Customer Support and Service Articles

The January edition of our customer support newsletter is here! And it is overflowing with Customer Support and Customer Service Advice, Articles, Tips and Tricks.

TeamSupport.com (http://www.TeamSupport.com) – the popular provider of web-based customer support and help desk software solutions – has announced the release of a powerful new screen capture capability. It gives users the ability to record audio and video of a discrepancy and embed it in tickets submitted to a TeamSupport-enabled customer portal.

Available to users of both TeamSupport’s basic and advanced ticket submission portals, the option offers an “Add Screen Recording” button below the description box when filling-out a new support request. Users can add audio, such as a detailed narrative, to their recorded video. The combination of visual and verbal input gives Help Desk staff a compellingly clear understanding of any issue. For details, please visit: http://help.teamsupport.com/integration/screen-recording

“This feature will help customers relay more useful information with greater ease,” said company CEO Robert C. Johnson. “Support teams can more rapidly resolve issues when they’re able to fully visualize, understand and replicate the variables. It’s one more tool we’re adding to TeamSupport in our ongoing efforts to improve the customer support experience.”

Employed by customer support and help desks worldwide, TeamSupport is easily configured and customized; the application is offered in several reasonably priced, upgradeable versions. TeamSupport is scalable from a simple help-desk application to a 100+ seat enterprise-wide customer support and product defect tracking system.

In her article 7 Ways IT Can Improve Customer Service Kate Leggett discusses several ways that a company can improve customer support. We find her insights spot on! Providing outstanding customer service is truly the differentiating factor in so many successful businesses. And reaching that level of customer service excellence truly IS a challenge. When pressed to choose between two establishments providing similar products, the customer service experience can very easily tip the scales in favor of one over another. The steps outlined here are ones that if taken into consideration when evaluating your own help desk and the level of customer service being provided can hopefully elevate that service standard and your business.

It’s a brand new year, and now is the perfect time to plan out the rest of 2012 for you and your entire customer support team! Just like New Year’s resolutions, it’s good to have milestones throughout the year to remind us to pick up the pace or improve our situation.

Making a calendar can keep you from putting off important maintenance, especially when it’s so easy to dismiss and do something else – but it’ll be the holiday season again before you know it! So here are some events you can schedule throughout the year to help keep your customer support game in tip-top shape.

Schedule More Help During Busy Times

When are your busiest times? Naturally, a lot of companies have increased business during the holidays, but that might not be the only really busy time for your team. If you own a fireworks company, for example, you’re most likely swamped during New Year’s Eve and Fourth of July as well.

Look back at your past schedules from the last couple of years to find out when your most busy times are. Instead of your team getting overly stressed and strained during these times, map out these cycles and perhaps consider bringing on a few more people to share the load during these periods.

Training Days

Speaking of new help, you need time to train them properly. Even if they stay for just a few weeks or months, you will want for them to know how to properly handle any customer service situation. And a refresher could not hurt for the rest of your staff!

To this end, schedule a few days or weeks during the year to catch up on training. Not only will new situations arise during the months between, but your agents will most likely have new questions that they can address and get answered. You can also take this time to forecast plausible problems or issues you’ll face in the future.

FAQ Improvement

Want to cut down on your agents’ work load? Updating your Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) is a great way to insure that your customers don’t leave your website again without getting the answer they are searching for. When your customers have troubles, they can simply check the FAQ and hopefully avoid calling or emailing your service center. With this tool properly utilized, all of your agents (and you) will have more time to do other things than field commonly asked questions again and again.

Morale Building

You most likely are not slammed 24/7. Well, I suppose it’s possible, but then you clearly need to go back to point #1 and reevaluate your staffing needs! In any case, there will eventually be down times for your customer support team. During these instances, you still want to keep your team busy and engaged, and you can’t train all the time.

What better time could there be to hold some team building and morale boosting events!? Take everybody out for a night of bowling or have a random party or potluck in the office. So when making that calendar, be sure to schedule for some fun and recognition!

ANALYTICS ADD POWER TO LEADING SAAS-BASED HELP DESK & CUSTOMER SUPPORT APP

TeamSupport.com (http://www.TeamSupport.com) – the popular provider of web-based customer support and help desk software solutions – has announced the addition of analytics powered by Zoho Reports. Using the collaborative tools, TeamSupport clients can easily filter, sort, view and analyze their business data. An intuitive drag-and-drop interface makes easy work of creating dashboards, graphs and reports to share with all, or selected team members.

Once the integration is set up, TeamSupport automatically updates Zoho Reports with Ticket data, Portal Logins, Chat Requests and Knowledge Base Traffic – all in near realtime. As a TeamSupport add-on, licenses—based on database size—are available directly through Zoho; a free version may be sufficient for the smaller TeamSupport account. Please visit TeamSupport.com for further information.

“Linking Zoho Reports to TeamSupport was an easy choice for us, as it complements our existing integration with their popular CRM software,” said company CEO Robert C. Johnson. “Among our top goals at TeamSupport is providing our users with the best tools available to help make well informed business decisions; Zoho Reports definitely fits in that category.”

Used by customer support and corporate help desks worldwide, TeamSupport is easily configured and customized; the application is offered in several reasonably priced, upgradeable versions. TeamSupport is scalable from a simple help-desk application to a 100+ seat enterprise-wide customer support and product defect tracking system.