After focusing in the last few blogs on subjects related to call handling and everything this entails, today I would like to address the topic of support. We all have our "tools", whether for private or business purposes, which we need in order to cope with our everyday life. But the day will come when the application stops working and we have to contact support. In my opinion, three things are necessary for a successful support which serves our customers' needs.

Communication

When problems arise, the first question is always "how can I reach support?". I want to obtain this information easily and if possible, decide whether I contact support by e-mail, by phone or via another channel. The important thing is that I am understood by the support staff, that they ask the right questions and therefore clear up any misunderstandings. This calls for well trained service desk staff, which is crucial for professional support.

Trained Support Staff

Service desk staff must understand my problem and be able to distinguish relevant information from irrelevant information. Thorough training of the support staff is therefore unavoidable and helps to pinpoint the cause of the problem. How well support knows the product can be seen, for example, in cases where software code has to be adapted. Ultimately, the development department can only correct the error to the full satisfaction of the customer, by making adjustments to the software code, if the original problem was correctly understood and described, and the corresponding changes can thus be made to the code. This leads us to the next decisive factor regarding customer satisfaction.

Development Process

The importance of the development method in respect to support process and customer satisfaction is often underestimated. Whereas in the past, development was carried out using the waterfall model, new methods, such as Scrum, are used today. Thanks to short development times of 2 to 3 weeks, product improvements, bug fixes or even new customer requests can be implemented very quickly. This means that customers do not have to wait for months for the solution to their problem, but rather can benefit from an appropriate solution within a period of days to weeks.

The talkbase attendant console has been developed using state-of-the-art technologies, ensuring short release cycles, which every single customer benefits from. Tell us what features you are missing in talkbase. We promise to analyze all customer requests and their feasibility, and if applicable, to incorporate these features in one of the next releases!