Customer experience is the cornerstone of business success for small businesses. Customers should be satisfied quickly to ensure long-term growth and retention. Yet, some companies use strategies that could be more scale-friendly, like directly managing customer support channels instead of organically expanding through them. While this approach might work for certain customers, growing businesses require alternative strategies. Otherwise, their data gets transferred between platforms or manually updated between accounts, wasting precious time each week.
What Is A Help Desk?
Businesses and customers use help desks to address inquiries or issues related to orders or products, while teams working together manage, respond to, organize, and report customer tickets more efficiently. When working together on customer tickets, it is essential for teams working together on customer tickets to track key metrics, including first response time (FRT), average resolution time, and any unresolved cases.
There are various kinds of help desks. These range from self-service platforms and ticketing systems with automated workflows and self-service features to desks designed specifically to support online retailers like us.
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Do You Require A Help Desk?
Help desks are a great asset to any business since they can improve employee productivity and customer satisfaction. They also help with overall efficiency. These are the main reasons your company needs a Help Desk:
Support For Streamlined Services:
Help desks are a central platform that allows for fast and effective responses. It reduces time wasted on solving problems and provides a smooth support experience to users.
Improved Customer Satisfaction:
Customers are more satisfied when they receive prompt, efficient support. Help desks allow businesses to provide high-quality support to customers. This fosters long-term customer loyalty and maintains a positive image.
Increased Employee Productivity:
Employees of organizations that have an internal helpdesk can receive quick assistance for technical problems, including software and hardware. It reduces downtime, increases productivity, and allows employees to concentrate on core tasks.
Data-driven Insights:
Many help desks come equipped with analytics and reporting features, which provide valuable information on the user's inquiries and interactions. These data can help identify trends, improve support processes, and make better decisions.
Scalability:
The volume of requests for support increases as your company grows. You can manage a growing number of requests while maintaining the quality of your support.
Support Consistency:
The help desk will ensure that all support requests are handled similarly, following the exact protocols and procedures. This provides a consistent user experience. Standardization allows the company to improve and maintain the support quality over time.
Knowledge Base Creation:
Use help desks to create and maintain knowledge bases that contain answers to frequently asked questions and solutions for common problems. The resource allows users to search for answers on their own, reducing support agents' workload. It also helps customers resolve problems faster.
Help Desk Types
Help desk systems simplify service management. Managing the increasing number of support requests that come in as your company grows can be difficult without a central system. Customer service teams will require a separate help desk from IT departments.
There are two main types of help desks:
Digital Help Desks Or Cloud-Based Help Desks
Your digital Help Desk provider hosts your Help Desk; monthly or annual fees apply; ideal for small to mid-sized businesses without an IT department to develop software; no hosting and maintenance needed - an invaluable asset in improving customer service!
Help Desks On-Site
DIY Helpdesk Solutions provide the ideal DIY option. A software tool could be purchased and hosted directly on your servers for complete data control and security. At the same time, cloud-based helpdesks provide even greater levels of protection than their counterparts, thanks to advanced security features.
Sooner rather than later, on-site support desks may become obsolete as we increasingly adopt cloud solutions. Most organizations that rely on on-site help are government and law firms which prefer to keep their sensitive data private from external servers but still require IT infrastructure support.
Help Desks For Large Or Enterprise Organizations
These digital or on-site solutions are tailored specifically for larger companies and feature increased support compared to standard help desk solutions. You may opt for this help desk if your enterprise software requires extra customization or you need extra support than typical ones can offer.
Open Source Help Desks
Developers can gain free access to proprietary software's source code with open-source software. Although most help desk applications available via open source are usually free, customized builds may need to be performed by IT teams before being ready for deployment; vulnerabilities to outages or data breaches exist as with purchased upgrades, but the support for open source upgrades tends to be greater than ever before.
Help Desks For Internal IT
Businesses often employ IT help desks that assist employees with IT-related problems, especially larger organizations like universities or hospitals. An IT team could create a self-service portal containing troubleshooting guides and easy ways for users to request additional help.
Help Desks organize and facilitate support efficiently. Self-service features allow employees to reduce unnecessary requests while collecting all inquiries related to support needs.
What Is The Difference Between A Helpdesk And A Crm System?
CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software helps organize client and lead data in one central repository, giving your customer service teams access to it to monitor client relationships more effectively and stay organized.
CRMs typically don't feature ticket management as part of their primary function - account and sales information - while ticketing systems form part of Helpdesks; people often confuse Salesforce for managing helpdesks when its primary goal is CRM and not help desk management. Good help desk platforms often include features similar to CRM tools; for instance, aggregating all customer interactions into one location, collecting loyalty data, or tracking marketing campaign results are just some examples of such features that may be found here.
