Help Desk Agents Need to be Empowered with the Right Tools
One of the most important avenues toward long-term client loyalty is high-quality customer support. In fact, data from Business 2 Community revealed that 80 percent of customer loyalty is driven by three key customer support attributes: reliability, responsiveness and simplicity. Of course, help desk agents can't deliver on customer expectations if they are not empowered with the right tools. Thankfully, collaborative customer support software is available to businesses of all sizes that enable support agents to provide an exceptional experience to clients.
From support agent to expert
When it comes to customer support, there is one important differentiator between teams who deliver mediocre experiences and businesses that set quality as their benchmark: a culture of collaboration. According to Salesforce, high performers on customer service teams are two times more likely than low performers to say that support is 100 percent the responsibility of the entire company.
"With the right tools, everyone on the team is empowered to be a high performer."
The reality is that with the right tools that promote cross-team collaboration, everyone on the team is empowered to be a high performer. Advanced customer service software allows help desk agents to work directly with everyone throughout an organization including account executives, software engineers and web designers. By granting access to such a wide breadth of knowledge and expertise, staff members evolve from agents to trusted experts clients can depend on for the right information and solutions.
The importance of authority
More importantly, help desk agents need to feel they have the authority to make decisions, provide answers and even override typical policies in exceptional situations. This is especially important in the business-to-business (B2B) space, because when clients call for help, they need immediate, often technical solutions that have a direct impact on their bottom lines.
Cloud-based help desk software gives support agents the tools, information and authority they need to handle a customer inquiry quickly and fully. With access to past ticket information, help desk personnel can easily determine a customer's relationship with the software as well as how previous issues were solved. Moreover, collaborative customer support software easily integrates with other tools that provide agents with valuable information and additional tools to rectify a situation efficiently.
Far too often, poor customer service is associated with laziness or apathy. While it is true that these qualities sometimes impact the support experience, it is more likely that a lack of empowerment is the culprit. With strong customer support software, businesses can empower their staff to deliver exceptional experiences to clients.
To learn more about how collaboration can improve the customer experience, watch our short video:
