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Tag Archives: it help desk

How to Handle Distraught IT Help Desk Customers

January 5, 2018Manage Serviceit help desk, IT managed service provider, IT support, MSPSystemsNet Administrator

Angry businessman yelling at an IT helpdesk person on the phone in front of a broken desktop computer.

Understanding the customers perspective is key in providing quality support

Working with computers, especially broken or misbehaving ones, is not easy for everyone. Of course, almost no one is having a good time when a computer or program they rely on suddenly becomes problematic, but some people handle this better or worse than others. Members of your IT Help Desk team can be considered pros when it comes to resisting the frustration of a broken computer but your clients may be a completely different story. They probably tried to fix it themselves at least once and, having failed to do this, are feeling a combination of disappointment, frustration, and embarrassment at not being up to the repair and even a bit of betrayal because they trusted the machine or program to work for them.

This is a heady cocktail and can lead customers, even those that are usually very well mannered, to be terse, upset, or angry when on the phone with their IT help desk technician. Fortunately, all your staff needs is a little patience and a few positive techniques to cheer their customers up by the end of the call.

Bring the Positivity

From the moment you answer a call, a help desk technician needs to be a source of positivity. This doesn’t necessarily mean overwhelming cheerfulness, just a generally upbeat attitude and friendly demeanor. Because many customers call in a bad mood, this permeating positivity will help keep their negative feelings from making the entire encounter an unpleasant one for both parties. Remember that you are the expert and are here to help them with whatever the problem might be.

Don’t Take Offence

When customers call in angry, upset, or disappointed, it’s all too easy to transfer those bad feelings onto the company and its representatives. Some customers might be bitter, accusatory, or just downright mean, but it’s important not to take these things personally. They don’t know you, this is their frustration speaking and if you can solve their problem, or even just give it a good try, their feelings are likely to change. Let their negativity slide off you and maintain your positive attitude.

Listen to the Whole Story

Many customers, when asked to explain their problem, will launch into an entire personal narrative of their experience with the bug or malfunction. While it may be tempting to ask them to cut to the chase, it is often more beneficial to let them finish. The story telling acts as a form of venting, gets some of the frustration off their chest, and often contains important details about why their computer may be having problems.

Alleviate Tension with Humor

Some of the embarrassment and nervousness your customers feel when asking for technical help can be eased with amusing stories about other people who found themselves facing a similar error. Even if the problem was caused by client actions, this will help them understand that computer problems happen to everyone and might even get them laughing.

Explain the Solution

When you finally discover the source of their problem and implement a solution, don’t leave them in the dark about it. Make the customer part of the solution by explaining it to them, along with why the trouble shooting steps you went through together revealed the fix. This makes customers feel included, like they’re on the team, and may help them to avoid this problem in the future.

Offer Something Extra

When all is said and done, whether or not you were able to fix their problem, always ask if there’s something more you can do. Often there isn’t, but sometimes a customer will have a question they’ve been wanting to ask or a small account management task they haven’t been able to accomplish. With this simple act of good customer service, you gain their gratitude and show that their needs really do matter to you.

When you follow these simple steps, most help desk customers will feel better about you and the company by the time the ticket is closed. All you need is positivity, patience, and an inclusive attitude to turn even the most distraught customer into your trouble shooting ally. For more helpful tips on IT help desks, contact us today!

Four Ways to Improve Your IT Help Desk Service through Empathy

November 2, 2017Manage Serviceit help deskSystemsNet Administrator

IT help desk professional using empathy to connect with customers providing superb customer service

Customer Service is the key to improving your relationship with your customers.

