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Tag Archives: IT support

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!

Keeping Your Help Desk Online with Managed IT Services

December 14, 2017Manage Servicehelp desk, IT managed service provider, IT support, MSPSystemsNet Administrator

Managed IT services providing support vector man and woman with headsets and chat bubbles

Communication is key in providing support to customers

For a modern online company, whether you offer software as a service or sell shoes through an e-commerce portal, the help desk is a vital part of nurturing customer relationships. When a customer has a problem or a question, you need to be ready and available or risk creating a breach in your comprehensive policy of customer support. For this reason, your business software suite and network access are vitally important. The quality, reliability, and integrity of your CRM and maintenance of your help desk computer systems can make the difference between a happy customer with a growing sense of brand loyalty and one that feels disconnected enough to seek a new vendor. Managed IT services can provide both broad support and detailed repairs the moment your system shows signs of faltering, ensuring that your help desk stays online and your customers remain satisfied.

Open Communication Channels

The time in which customers either called on the phone or arrived in person with their questions now seems like the distant past. There are now a dozen or more possible ways a client can contact your helpdesk, from social media posts to email and online chat services. Phone calls are still a big part of the customer service package, but these days it’s often done with VOIP instead of conventional phone lines. A managed IT service will help you monitor every avenue for communication and repair them if even a single one goes down. From your chat program to your phone system, you can rely on IT professionals to keep you connected and available.

Fast Service Resolution

Losing connection to the internet may be an irritating hassle at home, but for a help desk office, it can be disastrous. Whether you’ve got one machine that’s started refusing connections or the whole floor goes inexplicably offline, a managed IT service will notice immediately and work at lightning speed to diagnose the problem and get you back online. They will work with your in-house technicians, get on the phone with your ISP, and even send their own people to your building to see if the problem can be found from there. Whatever it takes to restore your internet services, your IT team will provide quickly and efficiently to minimize your downtime.

Managed Network Protection

The best problems are the kind that don’t happen at all. You can always spot a high quality managed IT service when they take the time to monitor your network for early warning signs. By keeping a watchful eye on network activity and data access, your remote IT team and local techs can work together to prevent major issues before they happen. When this is paired with a strong firewall and a comprehensive malware detection system, you have cut off most of the common causes of major network failure. Your customers and support technicians will appreciate the seamless connection that never drops calls and always customer data that is always available when it’s needed.

Best Practices Advice

There are some things only experienced technicians know about computers that can significantly increase the performance, usefulness, and lifespan of your help desk systems. One of the best ways to avoid inconvenient downtime is by taking good care of your machines, keeping your software updated, and maintaining your firewall security. A managed IT service that offers personalized advice can help you make the most of your help desk computer systems and prevent problems in the future.

When your helpdesk is offline you are disconnected from your customers in a way they feel and respond to. In order to minimize downtime and keep your computer systems in the best possible shape for customer assistance, contact us today and we’ll help you find the right managed IT service for your business.

What Can A Live Answer Help Desk Do For You?

March 9, 2017Manage Serviceit help desk, IT support, live answer help deskSystemsNet Administrator

We are here to help

Throughout the day, your employees will come across a variety of problems on a daily basis, especially when it comes to IT. Some problems are easy to fix, and others are too difficult for your employees to figure out on their own.

If you want to improve the speed of how fast your IT problems are solved, you should certainly consider making an investment in a live answer help desk. A help desk is a resource that you definitely need when you have to resolve IT problems. When you have a live-answer help desk, your employees will always have someone to talk to when they need assistance.

Here are some of the things your business can expect to receive when you invest in a live answer help-desk.

A Guarantee That Your Problem Will Be Resolved

When your employees are pulling their hair out because they are frustrated and upset about the problems they are facing, they will usually request help. However, sometimes when they reach out for help, they do not always receive a response when they need it the most.

If your employees do not receive a response, they will usually feel like no one cares about the problem they are facing. Your employees should not feel ignored when they are reaching out to an IT team for support. Even if the problem cannot be resolved right away, your employees should be informed that someone will actually begin working on the issue.

Your employees should not submit a question and not receive a response. Your employees will feel better knowing that they can actually ask a question and have someone respond in a timely manner.

Fewer Headaches And Frustrations

You may think you do not need a live answer help-desk because you have an IT staff. Your IT staff already has plenty of work they are responsible for on a daily basis. If you want to take the pressure off your IT staff, they will also benefit from this help desk. The help desk will allow your IT staff to focus on other projects, and it will also allow them to use other resources so they can find the best solution.

