Online Help Desk Support Outsourcing: Identify what’s best for business.

From globe-spanning multinationals to regional-based startups, everyone needs cost-effective and scalable help desk support that suits their customer’s needs

1. What is help desk support?

In an airport or shopping mall, a help desk is, literally, a desk where people go to get information and support. In the virtual world, the structure of help desk support is quite different. The IT help desk came about in the 1980s and was mainly focused on fixing technical issues rather than dealing with end-users directly. Concepts such as SLAs or time-focused resolution targets were yet to feature. However, in the 1990s, the ITIL Framework standardized best practices for IT service management. After that, a different, more user-centric IT help desk began to emerge. 

   1.1 Modern/Online help desk support?

An online IT help desk consists of various communication channels such as live chat support, in-app & ticket support, email support, and call centers. An IT help desk serves as the first point of contact for customers and, if run well, can deliver a tailor-made service experience at lightning speed. Increased agent productivity leads to improved customer loyalty, which results in a healthier bottom line.

2. Why help desk support is important to your business?

An efficient help desk is a crucial part of any IT organization. Its primary goals are to provide a centralized resource to answer questions, troubleshoot problems, and facilitate solutions. Many organizations see huge benefits in outsourcing this service. Outsourcing to a trusted partner means your help desk can be run as swiftly and efficiently as possible. 

Email Help Desk Support can reach 3.9 billion people

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3. The benefits of effective help desk support? 

   3.1  Help desk support improves customer satisfaction:

A good help desk improves customer satisfaction by promptly delivering top-level technical support to users. A satisfied customer is a returning customer and repeats business is crucial for growth. According to business strategist and best-selling author, Fred Reichheld, reducing customer defections by 5 points (e.g. from 15% to 10%) can double a company’s profits.

   3.2  Reduced costs:

One of the main reasons for implementing any process or procedure is to reduce costs.  Running an in-house help desk requires an expenditure on human resources, office space, software, and hardware. However, these costs are potentially off-set through an increase in productivity, improvement in the quality of the product, and customer satisfaction.

   3.3  Consistency across platforms:

There are many ways to contact a business today, so a multi-channel help desk is essential.  Your customers can contact you from their phone, laptop, or tablet, and through email, social media, or message boards. Therefore, the quality of their support experience needs to be consistently excellent. Measurable and predictable response times that allow for clearer SLAs across platforms are also a feature of multi-channel support.

4. Online help desk support and Call Centers

A help-desk channel is a medium of communication that your customer chooses to submit a support request. Which one is the most effective? Well, it depends on where your customers are. If your customers are more likely to pick up the phone when they need support, you’ll need to provide great call-center support. If they’re more likely to tweet queries at you, then you need to be more accessible on social media. The following are the most common help-desk support channels:

   4.1 Email:

The number of email users worldwide now stands at a staggering 3.9 billion and is set to grow by 2-3% each year up to 2024. For any business with an online presence, an email-based customer service channel is essential.

   4.2 Social Media:

Accoridng to wearesocial, 3.5 billion people are now social media users or 45% of the world’s population. There is also a clear correlation between companies who interact with customers through social media and increased rates of upselling and reduced customer churn rates.

   4.3 Forums:

Having a forum allows you to address the most common queries in your business all in one thread or conversation. It can be a great time saver as it means your agents aren’t spending time answering the same questions again and again. Your customers can simply search for the issue and find the solution based on your previous responses. Remember, forums require moderation to ensure they are free of spam or harmful and untrue discussions.

   4.4 Live Chat:

As we’ve seen above, phone and email are still popular support channels. Nonetheless, live chat support has grown massively in recent years for those conducting business online. Customers feel most satisfied when using live-chat support (92%) when compared to other options. Live-chat is also attractive for your bottom line. Customers who chat before making a purchase, place an order worth on average 10% more than those who don’t.

   4.5 Call Center:

While younger customers may prefer using email or social media, there is still a sizable percentage of your customer base that expects the convenience of picking up the phone and getting an answer right away. Call centers still handle around 68% of all customer support communications.

Call Center Help Desk Support

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5. Should we outsource help desk support?

A help desk agent’s focus should be on helping customers. Handling queries, solving problems, and positively representing your brand should rank above metrics such as wait time & turnover rate. While these are important factors and are often stipulated within an SLA, it’s the quality of each interaction that counts. No customer likes to feel like they’re being pushed out the door to make way for the next one.

Utilizing an experienced outsourcing company like Pure Moderation to provide help desk support will maximize cost efficiencies. Transfer simple work from your expensive in-house team of engineers to a relatively low-cost team of help-desk agents. An outsourced help-desk can also offer easy scalability to deal with spikes in demand.

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