How Can I Tell The Difference Between A Helpdesk And A Live Chat?
Live chat features prominently on some helpdesks, enabling instantaneous communication between brand users and brand representatives, instant request collection from various channels, including social media, email, and telephone communication, and essential in maintaining an efficient helpdesk application. Live chat can make for an exceptional helpdesk solution!
Here is an example of a live chat helpdesk widget that can easily be added to a website within moments, featuring live chat features so users can communicate directly through this helpdesk without switching platforms to reply directly with them.
What Is The Difference Between A Service Desk And A Helpdesk?
Most organizations can differentiate between a service desk and a bureau of self-service. Although these terms can sometimes be used interchangeably, both serve to centralize knowledge management while improving end-user support. However, only certain businesses possess both capabilities.
Technically speaking, a help desk is more comprehensive than its service counterpart; service desks may additionally encompass account management, feature requests, and other capabilities, while modern helpdesks may serve the same purposes. Suppose you want a more organized and effective customer support approach with modern tools at its core. Using the helpdesk is likely ideal.
Benefits Of Help Desk Software
Help-desk software can improve customer satisfaction and lead to more customer loyalty. Let's examine the five most important benefits of integrating help desks during office hours.
Improve Your Business By Improving Customer Service
Over the past three years, the return on investment (ROI) for customer experience solutions has increased by 633 percent. Although help desks were not specifically mentioned in this report, they can be an excellent investment to improve customer satisfaction - retailers who utilize helpdesks typically experience an average revenue increase of five percent when using one compared to when they did not utilize such tools - see more by reading our guide on customer service ROI or see how one BruMate support team's "helpdesk" generated $9 Million!
Rapid Response Time
Customers expect instant responses when they contact businesses, and helpdesk software is designed to prioritize requests effectively while automating tickets that require little attention from customer service agents and agents themselves. Helpdesk templates make getting started quick while automating customer service processes more smoothly while agents become more productive; plus, your customers wait much less before receiving responses!
Not Lost Or Missed
With help desk software in place, handling support tickets can become clearer to customers. It may lead to repeated questions that frustrate them. Helpdesk software streamlines customer interactions across channels into one dashboard for your convenience and notifies you when open tickets are submitted; agents will also have visibility over how many they've already closed versus which remain outstanding.
As another example, it was also able to consolidate all its support tickets into one platform, leading to a 33% decrease in response time and an uptick in tickets received. This resulted in increased efficiency in handling support inquiries, significantly decreased response times, and an overall 33% reduction.
Customer Information In A Single Ticket
Helpdesks with these features are vitally important to businesses looking to provide fast and personalized customer care.Display past orders, interactions, and transactions customers have had with you - including those conducted over social media - in one convenient spot. Useful for understanding past positive and negative customer interactions with your brand that lead to productive and efficient conversations; asking customers again for information they already provided helps facilitate more productive discussions than asking directly; importing customer expectations data from other apps using sidebar features instead.
Make Your Favorite Apps Work Together To Create A Powerful Combination
Integration between apps will enhance their power. Installing them via the help desk will save agents from switching applications or copying/pasting customer data into separate applications; plus, it contains all the essential customer details they require about each customer! To discover more integrations available in the App Store - some of your top ecommerce apps might already be in use!
Teamwork And Agent Productivity Are Enhanced
A recent study shows that 86% more teams are productive using a helpdesk. Helpdesk software can boost productivity.
- The team can communicate better when agents can comment on individual tickets.
- Prioritizing requests allows you to focus on urgent and time-sensitive issues first.
- Your team can develop an escalation plan to ensure urgent questions get sent to the right teams.
Consistency In Customer Service
Make the best messages reusable across the team with templates of messages for use by all. This expedites help desk operations and delivers consistent customer experiences while speeding up first response times. Use macros that contain variables for customizing each message with personalizing information directly from an online platform without the need to copy/paste manually.
Improved Business Operation
Help desk software can transform business processes. By centralizing metrics related to customer service in one location, tracking, and reporting becomes much simpler. A dashboard helps track problems while making more effective decisions; those providing clear reports will help meet service level agreements more quickly and meet service level agreements sooner. Revenue Statistics Board also facilitates these goals with effective revenue impact communications quickly understood by their stakeholders.
Agent Time Can Be Reclaimed
Templates can help save agents' time by enabling them to focus their work on tickets that matter the most for your business. Princess Polly has increased customer service by 40%, increasing the first response rate by 95% and decreasing resolution times by 80%. Need some tips for expanding customer care levels on an ecommerce storefront? Check out our Essential Customer Service For Ecommerce Guide today.
Also Read: What Is A Help Desk, Why Do You Need One, And What Features Should You Look For?
