What Can a Help Desk Software System Do?
In addition to knowing how having help desk
software can help your organization, you probably should know what it does.
Remember...efficient customer relationship management is the key word. And this equates to happier
customers, which increase day-by-day in your growing organization. So what does a help desk
software / system do for you?
A Database for All Customer Issues
Help desk software can allow you to record every
phone call and let your technical support personnel key the relevant data for the call and their
response. So how does that help your organization?
- It helps by facilitating the storage of such
data items as time call was made, a description of the issue, and who was assigned to it.
- Naturally, most help desk software systems also allow
you to record what calls/customers are outstanding and which have been resolved. Unlike a paper
filing system, an electronic call tracking system doesn't "accidentally" get lost or misplaced.
- It helps by not only storing call-related
data such as addresses, phone numbers, and contacts, but enables sorting, reporting, and graphing
on such data.
- Some help desk software systems are even
sophisticated enough to record call data by piece of equipment, e.g., a laser printer, if you so
choose.
- It helps by ensuring the tracking of this
data is done ONCE and this helps to solve customer issues quicker and more accurately.
- Other help desk software can audit a PC on
a daily, weekly, or monthly basis (or anytime you modify the software, hardware, or configuration
of a workstation) to create a history for any PC, or all the workstations within your organization.
Innate Problem-Solving Functionality
If you're recording data on all calls and their
related data, this actually translates into automatic problem solving. Some software now includes
a "knowledge base." What is a knowledge base? Knowledge bases enhances your troubleshooting
and problem solving capabilities by allowing you to create your own in-house reference library from
your issue list and phone calls. Some help desk software allows you to simplify the process of
documenting issue problems/resolutions by transferring your data items from your issue information
to an internal database. Further, this knowledge base will allow you to store questions and answers
for your calls. Naturally, this system cuts the time for resolving the same issue in the future.
A technical support member simply conducts an electronic search and either reports the solution or
dispatches another individual to perform the stored response to a given problem. In many cases,
personnel training will be decreased, thus saving time and money. And we know how precious those
two words are!
- Increased Calls Without More Staff.
As mentioned above, help desk software saves time and money. If your staff is spending 25% less time on
issues, those members can answer more calls without increasing staff. Once a selected issue and proper
response has been entered into the problem management system, the time and cost savings can begin.
In a lot of cases, a technical support person can help a customer even if the issue is not specifically
in the support person's area of expertise.
- Easing of Communication Problems. How many
times has it been said that the lack of communication creates a problem or makes it worse? Having
a help desk software system facilitates communication among all cogs of the business organization,
from customer to upper management. Some help desk software can enable automated email to the
appropriate person or staff to respond to a given issue. And that's a key feature of your help desk
software...to keep communication flowing to the proper individuals to ultimately keep your customers
happy.
What does a help desk system do? The
possibilities are endless but we know one thing for sure...help desk software implementation is going
to save you money and time. How? Calls get answered with proven accuracy from prior recording in
your help desk software's database. And once you have this data recorded, you can use it in more ways
to save money for organization, e.g., spotting problem trends in issues and adjusting staffing expertise
accordingly, in terms of both addressing load times and required knowledge.
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