Hints and Tips | | Published November 29, 2012

TeamSupport Newsletter - November 2012




Introducing two great new features to help you serve customers even better!

Here at TeamSupport, we're constantly innovating to help you deliver the best possible service to your customers. Check out our two newest features!

New-and-Improved Search

We've rebooted our Search section to better assist you in finding what you're looking for. Within your account, just click the "Search" button in the left navigation and start searching!

You can search through Tickets, Wikis, KBs--or all of them at once! You also can add advanced filters and sorts to narrow down what you are looking for.

TeamSupport University

Go to the head of the class with our all-new TeamSupport University, an online resource library to help our users get more familiar with the application. View short videos that demonstrate various functions of the TeamSupport software in small and easy-to-consume pieces. A number of instructional videos are already available and more are on the way soon! And, if you have an idea for one, please let us know!

Help is Always Available

As always, if you have questions or need assistance, help is as close as the top right-hand corner of your account. Click the "Help" link.

Rose's Ramblings

Tips from Customer Service Guru Bill Rose

Resolution Management: Is it Tech Support’s Silver Bullet?

The more I study the tech support business, the more I realize there is no "silver bullet" for tech support.

There is not "just one thing" you can do that makes all things right, makes customers loyal and makes your people happy. The closest thing I can find is an intense focus on resolution management and all the elements contained within.

It just makes sense that if we can fix issues faster, both customers and employees will be happier. A strong commitment to resolving issues as a top priority will ensure that everyone involved in the process is aligned. But, this is not a simple task! In fact, resolution management can be an all-consuming nightmare if it is not approached in the correct way.

Just have a look at my blog post, 15 Factors That Affect First Call Resolution (FRC) in Tech Support.

For example, there is a definite difference in your resolution management strategy based on the customers you serve.

Enterprise hardware customers have opportunities to deploy box-to-box monitoring and troubleshooting tools that consumer hardware companies only dream about.

On the software side, consumer software companies typically deal with less sophisticated customers who can extend resolution times while more and more calls are rolling in. But, enterprise software customers put immense pressure on their service providers to get complex issues resolved faster. In each of these situations, your resolution management strategy will depend on the type of customers you are supporting.

Hang on -- It gets worse! Each "customer type" also brings a certain level of technical expertise to the resolution process. For example, we would expect that enterprise customers would have very high levels of technical expertise, but this is not always the case.

And, if you were serving consumers, then it would be anticipated that they would be somewhat technically challenged.

There seems to be a direct correlation between the technical expertise of your customers and the time it takes to resolve their issues. The more technical they are, the more likely we are to resolve issues faster.

>> Continue to full article
>> Visit Bill Rose's Web Site

Tips & Tricks

Quick Tips for Preventing Tickets from Falling Through the Cracks

One of the most critical elements of any support operation--especially for managers--is keeping track of tickets and ensuring that none fall through the cracks.Â

Fortunately, several features in TeamSupport can help you manage tickes more effectively, starting right now.

  • Flagging a ticket.Click the "Flag" button in the Ticket detail or in the grid views. This will mark the ticket in the grids and also allow you to run the report "My Flagged Tickets" to show you a list. Many of our users find that putting their Flagged Tickets on the Dashboard helps as well!
  • Subscribing.To make sure you don't miss anything that happens to a ticket, you can subscribe to it. When you subscribe, you will receive an e-mail update when anything about the ticket changes (such as a new action, status change, etc.). You can also subscribe to a customer so that any change to any of the customer's tickets will generate an e-mail notification to you. Add a list of these tickets on your Dashboard via the report "Open Tickets I am Subscribed To."
  • Your Queue.The queue function in TeamSupport is an easy way to keep an ordered list of tickets that you need to work on. To enqueue a ticket, click the "Enqueue" button on the ticket. The queue is visible by going to "My Tickets" and selecting the "Ticket Queue" tab.
  • Reminders.Many times you will want to remind yourself to follow up with a customer to ensure that an issue was resolved. The Reminders feature in TeamSupport makes it simple to receive an e-mail reminder on a specific date and time.

Remember that you can also subscribe to a ticket or enqueue it with Ticket Automation so you can set up rules to make sure that no tickets fall through the cracks!

News from the Industry

We scan the industry's news so you don't have to

  • How does social media affect customer support?As members of the customer service community, we are constantly wondering about social media's impact on customer support. Shea Bennet put together a nifty infographic outlining her take on it.
  • Is your customer service department going to get left behind?Today's customer service department needs to change and update with the business--and if not, then somebody will get left behind. It’s important to Get The Story Straight or it’s most likely the customers who will suffer.
  • Writing a customer support script is a good idea!We are not huge fans of customer support scripts, but we’ll share with you our reasons why we think it’s a good idea to write a customer support script, even if you toss it.
  • Customer Service: Is it an art or a science?Flavio Martins tells us that customer service is both an art and a science. He suggests in his post that effective customer service teams should deliver on both the practice of the art and the principles of the science of exceptional customer service.
  • Lessons in teamwork gleaned from the World Series.There’s much that can be learned from this year’s World Series, and it’s one of the reasons we call our company “TeamSupport.” The main idea is that as customer support, you are helping customers just as much as you’re supporting your team.
Quote of the Day"When you serve the customer better, there's always a return on your investment."-Kara Parlin

Company News

John South Joins TeamSupport as VP of Sales

TeamSupport is pleased to welcome John South, VP of Sales, to our team.Â

John comes to TeamSupport with more than 20 years of sales and marketing experience in the technology and software sectors. Prior to TeamSupport, he served for 10 years as Senior Director of Membership Development for the Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA), the industry’s largest association. At TSIA he was responsible for driving member sales and business development across multiple service disciplines. Previously, he held senior sales and marketing positions with Peterson’s, EduPoint and Union Bank Trust & Investment Group. John is based in San Diego.
>> Meet John South
How May We Help You?Go ahead---Ask us anything! We know you have questions about TeamSupport's many great features. Submit your questions and we will answer as many as we can in our next newsletter.


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