Help Desk Software For Small Businesses

When profits go down, the first area in which a small business may want to save money is its help desk. This type of frugality has its costs, however, in the form of long call backlogs, angry customers, and eventually even lower profits. A better option would be to improve the efficiency of the help desk in order to ensure even better service at a lower cost. One of the best ways to accomplish this task is by purchasing help desk software to streamline operations.

There are a variety of help desk software packages on the market. Among the most popular are Support Wizard, Parature, and FootPrints. Help desk software can assist the small business owner in comprehensive, adaptable problem resolution including generating and tracking tickets, responding to requests, and automating communications using outlets such as through calls or email. Help desk software is particularly useful for small businesses in which key personnel often travel, because it can allow access to the help desk over the Internet.

In case you think it?s too expensive, consider the costs to the customer of a software-less help desk:

o Time wasted deciding where to go for help.
o Time wasted on hold for customer support personnel.
o Time wasted reading through dense product manuals.
o Time wasted through poor procedures and practices.

Ultimately time wasted for the customer will result in dissatisfied customers and poor business performance. Direct costs to your business may include:

o Lower employee productivity when staff is called away to assist.
o Duplicated support efforts.

Nevertheless, be prudent when considering the purchase of help desk software, because not all packages are appropriate for small businesses. Some packages include hidden charges such as frequent updates, so it would be a good idea to find out what updates are expected and how frequent they occur. Nevertheless, think carefully before going to the other extreme and using free help desk software available on the Internet ? these packages usually have serious limitations and are appropriate only for very small operations. Nevertheless, small businesses should choose software with a relatively small number of features. Keep it simple because it?s unlikely a small business will need every feature of a complex product, so why pay for it?

How to Select Help Desk Software for Superior Service and Efficiency

The ability to provide the highest level of customer service with the greatest levels of efficiency is paramount for companies in the market for web based help desk software. With this in mind, there are a few key features managers should look for during the evaluation process.

Complete email integration. This is a feature in just about all help desk software, however as your evaluating make sure there is complete email integration that can support multiple mailboxes (if needed), a variety of mail server configurations, as well as key email features such as conversation threading and cc'ing.

Interaction Log. To prevent staff from having to sift through emails and note pads to recall the last interaction with a customer, all good help desk software will automatically log all interactions, those with the customer as well as those between staff members, related to a customer inquiry. If this is done in a logical, easy to use manner, it will allow any staff member (with the appropriate access) to get quickly up-to-speed when necessary.

Flexible categorization capability. To optimize the efficiency of your help desk operation you'll want the ability to categorize each customer inquiry for later aggregate reporting where trends can be spotted and addressed in a more proactive manner.

For example, appropriate categorization and reporting could uncover a large number of requests around a refund/exchange process. In an attempt to reduce staff time spent on this type of common inquiry, you could use tools with your customer portal (outlined below), such as knowledge base or forums, to outline a process for quick referral.

Self-service customer portal. Your customer-facing help desk site should contain the following components:

1. Customizable web submission form. Make sure you can collect the information you need, in the format you need it in.
2. Request status checker. This should include not only the most current update but all other interactions staff have had with the customer.
3. Easy to use knowledge base--more on the importance of this below.
4. Customer forums for collaborative problem solving. In some situations, your customers can be the best resource for other customers with questions. Foster a collaborative community around your product/service with a managed forum.

These features should be bundled in a template-driven portal that allows for customization with the components you want in the same, familiar, look-and-feel of your site.

A user-friendly knowledge base. While many web based help desk software packages include some form of knowledge base--be aware that not all are created equal. To ensure this is a tool your customers and staff will be confident in using, look for a knowledge base that has a logical layout; avoid overly complex, deeply nested knowledge bases.

Jamie Landsman is a Product Director at UserScape Inc., which is focused on building user-center software. Their primary product, HelpSpot, is a web based help desk software package offering a robust feature set with an easy to use interface. To learn more about HelpSpot, visit us at www.userscape.com/products/helpspot/

Does your Organization Ensure Linkage Between Marketing And Customer Support?

Do you know whether your organization ensures linkage between Marketing and Customer Support? Your customers do. Here's how.

Your customer responds to a banner/email/chat/phone call advertisement. The person they interact with has no idea of the product or service, so the customer does one of the following.

a) Hangs up/disconnects/closes browser
b) Waits patiently
c) Waits impatiently while the customer support agent finds someone who might help
d) Uses Google to find another source for the product or service

If your customer's solution is either "a." or "d." you have missed your window of opportunity to acquire or retain that customer. This results in wasted marketing budget and lower customer satisfaction.

This scenario takes place when Service Centers and the Marketing department don't work together to jointly plan marketing programs. Some companies think they can get an edge on the competition by moving the Service Center to the Marking department, but just making this move doesn't ensure that the customer service team will be ready when the marketing for the latest product or service generates the first customer response.