Help desk is necessary How can a support desk be made effective?
Apps that support your customers and staff at the helpdesk must have six key features. These features are important.
1. Multichannel Communication
Google and Forrester Research recently conducted a joint study analyzing the communication requirements of businesses. When reaching out to brands, customers prefer communicating asynchronously via social media channels like social media posts or texts sent directly, texting services like text-to-text, third-party messaging services such as 3rd Party Messaging Services such as SMS/MMS, etc. chat apps, etc. and mobile applications, etc.
According to this research study, multichannel businesses that utilize multiple channels either asynchronously or in real-time are likely more successful; multichannel businesses that utilize multiple channels simultaneously or in real-time are more likely than their counterparts to experience revenue growth of over three times over time!
An effective help desk application should include social media interactions. You do not need to spend hours tracking communication across various channels - let your customers communicate how they prefer instead of forcing them into submitting tickets!
Notable Features
- Support all the channels your customers may use: email, SMS, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp, as well as live chat on the phone, Facebook Messenger, or WhatsApp.
- You can aggregate all channels into a single view per customer.
- Social media allows agents to like, share and reply to comments.
2. Tickets Management
You must be able to track and organize customer tickets at all times.
Notable Features
- Tickets can be created, closed, reopened, submitted, resolved, etc.
- How to assign or reassign Helpdesk tickets.
- Automatic ticket routing categories and automatic categorization.
- Tickets for public and private actions
- Automated responses and messages
- Views that provide an overview of all tickets, customer interactions, and other information.
3. The Benefits of Self-Service
Microsoft's survey on customer preferences showed that 88% of respondents wanted online help portals like help desks from businesses they interact with. Yet, only 42% of teams employ self-service help desks as part of their customer service solution.
Customers can get detailed answers through a FAQ page or, even better, an entire knowledge base without contacting customer service directly. This is one way of creating a Help Center; instantaneous responses can be given using a self-service order management widget to reduce agent workload.
Notable Features:
- Knowledge Base Articles
- Forums communautaires
- Live chat offers self-service options.
- Customization options
4. Automated Capabilities
Helpdesks allow you to automate many ticket-related communications. They can reduce ticket volume significantly if, for instance, multiple clients need immediate help with issues already covered in your knowledge base. They can quickly get answers tailored directly to their individual needs from this system and act upon it immediately - such as changing shipping addresses.
Automation can speed up customer resolution times and allow agents to focus on other tickets more quickly. Loop earplugs, automation, and integrations were used successfully in one instance to increase response times and resolve customer inquiries faster; 17 percent of queries about where their order was reduced down to 5 percent with self-service combined with automation offloading over 30 percent of tickets; this allowed your agents to focus more effectively on high priority ones that needed their expertise.
Notable Features
- Tickets are automatically assigned tags and channels based on the content or channel.
- Macros that automatically react to certain tickets
- Canceling orders or updating credit card details are examples of automated actions.
- Chat widgets with automatic responses can be automated
5. Reporting Functionality
Your customer service agent must have reporting tools available to them so you can effectively evaluate, track and assess their performance as an agent and the experience customers are having with them. Your metrics should be integrated into an interactive dashboard that you can use for real-time decisions to optimize profits - dashboards could include data on individual agent performance, revenue impact from customers, and customer satisfaction indices, among many others.
Notable Features:
- The metrics related to tickets include the number of tickets created, replied to, closed, and sent, as well as resolution times, response time, etc.
- Customer satisfaction is measured by the total number of completed surveys, average rating, distribution, and percentage.
- Reporting on tags and intent is necessary to understand the different types of tickets in your bulk ticket volume.
- You can learn how to improve your product by viewing customer service questions.
6. Integrating Third-Party Services
Questions like the ease of integration with pre-built software and tools, available integrations, how many integrations you require, and any fees charged can help determine which online support desk would best meet your needs. Taking these into consideration will lead to success when searching for one!
If you want to establish an ecommerce help desk, look for software compatible with your store platform and applications; there are numerous such solutions out there, with Service Desk standing out due to its many integrations with third-party IT solutions.
Notable Features:
- Your help desk and different apps can seamlessly integrate to provide all customer information in one location.
- These apps can integrate multi-app workflows (e.g., Klaviyo, which can create segments based on attributes such as a campaign to win back).
What Is The Role Of A Help Desk Manager?
Help Desk Administrator:
The person within an organization who manages help desk workflows, processes, and tools to ensure that the team can deliver great customer service.
Support manager:
Subject matter experts typically oversee customer service processes and ensure service level agreements are fulfilled. At the same time, support managers manage groups of agents under them and distribute work proportionately to provide positive customer experiences. Although support managers are typically present only in smaller businesses, large call centers typically employ multiple support managers at any time.
