Customer Experience Management | | Published February 23, 2018

Improve B2B Customer Experiences With Help Desk Software

The amount of focus companies devote to customer experience and engagement has continued to increase. Especially for companies who can’t beat their competition when it comes to price, an excellent customer experience can be a key differentiator. This is especially true in the B2B industry, where companies are often willing to pay more for a better experience. One of the best ways to improve the help desk portion of the customer experience is by utilizing external help desk software.

With so much emphasis placed on the front and middle areas of the B2B customer experience – including excellent sales presentations and extensive legal discussions – the end of the experience often gets ignored. However, the last part is arguably the most important aspect as it’s not only the longest lasting but also the area where customer churn is directly influenced. It’s up to the help desk team to ensure customers stay happy and continue to have a positive experience with your company.

With all of this said, here are a few ways help desk software can improve B2B customer experience and engagement…

Software helps to create a consistent brand experience – This point is especially important and relevant for parent companies with multiple brands. Have your help desk team work with marketing to create and customize all help desk content across every distinct brand – from email templates to self-service page design – so that your customers know what to expect when they contact you. This is easy to manage at the brand level in software and you can even define customers as engaging with specific brands. For example, any follow up messages from agents will automatically have the properly branded email address and signature.

Be proactive with customers by utilizing intelligent communication – Now that you have a consistent and branded help desk experience, it’s time to show it off to customers. Leverage customer relationships and utilize the repository of information located in help desk software to ensure communication is happening with each customer on a frequent basis. A bidirectional help desk integration with a CRM system (such as Hubspot or Salesforce) can also be beneficial to see if sales has reached out recently and ensure you aren’t conflicting with their efforts.

Want to learn more about CRM systems and how they interact with help desk software? Click here to download our whitepaper on the relationship between Salesforce and help desk systems!

Create more communication channels and have them funnel through help desk software – Deploying a help desk software solution makes it easy for customers to contact your company in their preferred method. Be it over the phone, via email, or through live chat, creating choice for customers is empowering and places the power of their experience back in their hands. Offering multiple channels also lowers the barriers of contact between you and your customers, meaning they will be more likely to reach out with a problem instead of remaining silent as it gets worse. Offering such a wide array of communication methods helps to improve the B2B help desk customer experience.

Leverage self-service to answer simple questions – Customers no longer expect to have to reach out to the help desk team to answer a simple question. Instead, as an alternative, many companies are utilizing help desk software to power self-service solutions for their customers. Not only can customers access information on their own time, but this technology also lets agents focus on the more difficult inquiries that truly require their attention.

To summarize, companies are utilizing help desk software to improve customer experience and engagement in multiple ways. To start, create a consistent brand experience and be proactive in letting customers know about it. After you’ve done this, make it easier for customers to not only contact you but also to find the answers they need without initiating direct communication. Help desk software can be a great asset in meeting the needs of your customers on all levels and ensuring they have excellent experiences with your company.