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Helping the customers and increasing the customer satisfaction is a top priority for any enterprise. It is the key to a loyal customer base and a successful business. Customer satisfaction affects your business revenue. Hence businesses need to make sure that whenever their customers run into issues with their product, service, or program, they are always there to help them. Whether the customer needs help with some basic queries/requests or help resolve some technical issues, businesses should have the support tiers necessary to address their concerns and provide effective solutions.
Customers who contact businesses in need of help usually go through a Single stage or a Two-stage process depending on the nature of their issue or query. The first stage is the Help Desk. And the second, the Technical Support/Tech Support.
Help Desk vs Technical Support
Help Desk is the first stage and usually the point of contact for customers. The Help Desk executives uses a more proactive approach to support and initiate communication with customers and enhances the customer satisfaction and perception about the company.
The primary aim of the Help Desk executives, is to troubleshoot the general issues and problems customers or end-users face with a company’s product/services, by giving them advice, guidance or information in a practical and cost-effective way. They handle and manage fundamental questions/issues like resetting passwords, application support, etc. In certain cases, if the issue can be resolved by the customers themselves and can be done from their side itself, the help desk staff helps the customers resolve the issue by giving a detailed step-by-step walkthrough. Anything beyond the help desk executives’ scope of expertise, or if it’s a complex technical issue, they escalate it to the Technical Support team and redirect the customers to them.
The Technical Support a.k.a. Tech Support of a company forms the second line of support for the customers. The Tech Support team helps customers resolve technical issues, glitches or malfunctions in company products/services. These products can include mobile phones, tablets, laptops, desktop computers, software, hardware, IT infrastructure, or cloud-based services.
Any tickets related to IT, hardware, or software issues, anything that requires technical supervision or software-related support are handled by the Tech Support executives. There may be either perceived or actual issues with the product/service that the customers are facing. Irrespective of that, the primary objective of the Tech support staff is to identify the root cause of problem and to promptly resolve them. They aim for a successful resolution of the issue in the first go itself so that the customers would not have to contact them again. These support services can be provided to the customers in various ways, such as in-person assistance provided by support staff at physical stores, through phone calls, or online channels like chat, email, forums, and incident reporting.
In the end, customers are the greatest advocates of your brand, and gives you repeat business. According to ‘Marketing Metrics’, businesses have a 60-70% chance of selling their products/services to an existing customer while the likelihood of selling to a new customer is only 5-20%. Without satisfied customers, you will not have loyal customers and without customer loyalty, there won’t be a higher customer retention rate.
Ultimately, a dissatisfied or an aggrieved customer will consider switching to your competitors or the next best alternative, as and when they get the chance.
How To Enhance Customer Support & Satisfaction Using Help Desk and Technical Support
Although the approaches and methods of serving customers of the help desk and technical support differs to a significant extent, their end goal is the same – Customer Satisfaction. While both are distinct entities within an organization, their collaboration is crucial to increase the overall customer satisfaction.
A few techniques that businesses can put to practice, for improving both their help desk and technical support services and enhancing the customer satisfaction are:
1) Listen to your customers
There’s no way of knowing whether your customers are satisfied with your product or not, or what they want you to update or fix, unless you ask them directly and actively listen to their responses. Listening and responding to your users helps you retain more customers and build product loyalty.
2) Always “Ask”
A customer support executive must never assume what the customer wants. He/she must always ask the customer, what is it that they need help with, what they can do to help, and what the customers want from them. This allows for a clear line of communication between the two parties, thereby encouraging faster resolution of the issue at hand.
3) Be competent and friendly
The competence of the support executive, be it from the help desk or technical support team, is one of the things a customer looks for, when they reach out for assistance. They want the executive to know the product inside-out and if he/she is someone who can provide them with real solutions instead of half-baked answers and unreliable quick fixes.
But even with competence, all would be lost if he/she is not friendly and warm in their attitude towards customers. The support executives should make customers feel at ease and comfortable to speak with them. They must be careful to never take a condescending tone with them.
4) Communicate well
Customer support representatives must be able to communicate clearly and fluently with customers. They must make sure that customers are informed about four key aspects –
What is the cost of support (if any)
What is the current process running to address the customer’s case
What will be the next order of business to address the customer’s case, and
What is the ETA for resolution of the case
5) Offer proactive multi-channel help
Consumers use various channels and devices to view, analyze and make purchase decisions about a company’s product and service. That’s why it’s worth having a presence to cover those channels your customers use, and provide videos, documents, and all sorts of support collateral and lend support via Live chat, Social media platforms, Email, and Phone. This also helps resolve small issues or queries customers may have.
The biggest benefit of multi-channel support is that you can engage your customers over their preferred method of communication. So, ensure that you offer top-quality support across all the channels. This lets you boost brand credibility as well as your customer satisfaction.
6) Collect customer feedback across all channels
Customer feedback is a clear indicator of customer satisfaction. It shows how pleased your customers are with your brand, products and the services. Usually, companies collect customer feedback through surveys using different channels. Taking customer feedback into account shows that you value your customers’ opinions and is one of the most powerful resources your business can have. That’s why, those customer-centric companies are 60% more profitable than companies that don’t focus on customers.
7) Leverage CSAT, NPS and CES scores
Conduct Customer satisfaction (CSAT) surveys, to gather short-term satisfaction data during key moments of your customer journey. These surveys help you understand the reason behind your customers’ satisfaction or dissatisfaction.
` Sample CSAT Survey
Then, ask customers why they gave you that score for a deeper understanding of their micro-experiences. Use them to gather data, share it with your teams, uncover areas for further improvement and bridge any gaps that may be hampering a smooth customer experience.
Conduct NPS surveys to measure your Net Promoter Score (NPS). NPS measures customer loyalty and your customers’ willingness to recommend your products and services to their loved ones and peers.
Sample NPS Survey
Often increasing customer satisfaction leads to higher NPS. A good NPS score is essential to understand where you stand compared to your competitors.
Additionally, you can perform a Customer Effort Score (CES) too, which is a customer experience survey metric that enables service organizations to account for the ease of customer interaction and resolution during a request.
Sample CES Survey
Simply put, CES measures the ease of doing business with your company. It is believed to be a better predictor of future customer behavior than NPS and CSAT, by some experts.
8) Act on customer feedbacks and customer reviews
Any business can perform the collection of customer feedback via: Website and web app surveys, Email and link surveys and Mobile app surveys. But taking action on the feedback thus collected i.e., understanding the pain points, improving the customer experience and increasing customer satisfaction, is something many businesses fail to do. To achieve your customer satisfaction goals, you need to turn customer feedback into a concrete business strategy. Acting on customer feedback promotes positive customer experiences, building customer loyalty and increasing brand value.
Similarly, companies should also monitor leading social media platforms, websites and portals where customers post reviews about their products and services. Why is this important? Because 88% of consumers trust user reviews as much as personal recommendations. Your response to the reviews and grievance handling encourages potential clients to buy from you.
Whether it is a positive or negative customer review, it’s worth taking the time to respond to it. If a customer is happy, capitalize on it, by getting more positive reviews, case studies, or testimonials. If it is negative, try and find out what makes them unhappy and understand the reason why they are upset.
Understand that negative reviews won’t kill your business (if you respond to them well). Treat complaints and negative reviews as an opportunity. It’s a chance to build closer relationships with your customers.
For more information, feel free to contact us.
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