Each customer marketing initiative requires a significant investment of resources to generate the desired customer response, and each customer touch point is a moment of truth for that initiative. Your company has only a small window of opportunity to successfully deliver the message and convey why it matters to the customer.

Here are some Best Practices Strategies to consider to prevent situations like the one above as well as to integrate your Service and Support Organization to deliver value for your Marketing spend.

1) Design success metrics, measures and customer satisfaction surveys based on methodology, i.e. response rates, conversions, sales and customer acquisition.
2) Jointly plan for the important dates: mail drops, banner ads, TV, print and email blasts to plan staffing and training needs. Include outbound contacts if needed.
3) Plan agent training to include scripting, scenarios, FAQ's, and tools required to successfully complete the transaction.
4) Ensure IVR/VRU has correct messaging and routing set up prior to first call. Test.
5) Include customer service agents in the process for Voice of Customer insight.
6) Establish formal cross-organizational feedback processes between all key stakeholders. Agenda items include performance, recommendations and action items to make the necessary adjustments to ensure program success.
7) Ensure the end-to-end initial marketing through completed transaction process drives brand awareness, recognition and linkage to products and services.
8) Determine whether you will survey customers, and if yes, that you measure overall program success and opportunities for improvement.

Your Service and Support Organization and Marketing departments can deliver your desired program results when they jointly plan programs. These programs are even stronger when they include success measures and intentional plans for service delivery.

Les Hyde has an extensive leadership background in customer service and IT operations with two Fortune 500 companies and the United States Air Force. He holds a B.S. in Information Systems from Park University, an MBA from University of Phoenix, and numerous technical certifications. He is an active board member of the Kansas City Association of Customer Contact Professionals (http://www.associationccp.com/) and also serves as the Vice President of Marketing.

Outsourcing Your Customer Support? Points to Consider

Okay, so you’ve made the controversial and often contentious decision to outsource your customer support operations to an external call center. Before closing this all-important deal, there are a few steps you should take to ensure that your business is getting the quality and flexibility it deserves.

First of all, it’s important to ask where your support calls will be handled. Just because a call center has offices in your area doesn’t necessarily mean that calls will be sent there; in fact, many customer support firms outsource their business to other countries or even continents. Before signing a contract, its best to be clear on this issue, and ask yourself whether you (and more importantly your customers) are happy with support calls being dealt with from half a world away.

Secondly, you should ask exactly how much of the vendor’s business your company will account for. Ideally, its best that your business account for at least 5% of the call volume at your call center of choice, so as to allow agents to become familiar with your products and services. This isn’t always possible for very small businesses, but it’s still a good thing to look in to.

Another thing to remember is that most call centers will try to set up their own in-house phone number(s) specifically for your business. This is an offer your should flatly refused, as the vendor can later use it to their unfair advantage in keeping your business. It’s much better to own your own 1-800 number so you can switch providers at any time without changing your marketing material.

Finally, it’s always a good idea to sign a Non Disclosure Agreement with any vendor that you use for call center services. This will prevent the company from learning about how your business works, then taking that information to one of your competitors. This step is especially important if your call center of choice specializes in your industry.

Jeremy Maddock is a successful web-based freelance writer, who covers customer relations and other business-related issues

How to Accurately Measure the Customer Support Level of Your Small Business Web Hosting Provider

If all things being equal, we would rate customer support as our most important determining factor in choosing a web hosting provider. Relying on testimonials found on the provider's site is the most common approach to assess a company's level of customer excellence but it is also quite an outdated one. Afterall it's not uncommon for some providers to fake the testimonials. Instead we suggest you follow our way of intelligently assessing its customer support.

Customer-Employee Ratio - Sizing its level of customer support is sometimes as easy as finding out whether they have enough employees to support their level of business growth. An easy way to do so is to look at the customer to employee ratio, CE ratio, as a benchmark.

For example, according to our records Sitesell has approximately 15,000 customers and employs about 30 support staff, it has a CE ratio of 500 (15,000/30 = 500), you can expect a much higher level of customer satisfaction and a faster response time when compared to another provider who is serving 100,000 customers but only have 75 support staff. Their CE ratio would stand at approximately 1,333. Basically you should look for a professional hosting provider with a low CE ratio.

Number of Telephone Lines - Check to see if there is a separate line for sales, billing and technical support. We hate companies who use only 1 line to serve everyone. Either it is a company with very limited resource or it's immediate priority is simply not their existing customers but new customers.

An Active Forum - The real condition of a web hosting company's customer support is really found in its members forum if any. You will get a good dose of complains and praises but if the complains outnumber the compliments, it's time to raise a red flag. Forum is possibly the most effective way for you to get as close as you can to knowing a company's strength and weakness without committing to any contract with them.

Cynthia is the webmaster of Small-Business-Web-Hosting-Guide.com, you can discover even more but often overlooked ways to determine which is the right web hosting provider for your small business by subscribing to her free web hosting newsletter for all small business owners.