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Make service an organisational philosophy and mission — it affects the way products are developed, shipped, and delivered

No product or service is ever perfect. This means brands and businesses would have their fair share of customer issues and complaints. Unfortunately, it may seem that helpdesks can contribute to those frustrations.

Customer support often becomes the butt of jokes. People typically make fun of the process – being routed to a different continent and having some offshore support agent with a funny accent deal with their frustrations, for example.

Some of us in Southeast Asia may take offence since millions of those support agent jobs are based on our shores. However, we get to acknowledge the simple truth that, even with local companies serving local clients, customer service can be quite disappointing.

All businesses seem to face an uphill battle to overcome the stigma of their helpdesks not being helpful.

1 – Helpdesk technology has evolved

The interesting thing is helpdesk technologies and the support industry have improved over the years, and there seems to be no excuse to have dissatisfied customers. Support software has already seen a great deal of innovation, incorporating best practices and psychology into workflows and user experiences.

Also Read: From Archives: 9 ways social media can help you deliver exceptional customer service

These systems have become so much more than just ticketing and response systems. There’s multichannel support, which often turns into more of a community than just a support mechanism. Think of businesses that use social media to manage customer complaints. There are also self-help and knowledgebase features.

Going beyond just reaching out and responding to customers, more sophisticated solutions like SysAid’s helpdesk, for one, provides more than just a customer service channel, but also analytics and business intelligence to help business perform better.

Even the free and open source solutions have automation and escalation features, such as OSticket, for instance.

And, thanks to cloud computing, investing in a helpdesk system has become more affordable, and implementation is now quick and easy. So why are there still all of these problems with support?

2 – Customers appreciate a ‘helping’ mindset

It’s in the actual practice where we see the gap. Support departments are highly stressful environments. Support agents bear the brunt of irate customers, and many of these customers can be quite harsh.

Thus, agents have little choice but take the abuse. However, genuine enthusiasm, positivity, and a genuine desire to help can be infectious and can shine through to appease angry customers and resolve issues.

Support departments should, therefore, be passionate about providing a genuine service to customers. All support services should be founded on the following pillars:

• Accessibility – Aim for various channels (chat, email, phone, social media) that suit customer behaviour.
• Human touch – Let people deal with people. Support personnel should be polite and understanding and should display enthusiasm about the product. Empathise with the customer.
• Know-how – Support people, should know the product and service, the issues, and how to solve them.
• Proactivity – Support teams should towards resolving problems in a timely and satisfactory manner.

Because of social media, noisy and dissatisfied customers can stunt growth for any business. On the inverse, satisfied customers are inclined to refer friends and colleagues. One very happy customer can bring in 9 more. Smaller ventures should even have scale on their side and should be able to respond even quicker than bigger counterparts.

3 – Businesses should be proactive

One can argue that automation can take away the personal touch in customer interaction. But anyone who has used or implemented helpdesk systems would agree that having them in place is so much better than not having one at all. Technology is there for work to be easy, but if the people using them do not have the proper mindset, then the tools become moot.

Also Read: 6 user experience lessons every founder should know

It’s also unfair to put all the blame regarding customer dissatisfaction solely on support departments. They are more of the ‘pound of cure’ than the ‘ounce of prevention’. Take the case of Samsung’s exploding batteries. Samsung’s support took a heavy pummelling because of that. However, design and manufacturing defects aren’t the fault of the support department.

It also isn’t rare for large enterprises to outsource support to smaller contractors. In cases like in the Philippines, there seems to be a dearth in talent servicing locals, since the best support agents work for offshore accounts.

Service is a mission

So the key idea here is for organisations as a whole should step up and adapt a customer-focused mindset. Making service an organisational philosophy and mission often affects the way products are developed, shipped, and delivered. The more care businesses put into what they do, the more satisfied customers they will get. It may also be time to bring back customer support in-house to minimise the gap between mindset and practice. Bring back ‘help’ to the helpdesk.

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The views expressed here are of the author’s, and e27 may not necessarily subscribe to them. e27 invites members from Asia’s tech industry and startup community to share their honest opinions and expert knowledge with our readers. If you are interested in sharing your point of view, submit your post here.

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