Support Agent:
Support agents are accountable for responding to and resolving customer concerns on behalf of their company, usually within an agreed-upon SLA. Support agents may either specialize or be generalists, depending on their role. They can possess technical or IT support expertise depending on which support function they perform. In the case of ineffective resolution attempts by support agents or escalate requests directly to managers/specialized agents as needed.
What Features Are Popular In Help Desk Software?
Help Desk Software offers exclusive features to enhance user experiences and streamline processes. HappyFox software has several exclusive features.
Ticket management:
The ability to turn incoming support requests into tickets on the help desk is an essential feature. It allows for organization, assigning, and resolution of inquiries. This allows for a more structured way of managing customer inquiries, ensuring everything is completed.
Knowledge Base Management:
Help desk software includes many tools to create, manage, and share knowledge articles or FAQs. This information is readily accessible to users, who can search for instant answers. Support agents are relieved of their workload.
Automation:
Automating features such as auto-assignment and canned responses can significantly improve ticket management. Support agents can focus more on personalized assistance by automating processes and repetitive tasks.
Management Of SAAS:
Software for help desks often contains tools to track and manage service-level agreements. They help monitor performance about customer expectations and ensure that issues are resolved quickly. These tools also alert companies when they may be at risk of violating SLAs.
Real-time Reporting:
For evaluating the performance of support and improving operations based on data, it is essential to have up-to-the-minute reports. Help desk software has real-time reporting capabilities that allow companies to track key performance indicators and evaluate their progress in meeting goals.
Asset management:
Software that includes asset management features allows companies to keep track of tickets relating to software and hardware assets. By keeping track of the assets used in business and how they affect operations, companies can more effectively address requests for support.
Custom fields:
Custom fields allow organizations to customize their support process or collect extra data relevant to their industry, meeting individual organizational requirements. Help desk software often includes custom fields as a popular feature that helps organizations capture specific data unavailable through default fields - helping support agents identify trends or patterns within this information to optimize support processes while meeting customer demands more effectively.
Custom fields aren't limited to ticket forms in help desk software - they can also be added as assets, user profiles, or any other object within it, giving more precise control of data collection and better organization. Custom fields add flexibility to help desk systems, enabling organizations to customize them according to their needs and demands.
What Is The Most Popular Channel For Help Desks?
Help desks offer various channels to communicate with users, providing customers with multiple paths for support in various forms. Here are the typical communication paths used by help desks:
Phone Support:
While help desks offer phone-based support options to their users, many opt to speak directly with an agent on urgent issues or for more in-depth troubleshooting procedures. These methods of support may provide faster solutions when necessary.
Email:
Users can email any queries to help desk staff, and support agents will provide instructions and solutions directly. Users may refer back to these emails at any time for reference purposes.
Live chat:
A live chat feature allows users to interact with agents through websites or apps in real-time. It is an efficient and convenient way of receiving immediate assistance.
Self-Service Portal:
A self-service portal is an online platform that gives users access to knowledge bases, FAQ sections, and troubleshooting guides to find answers or solve issues themselves, thus decreasing support agent workload and saving costs associated with support staffers.
Social Media Support:
Support services are now accessible on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn for users to seek assistance by either sending direct messages to the company directly or mentioning it within posts they make publicly visible.
System of Ticketing:
Users may submit support requests online through an interactive form, and the system will assign it a unique number; once submitted, users can check back frequently with status and outcome updates about their request.
Community Forums:
Some help desks feature community forums where customers can pose queries to support staff or fellow users in an open atmosphere, leveraging collective wisdom for faster resolution of common problems.
Organizations offering multiple channels for help desks can more effectively meet customers and employees with diverse preferences. At the same time, it guarantees users receive prompt, effective assistance that leads to higher satisfaction levels.
Which Is The Best Software To Use For Help Desks?
When shopping for helpdesks, please sign up for demos and trials. Here are a few things you should consider when reviewing your options:
- Pricing: Does the pricing plan offer various options, and is it affordable?
- Ticket Organization: Can you share visually and intuitively which tickets need attention and which agents to contact?
- Features that automate functions: Could your team and customers benefit from saving time by using automated features?
- All Channels Supported: Is the platform compatible with all channels, such as social media or texting?
- Incorporate the platform with tools you already use (or plan to use).
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Conclusion
Research demonstrates the power of 24-hour help desks on businesses. These help desks improve your customer service and self-service provision and allow your agents to dedicate more time and energy to handling complex cases while automating repetitive tasks for enhanced time savings and agent efficiency. Furthermore, you'll ensure retention by emphasizing customer journey management while drawing in new ones.