Improve Your Business

When your business has a live answer help desk, you will immediately see an increase in the productivity and efficiency in your business. When solutions are resolved quickly and correctly, everyone will benefit. Not only will your employees be able to do their jobs better, but your customers will appreciate the work everyone is doing to make things easier and better for them.

If your employees cannot be productive, your customers will not be happy. If your website is not working, your customers cannot use your website. When they cannot use your website, they cannot purchase any of your products or services. When no one is buying anything, your business is not making money.

Having a live answer help desk has an impact on everyone involved with your business, including the customers. Everyone will enjoy having a better experience when issues are resolved by professionals who are willing and able to help.

If you are interested in a live answer help desk, but you are not sure if making this investment is the right decision for you, do not hesitate to contact us today for more information. It does not matter what size your business is, you should certainly take a look into what a live answer help desk can do for you.

If you want to continue running your business and you do not want IT problems to get in your way, you will appreciate everything that a live answer help desk has to offer.

Creativity and Quality are Just 2 Reasons Why We Love IT Support

May 7, 2015Manage ServiceIaaS, IT outsourcing, IT supportSystemsNet Administrator

Your business doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel each time it needs something done. You rely on the expertise of others to make your work run smoothly

Although many businesses see IT support as a necessary evil, there are so many areas where IT support is incredibly valuable for small, medium and large enterprises. We think of it with the same joy as some people get from a great kitchen remodel. IT support brings creativity to your business systems, increases quality in software and information management, drives innovation across industries and provides security and peace of mind. IT support does all that? Yes, and here are some details.

Creativity

IT support now runs the full spectrum of service and infrastructure, including infrastructure as a service (IaaS). For those unfamiliar with the term, any time something is offered “as a service,” companies have the option of gaining access through the cloud to someone else’s infrastructure, programs and other technology related items. As Pablo Picasso is rumored to have said, “Good artists copy, great artists steal.”

The foundation of your business’s creativity is not reinventing the wheel every time you need something done. That is the value of IaaS, SaaS (Software), cloud based data back-ups and more. Your business energy and creativity pour into the systems which make you great, and someone else’s creativity and genius go into making your normal systems great.

Quality

While quality systems are incredibly important, many businesses do not have the time, capital or energy to put the effort into managing all the information necessary for Total Quality Control. Since the fundamentals for building quality systems are information and data management and workflow planning, the right IT systems and support will create opportunities to build intense high quality processes, with the stress outsourced to your IT support.

Before we get into the other reasons we love IT support, here are some ways that creativity and quality grow in your business when you outsource your IT support and business systems:

Email – Everyone loves free email systems, but for a business, “free email” quickly devolves into “my employees keep asking me for permissions to change their skins, and do 100 other things.” For businesses, free is often the best option when you have buckets of time and no money. For most businesses, a tailored email system makes more sense, because you realize that your time (and your IT team’s time) is money. Outsourcing email services gives you the ability to swiftly create custom email services (there’s that creativity) with a team of expert email IT professionals available to troubleshoot and further customize your business email (and the quality).
Training – You can have the best software on the planet, but it is a waste of money if your employees do not know how to use it. Outsourcing your training gives you time to focus on how to integrate your customer, vendor relations and internal business systems, not spend your time convincing employees to use your newest product. Employees who understand and use your software properly free up their creative energy for other tasks, and also do things well.
Disaster Recovery – If you have ever survived major data loss at your business, you know how much stress and thought processes are consumed by rebuilding your business systems. With an outsourced, cloud-based recovery system, you know that you have your information ready to go, and an expert recovery team to help your business continue operations as normally as possible minutes after a hardware crash.

Innovation

If you do not already see why we love IT support (and outsourcing) so much, think about how much innovation has been driven in various industries through the current IT as a service offerings. From Microsoft Office to Adobe Creative Suite, systems which formerly cost hundreds and thousands of dollars to even start are available at cash-flow prices. You pay for what you use, and cancel when you are done.

With so many people using advanced systems, innovation in industries is being driven from all corners, and an experienced IT support team will have regular contact with other leaders in industry innovation. Not only does IT support increase your business systems, it gives you access to other thought-leaders in your industry and in your target market.

Security and Peace of Mind

As back-up recovery promotes creativity and quality, so does the entirety of an outsourced IT security and recovery plan. Internal datacenters are one of the most likely points of entry for hackers and viruses. On the other hand, the same IT professionals who will set up your secure network, provide you with cutting edge virus protection and firewalls, can manage your datacenter in their own secure facility.

Having one team with the expertise and planning to build an entire safety, back-up and security system for your business from your keyboard to your customer’s computer screen is the cherry-on-top of the many reasons we love IT support. For more information about IT support, outsourcing, or IaaS plans, please contact us.