Give Better Customer Support

by Mark Phillips, Lead Spokesperson, Vertabase

The best way to give better customer support is to make it more personal. Don't rely on an automated ticketing system. It can help. But it should not should take the place of personal contact.

An automated ticketing system shines at tracking customer issues internally — no need to scrap it — but answering the phone, returning calls, sending personal emails (instead of automated responses where the customer has to enter their reply between two dotted lines) and even visiting them customer in person can garner a tremendous amount of goodwill and improve the perception of IT and customer support in general. It can pay off enormously.

Ticketing systems can:

1. provide organization and structure for support issues
2. facilitate prioritization of issues
3. streamline the workflow and escalation of issues and
4. provide IT managers or support managers with information on the process and people doing the work.

However, they can really annoy the end user, and when relied on too much they can act as a barrier to a good customer support experience. End users feel that help desk systems make the IT person's work easier, but does nothing to take care of the customer's needs.

They get in the way, making it harder for the the customer to reach a real person. They also make the customer feel like they are being corralled through a process rather than an organic experience tailored to meet their needs. What's worse, they isolate IT from the end user and create a perception that IT is reluctant to help, doesn't want to really talk to its customers and is generally selfish.

This damages IT for two reasons. First, if your customer doesn't like you, you will have a greater challenge in securing budget in the future. Second, it generates negative feelings, limiting IT's ability to improve operations.

This second item can make the difference between IT being seen as purely a service division (like a repair person) or being a strategic asset to the company (like a revenue earner).

To improve your help desk, set up a central email or phone number where customers can reach a live person. When an issue is received, you can still log it in your ticketing system and track it in that way. But the response to your customer should be from a live person and not an automated email. When updates are made on the issue or when you need more information from the customer, reach out to them with a personal email, phone call or visit. You can still log the activity in an ticketing system or issue tracking system for management purposes. You can still have pre-built work flows and escalation rules governing your responses. However, the interaction with your customer should be personal.

If people do want self-help options, set up a knowledge base they can access. This could be a subset of issues which you flag as being accessible to customers. Other options include a Wiki or message board which you control, to make sure the information is accurate.

While this might seem burdensome, double entry from an information management perspective, look at it as a small investment towards higher customer satisfaction. Your end users will see the efforts you make to help them. They will feel like somebody cares. What's more, studies have shown that if you do nice things for people, they become more likely to listen to you in the future and more trusting of your recommendations. This can provide huge benefits when positioning IT as a strategic asset that can improve your organization's operations.

Mark Phillips is the product manager and lead spokesperson at Vertabase project management software. Vertabase makes the world's leading ColdFusion based project management software. Mark has been the project manager and creative lead on numerous web-based and rich internet applications. He has presented to ColdFusion and Adobe User Groups in the U.S. and Canada on software design, usability, project and time management. He most recently spoke at CFUnited 2009 on project management. He hosted a Birds of the Feather Session at Adobe MAX 2008 on CFML Language Development.

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