5 Hacks for Better Help Desk Management

Managing a help desk is a challenge at the best of times. You can quickly get overwhelmed when there are staffing, software, or call volume issues. You’re also having to deal with multiple communication channels now including phone calls, email, and social media messaging which increases the workload and difficulty in keeping up.

Here are five hacks for providing better management of customer services and the help desk which improves responsiveness and the quality of all communications.

1. It’s All About the Tickets

A raised ticket for a new customer contact lands in the system and it must be managed. Tickets need proper prioritization using filtering and grouping so that they reach the appropriate team or team member expediently. With better quality tools, like SysAid’s help desk software, tickets can be segmented by category and subcategory to narrow down whom should be responsible for dealing with them.

When anyone in the team skips the raising of a ticket in response to a customer contact – however, the contact was initiated (email, direct message, Facebook Messenger, phone call) – the outstanding issues goes untracked. Not only does ticketing matter to see how many tickets are outstanding, but it also provides a historical record too.

2. Adjust Flexible Working Hours Based on Predicted Ticket Volume

While some staff should be full-timers, others need to have a flexible arrangement for the days and hours that they’ll work. A portion of the help desk workforce needs to be on-call to either come in on extra days when needed or to work extended hours.

See whether there’s the option to have staff work from home to cover email and live chat on the website. Some remote working can save time on a commute at an unfriendly hour. Ensure access to the help desk software is possible via a virtual private network to the company’s intranet or as a SaaS.

3. Improve FAQ or Knowledge Desk to Reduce Open Tickets

Customers will visit a frequently asked questions or Knowledge Desk area if the information provided covers many relevant queries and has the potential to fully resolve their problem. When the helpdesk information provided in advance of dealing with a query is insufficient, then the customer will tend to create a ticket.

By providing increasingly useful answers through a well-organized system that includes excellent search functionality, many customers will find the answers they’re looking for without the need to initiate a new ticket. Having achieved this outcome once, they’re more likely to try to find the answer using the Knowledge Desk first.

Staff should take turns to add or revise information on common queries as part of their regularly role. If necessary, have an editor go through their submissions to proof-read them before they go live.

4. Workflow as a Tool to Track Tickets to a Successful Conclusion

Many companies treat customer contact as a pain point for the business to deal with as quickly as possible. The goal should be to track a customer’s problem to the point where they’re satisfied; not to where the initial query has been answered.

Regularly following up with customers who have outstanding tickets helps avoid dissatisfaction with the process when an immediate solution could not be found.

When staff take the approach of helping customers with solutions without giving them a feeling that they’re being rushed off the phone for the customer service person to get to the next caller, customer retention rates goes up. As a result, the business remains successful. Positive word of mouth also results from taking the extra time to ensure the customer has the answer(s) they needed.

5. Use the Help Desk Home Page to Showcase Trending Questions

A separate help desk page should be maintained. Before submitting a ticket, visitors can see the latest popular questions from other customers. Trending questions and currently relevant ones can be posted at the top of the list to provide helpful answers before the question is asked again. By providing answers to common questions and highlighting the more topical ones, it reduces the number of open tickets while at the same time looking proactive to customers.

Getting an effective result using help desk software is all about both squeezing the most out of the software and helping the staff to use the tools to help their customers. Where staff need additional training to understand the software fully and to feel comfortable with it, this should be provided. Ultimately, customer satisfaction should be the main criteria for whether a help desk is being managed well or not.