Among modern businesses, customer service has become a non-optional feature. From call centers to chat support, a strong help desk gives your customers a way to report problems with your product or service and ask for help. While it would be great if they only called in to congratulate you on doing a great job, most of the time your help desk handles unhappy and frustrated clients who just want your product to work for them the way they’d hoped. In order to understand where they’re coming from, not take their negative emotions personally, and leave them hanging up with a smile, your support team needs more than just technical know-how to solve the problems. They need empathy. This singular ability will allow your help desk to relate to clients and assist them through the emotional hurdles of technical troubles. Here are four ways training your help desk techs can drastically improve your IT help desk’s customer service ratings:

1 Patience with Frustrate Customers

People rely on technology to make their lives easier, and the sudden interruption of that ease is upsetting. most people try to fix the problem for themselves before calling your help desk, meaning that they have already faced the frustration of being incapable of finding their own solution. All too often, this negativity can create an unpleasant loop between a support tech and customer, leaving everyone grumpy even if the technical problem is solved quickly. When your technicians are leveraging their empathy, they will remember to relate to the customer, understand where their frustration is coming from, and help to ease it with stories and jokes while they find the technical solution.

2 Intuitive Troubleshooting

Quite often, technical issues are caused by a local problem with a computer configuration or patterns of use. By listening empathically to how the customer describes their experience of the technical trouble, your help desk team will be able to see the problem from the customer’s point of view. This can give them a unique and unusually in-depth insight into the troubleshooting process, allowing them to work more cooperatively with the client to find solutions because they understand where the client is coming from. Often, problems are caused by customer misunderstanding or environmental factors like unreliable internet connections, and these situations can be gently explained and solved.

3 Predictive Prevention

One way a help desk can go above and beyond the call to fix customer problems is to help customers prevent problems in the future. Some clients end up calling for support over and over with the same or similar issues, often getting increasingly upset in the process. When this happens, more often than not the trouble is either on the customer end or somehow involved in their connection to the product. Leveraging empathy can help your technicians connect to clients and hunt down the true cause of their repeated problems. Whether it’s a faulty cable or a client behavior, systematic empathy enables your technicians to solve these technical issues once and for all, creating grateful clients who see an end to their continuous struggles.

4 Conversion Opportunities

In most situations, it’s not a great idea to sell during customer support calls, but sometimes a call for assistance comes from a customer that is clearly ready to upgrade their services or try something new. With empathy, your technicians will be able to detect these subtle emotional clues and offer the customer what they really want. When customers express frustration at the limitations of their first-tier service or current products, what they need isn’t a standard technical solution, it’s a gentle up-sell. Used in exactly the right moments, customers will be relieved and delighted to find that your product or services can still suit their needs, accepting that what they want goes beyond the basic package.

In any circumstance between two humans, even in the no-nonsense business world, empathy is a powerful tool. It helps you to connect with your customers, understand what they want, and provide concierge just-in-time services that permanently raise your reputation for superb customer service. For more helpful tips on improving your help desk customer service, contact us today!

Do You Know How To Ask The Right Questions During Your IT Help Desk Partner Search?

September 28, 2017Manage Servicebenefits of an IT help desk, it help desk, managed services, MSPSystemsNet Administrator

Questions to ask during your interview process for a new Managed Service provider.

Sometimes, the needs of a company will outgrow their current IT support that they have in-house. When your company outgrows your current IT support solution, you may want to think about investing in a reliable IT help desk. When you make the decision to outsource your IT support needs, you will get the opportunity to enjoy a variety of benefits, including those that you can touch and cannot touch.

Before you agree to the terms of a contract with an IT company, it is important that you do your research thoroughly. You have to fully assess the services of the IT help desk provider so you can make sure it is the perfect fit for your business. If the IT help desk company you are considering has slow service, slow response time, or if you do not have a clear understanding of the service agreement, you will quickly find yourself in a web of problems.

In order for you to avoid any future problems with your IT help desk service, we want you to ask the help desk provider you are considering some of the following questions:

Ask About Their Business

It is important that you start off with the basics before you get into the technical aspects of the business. We want to give you an idea of the type of questions you should ask if you want to find out some basic questions about the IT help desk provider you are considering:

Experience

When a company has been around for a significant amount of time, they will generally have accumulated plenty of skills and experience. Businesses that have been around for years will also have had their share of mistakes that they have eventually corrected, and they will have customers who can provide positive feedback on the company. We want you to find a help desk company that has a great reputation and positive reviews.

