Love it or hate it customer support has become part of our daily
lives. Ironically it is so often the case that many set ups, planned
with good intentions to help the customer, end up causing them considerable
stress and dissatisfaction, and major management and cost headaches
for their masters.
As it's impossible to produce individual support staff with specialist
level knowledge of but a few of the seemingly endless array of complex
issues involved with modern I.T. plus be trained in first class
customer handling, customers are usually subjected to a multi-tier
support system. This can start with the often
hated "intelligent" call queuing system.
The first human contact by customers seeking support is normally
the first line help desk operator. These people are provided with
the broadest and least specialized technical knowledge and highest
training in customer management. Most problems are in fact resolved
here.
If required, after this the level 2 and level 3 layers of support
staff are engaged with increasing technical specialization and expense.
All layers are queued - 4 in all.
Each day has peaks and troughs and at any time too few support
staff at any level create worsening call delays especially during
peak times when customers often need fixes quickly.
However too many staff and people
are sitting around. How do you resolve this?
If you are considering your first Support
Line, be it internal and/or externally facing or if your existing
one is becoming something of a burden to you or your customer,
you should seek to implement the following:
1)
Establish and manage customer expectations
of the service. People will wait comfortably for a given
time so long as it's reasonable and they are told that's the service
you provide. They can plan for it. For instance publish your daily
loading on the Internet so if their problem isn't urgent they
can arrange their call to be during the quieter periods.
2)
Measure your process. It is essential that
you maintain key measurements of the various stages within your
support process. These measurements are crucial to maintain
control of the service and you will need experienced support management
to establish the right ones for you.
3) Reduce
phone contact. Using a well implemented fast, intelligent
on-line support system typically reduces
calls by more than 50%. It's ever present and there is
no queuing. Customers report this to be the best improvement in
their support experience.
4)
Minimise support need. No bugs, clear
user guidance and easy use of products and services is the best
way to reduce calls and promote customer satisfaction. This may
have seemed an obvious thing to state, but most suppliers of I.T.
solutions still don't have expertise in development engineering
or lifecycle management and this leads to
longer term higher costs and customer problems.
4GEN SYSTEMS
can assess and provide all of these within your company to either
create with you your first support set up produce a well managed,
efficient support set up and enhance your customer contentment.
