Good practices involve identifying tasks that must be done to keep the support process in good shape, and more importantly ensuring these tasks are carried out consistently and regularly. This checklist helps you identify some important tasks for building an efficient Helpdesk.
#1 Prioritization: Set priority with minimum manual effort and provide timely support.
Categorize, prioritize and assign tickets based on your business requirements. For example, route queries/issues to the respective departments for specialized support. Improve Agent productivity by automating tasks, triggering alerts, and events through rules and scenario automations. Automate not only save time but also help avoid errors. Shift agent focus from mundane and repetitive tasks to providing a good customer experience.
#2 Knowledge base & canned responses: Don’t waste time trying to solve problems for which there’s already is a solution.
Monitor queries, look for trends and create self-help content pieces for your customer’s use. Knowledge of these trends also aids in deciding and designing canned response templates that saves loads of agent time.
#3 Service Level Agreements: Ensure that no ticket gets overlooked or ignored.
SLA is a promise to the customer that the issue will be resolved or that you will get back within a specified time. And, by creating multiple SLAs, you can give more granularity to customer support based on type of ticket, product, customer group, location, etc. Keep track of queries coming in through various channels and not miss them.
#4 Tracking Key metrics: Continuous improvement is vital to building a good reputation
Looking at key metrics regularly helps gauge if your support system is effective or not. Track metrics to monitor performance and make improvements accordingly. Some important metrics to track would be response times, resolution times, customer satisfaction, etc. Scheduling reports to be generated and emailed to stakeholders saves time and helps establish a process of continuous monitoring.
#5 Get Customer Feedback: Capture the human aspect of feedback which cannot be given by quantitative reports.
Numbers may say one thing but its good to know what your customer actually thinks. In cases where both differ you can delve deeper and find out what the actual problem is. Customer satisfaction feedback fosters customer loyalty and is important if you want to provide your customers with a positive support experience.
#6 Scalability: Are you equipped for future growth?
Businesses grow and expand. Re-strategizing and reconfiguring your support system at a later point is not an easy task. For example, at the time of setup categorize agents into groups based on specialization or service requirements. This not only helps increase efficiency but also makes it easier to add new agents to groups rather than regroup them whenever agent number increases due to business needs.
#7 Adaptability: Be proactive and not reactive.
As your business expands over multiple products/services or locations, your existing support structure should be able to accommodate new business needs. It’s not just about adding more agent licenses to your existing support team. Also ensure that your helpdesk supports multiple products, languages, time zones and business hour SLAs in addition to agents.
#8 Centralized support: Flexibility to support your customer through their choice of channels through a unified system
Being able to consolidate tickets from all your support channels enables centralized control and management. Instead of your support structure existing in silos, you can handle all support queries with a single support account. Be it email, phone, mobile apps or social media, get and handle all your support queries from one place.
#9 Integrations: Enable data accessibility from a single interface.
Modify and enhance your helpdesk functionality by exchanging data with legacy software or applications that complements your helpdesk. Also, make functional modifications to your helpdesk software and meet immediate requirements without having to wait for product updates.
These are some things to lookout for while building your Helpdesk. However, a list like this cannot be definitive. The intent is to get you thinking about the specific actions needed to put your support function on the right track and keeping it there.