4 Beneficial Help Desk Integrations For Your Help Desk Software
Excellent customer service can't exist within a vacuum. If a company's help desk software is separate from other business solutions, employees can't achieve maximum productivity and duplication is almost guaranteed - yet according to research by GetApp, a leading customer service reviews site, lack of help desk integration solutions is the third-most cited challenge regarding customer service. When providing support to business-to-business (B2B) especially, synchronizing customer data should be a top priority. By integrating cloud-based customer support software with other business tools, each department works more efficiently, and the company benefits as a whole.
Businesses who integrate help desk software with their existing business tools are also able to offer the best customer service and support while eliminating duplicate entry and potential errors. Here are four integrations that you should use with your help desk software to get the most benefits:
Email
Consider communications between clients and customer support. Email has become the standard form of communication between businesses and their customers for a variety of topics, especially when a customer needs to resolve a problem. Email is great for sending the same message to multiple people at once, but this practice leaves room for a lack of consistent communication - it's too easy for a person to hit "Reply" instead of "Reply All." This seemingly minor difference in hitting the wrong button causes a chain reaction of frustration and confusion. The absent parties miss vital information, leading to a lack of clarity on the customer support side and frustration from a customer who may be asked to repeat information many times.
Help desk software with native email integration eliminates this risk. Every message sent regarding an issue is tied directly to that ticket in a centralized database, allowing other help desk team members to see exactly what has been discussed and eliminating the need for a customer to repeat themselves. This goes a long way toward increasing customer satisfaction - in fact, a recent Accenture study found that 83 percent of respondents cited repetition as the most frustrating aspect of customer service.
Customer Communication
The ability to contact customers efficiently and through their preferred channel is imperative for both customer satisfaction and agent efficiency. It also reduces the potential for missed messages. Integration with email marketing software, such as MailChimp, saves time by automatically uploading contact information for customers into your mailing list. This reduces the need for agents to manually add new contacts to your email marketing software.
On a similar note, social media accounts have long been part of an omnichannel approach. Integrating your help desk software with social media accounts enables you to connect social client interactions to their respective accounts. Service reps then see customer requests within their help desk and respond to the customer via their preferred channel, rather than having to use multiple systems which is time consuming and also provides opportunity for missed interactions.
Proprietary Software
B2B software companies that integrate their support software with their own proprietary software can see a customer's full history and account details in one place. They're able to observe start dates, upgrades, frequently used add-ons and much more. Having easy access to this information helps agents narrow down the cause of an issue much faster and better understand the customer's usage. If the problem stems from a recent upgrade or lack thereof, the support rep knows instantly what software version the customer runs and can quickly proceed from there. Along the same line, customer support teams for subscription services have access to a customer's purchase history and subscription level so they better understand the whole customer relationship in terms of scope and history. Having this information narrows down issues much faster, personalizes support and reduces effort on the customer's end.
"CRM and customer service are equal parts of an effective B2B organization."
Customer Relationship Management
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and customer service are equal parts of an effective B2B organization because managing customer relationships is imperative to better understanding customers and providing tailored support.
Imagine an existing customer contacts support. Without a CRM integration, the agent has to retype the customer's information into the support system. Not only does this take time away from being able to help their customer, it's also duplicate effort. Integrated solutions eliminate wasted time by giving agents all the information necessary to help their customers in a timely and efficient manner.
With an integrated solution, the agent simply creates a new ticket in the support software, and known information is automatically populated from the CRM, including the customer's contact information, product(s) used and prior interactions. Combining data from the two customer-facing functions also helps suppliers understand their customers better and provide excellent customer service. After all, customers don't differentiate between their relationship with a supplier and the customer support they receive, so why would the supplier?
In summary, choosing a help desk software that works in combination with your own product and existing solutions makes for a more efficient business and happier customers. Benefits include eliminating duplicate effort by agents, reducing errors (less people doing data entry means less opportunity for mistakes), and reducing customer frustration because they won't have to repeat all of their information every time they contact your company.
Interested in how TeamSupport can help maximize your integrations to increase efficiency and reduce costs? Visit our integrations page!