Clients

If you want to find out how reputable a company is, they will generally give you a list of their clients so you can contact them and ask questions for yourself. If you are given a list of clients who use this IT help desk company, you should take full advantage of this opportunity. We definitely suggest that you find companies that are similar to yours so you can make a better decision on if the IT help desk partner will be right for your company.

Services

Once you have narrowed down your search, you will need to find the IT help desk company that will deliver you the better service. You will need to work with an IT help desk partner that has the service and features you need for your business.

Scalability

As your company grows, you will probably discover that you need to make changes to your IT infrastructure. When you find a help desk provider that offers the services and features you need, you will find that the help desk provider will be able to meet all of your needs, regardless of what they are and how often they change.

The IT industry is constantly changing, and you are going to need services and hardware that will allow you to successfully keep up with the changes. When your potential IT help desk provider is able to keep up with the technological changes, this gives you the indication that they are willing and able to fully embrace technology and stay current with the trends.

When you can clearly identify the needs of your company, you will be able to get the IT help desk assistance you need. When you ask the right questions during your IT help desk partner search, you will find it easier to narrow down your search to the perfect partner.

Habits That An IT Help Desk Department Should Avoid

July 27, 2017Manage ServiceBad Habits, Frustration caused by Lack of Communication, it help deskSystemsNet Administrator

Frustrated by the attitude your receiving from your help desk?

Can you think of a time when you did not appreciate the kind of customer service you received? Unfortunately, many of us remember the bad customer service we receive from the good customer service. Terrible customer service moments will remain in customers minds, and they will share those stories with anyone who will listen.

There are various bad habits that IT help desk professionals should certainly avoid if they want to provide outstanding customer service on a consistent basis.

Avoiding Some Help Desk Tickets

Generally, an IT help desk department will use tickets to successfully manage the interactions they have with their customers. Some IT help desk agents will ignore the difficult tickets in favor of the easier tickets. If a help desk agent only wants to take the easier tickets, the help desk agents will never know what it is like to be challenged. When IT help desk agents are challenged, they will have to dig a little deeper, which will allow them to obtain more knowledge. Every customer should have their questions answered in a timely manner.

Formal Tone Of Speech

One of the biggest mistakes many IT help desk agents make is not connecting with customers on a personal level. It can be easy for help desk agents to read directly from a script or send an automated email to the customer. When IT help desk agents put in the extra work to build relationships with customers and give them a better customer service experience, the more the IT help desk agent will get out of the interaction.

It is certainly important for IT help desk agents to be polite, but being too formal may make your customers feel isolated. When someone contacts a company’s IT help desk department, they are usually feeling agitated and upset that they could not figure out the problem on their own. When a help desk agent responds in a friendly tone, the customer may be able to relax a little more.

The Attitude

We all know what it is like to have a bad day, right? However, it is important that IT help desk agents have the ability to keep their emotions in check. It is important to remain calm at all times, even though it may be difficult at times. There should be no arguing with customers, being defensive, or being dismissive when a customer asks a question.

IT help desk agents have the ability to create great experiences that will lead to a loyal customer base. IT help desk agents should be able to separate the business at hand from their personal feelings. The knowledge, experience, expertise, patience, etc. should all outweigh the personal feelings of an IT help desk agent.

Failing To Fully Respond To Questions

Many IT help desk agents are in such a hurry to respond to as many tickets as they can that they will simply respond with a yes or no answer. When customers only receive a yes or no answer to a question, this will only lead to more questions. When customers are constantly asking the same question because they did not get a better response the first time, this will mean the help desk agents will have more work to do.

In order for an IT help desk agent to be effective, the agent should try to respond with a detailed answer the first time the customer asks the questions. Customers have high expectations, and when they have a problem, they expect the IT help desk agent who responds to their ticket to have the knowledge and expertise to help them. How can an effective IT help desk department change your business operations? Contact us today and learn more about the SystemsNet team.