending Customer Service Techniques in 2021
4. User Help Thyself
Put together a sample group of affected users, helpdesk technicians, and team members to brainstorm a sizable list of queries, and post the solution on your helpdesk knowledge base. As a support manager, you must strongly encourage the use of online knowledge bases and self-service capabilities.
Research shows that 72% of customers prefer to use self-service support over everything else. But for that, it has to be easy to use. Helpdesks make it much easier for companies to implement the self-service feature. Look for a helpdesk that lets you put up content in the form of FAQs, knowledge base articles, video tutorials, infographics, and so on. It should have algorithms that let you segment your content into various categories and sub-categories. Your self-service website has to be interactive and easy to navigate. Some tips on implementing a well-structured self-service:
- Make your knowledge base mobile optimized.
- Structure popular self-help articles at the top of the website
- Update the content regularly
- Take feedback from users. You can take live on-site feedback also.
- Integrate your knowledge base with your chatbots
5. Keep Up With the Latest Customer Support Trends
A significant part of helpdesk implementation involves keeping up with the latest trends as customer support is becoming more and more tech-oriented. The key to the most lucrative customer support strategies lies in the right combination of the latest tools, trends, collaboration, and workflows.
Brands that follow the latest customer support trends can serve the best. A customer-focused culture and system with customer-oriented features are the primary pillars of effective customer service in 2021.
Recommended Read: Top 10 Customer Service Trends to Follow in 2021
6. Look at the Big Picture and Target the Right KPIs
Keep an eye on key operational metrics like most companies. You can track key performance indicators (KPIs) such as average response time, first contact resolution, and overall user satisfaction. Metrics not only define your support’s success but can be used to create a sense of accountability among your team members. Gauge the overall effectiveness of your support by using the reporting capabilities of your helpdesks. This will also help you discover areas where you need to improve.
But do not obsess over random KPIs. Focus on what matters the most for your business. For example, an eCommerce company would focus on responding as fast as possible and meeting the resolution as soon as possible. For them measuring the speed would be the correct KPI. But an IT company may have to let go of the speed aspect because it is important to solve an incident correctly rather than speedily.
Put the customer experience first, and spend your time drilling into the trends and numbers that can help you make the biggest improvements. Look at the peaks and troughs in the data and focus on preventing incidents and not just solving problems. This is important for both: effectiveness of your support and the happiness of our support agents (and, well, customers).
The Bottomline
Using the latest and scalable technology that works for your organization is the bare minimum, to begin with. Having an employee-centered and customer-focused solution is not just an aspirational goal. It is the new norm! I am sure that the strategies mentioned above will help you achieve your monetary and retention goals.
If you’re starting from scratch or revamping your support, investing in the latest customer service tools and techniques to lead your brand through these strategies would be judicious.
We are an ISO27001 certified helpdesk development company with 14+ years of development experience. We build products that you can scale and customize according to your present and future needs. Functional experts and developers build DeskXpand with certifications in their respective fields. Contact our experts for more insights on helpdesk implementation strategies too. Or you can check out how DeskXpand works effectively for your business. Either way, the benefit is all yours.
