No one needs to tell a business how important their customers are. Current customers keep the lights on, so keeping them happy should be a top priority; every interaction should be a positive experience for them.
A help desk can make it much easier to provide a consistently high level of service for your customers. Even if they're calling about an issue that has upset them, it can be handled in a way that makes them confident that you care and are prioritising their needs.
There are a number of opportunities to resolve problems quickly and efficiently with a help desk, and if it is consistently providing quality service, it will improve your customer relationships and customer retention in the future.
Improve customer satisfaction
With so many companies viewing the help desk as a cost they must minimise, the majority of customers are receiving poor support. Nearly 70% of US consumers reported an unsatisfactory service interaction in the past 12 months, according to a survey by Forrester.
Businesses have the opportunity to delight their customers every time they call, increasing their satisfaction and as a result, their retention. The whole team needs to understand the value of the help desk, and be empowered to go above and beyond in delivering a good customer experience.
Exceed expectations in response times
After signing the Service Level Agreement (SLA), many customers will forget the specifics of response times. To them, every major issue impacting their business should be your top priority. When you have more than one major issue going on, sometimes you have to prioritise, but it is critical that your help desk responds to each customer to let them know that they are working to resolve the situation.
If you have been consistently delivering great support, many customers will understand if an issue occasionally takes longer to be resolved.
Recycle expertise
If you're experiencing a large volume of calls on any particular issue, you should spend time creating a knowledge base article for that particular issue. Research by Amdocs found that 91% of customers would use an online knowledge base if it were available, so if your customers can find the answer quickly and efficiently online, they will resolve the issue themselves rather than pick up the phone.
Spot trends
A help desk can act as an early warning system for major business issues. If some customers are complaining about the same issue, then it is likely that more are experiencing it but not saying anything, and therefore becoming dissatisfied with your service.
If these trends are spotted and proactively solved, though, then there is a chance to delight your customers by fixing a problem that the majority of them had but never told you about.
