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Technical support demystified
IN today’s world, where technology abounds, leveraging technical support is a profitable business in itself. Organizations that provide good support, with round-the-clock availability, tend to get more business than corporations that only sell products.
Manufacturer gets a one-time business when a client buys the products from him but the company leveraging support for that product gets recurring business from this same client. These organizations that provide support to customers are called “support centres” or “call centres.”
Take the example of Cisco Systems, the premier manufacturer of networking products. Once an organization procures a product, say Cisco-2600 series router, it’s business with Cisco is finished. After using it for a month or so, the network administrator feels that the router has slowed down in performance. He calls up 111-CISCOS, Cisco’s hotline for technical support, places his query, and gets a satisfactory response.
The call was answered by an agent at Cisco’s support centre, which is not responsible for designing new products or manufacturing the electronics, but for providing support to Cisco’s clients. Hewlett Packard came up with another plan. It did not establish its own support centres, instead it gave contracts to other third-party organizations to provide support to HP’s customer-base.
Lets see another situation. A large pharmaceutical manufacturing unit located in S.I.T.E. area has installed computers on its production floors for automating data entry to the grass-root levels. One computer controls the Tablet punching machine, the other controls the high-speed conveyor-printer that prints batch information on the packaged medicine cartons.
One Saturday, as the working hours near an end, the production manager calls up the IT department and says that the computer in control of the printing machine is having problems and the batch cannot be stopped. An internee working in the Marketing department is experiencing slow-down problems in WindowsXP, while his manager wants a report in the next half hour.
Here, the IT department sends two engineers, one proficient in electronics to fix the problem on the production floor, and the other proficient in software systems to rectify the issues of the PC that the internee has. This is a typical scenario of most mid-sized and / or large organizations today. Here, the support provided by the IT department is given to the in-house users and is not charged for. This type of support is called “internal support,” while the former comes under the category of “external support.”
Key processes
There are certain processes specific to support centres of various types.
Query/Problem logging: This is the part where the customers call a support centre, also referred to as the “Help Desk,” to report their problems with a certain product(s), and seek technical assistance. Customers can also email their queries, fill out a tech-support form on the website or maybe snail-mail their problems on paper. The proper logging of these queries for future follow-up is the most important part of help desk. As this is the first point of contact with the customer, it forms a lasting impression about the performance.
Many organizations set up a call centre to handle the day to day calls of customers. Here, a group of trained entry-level engineers also known as front-liners or agents, handle the calls/emails from customers. Their first priority is to resolve the complaints then-and-there on the phone.
Call escalation: The agents mentioned above solve the most common and easy issues, but transfer the tougher calls to the higher-level engineers. This transfer of call from agent to engineer is called ‘call escalation’. The benefits of placing entry-level agents at the fore-front is that 60 per cent of the calls get resolved promptly, while only the 40 per cent, and also the most demanding and time-consuming get transferred to the back-seaters. This improves the productivity of the support centre.
Total call ownership: The disadvantage of frequent call escalations is that clients have to re-explain their problems every time and to every person receiving the call. This causes frustration. A workaround to this problem is to place mid-level engineers at the front-end and minimize call escalation. The engineer, as he has more skills and expertise than an entry-level agent, can handle the more sophisticated problems, and if the expert-help of an experienced engineer is absolutely necessary, the agent can place the caller on hold, discuss the issue with his superior and convey the result back to the caller. This way the caller only deals with one agent, receives solutions to his answers and is saved from the trouble of repeating his problem to every one picking up his call.
Following up on previous calls from clients is a major necessity and plus for the Support centre. These calls can be for giving a solution to earlier problems that could not get resolved on the same call, or these can be mere check-up calls on clients to find out whether the solution given to them earlier was effective and / or whether they are satisfied with it or require additional help. The latter case establishes the fact in the customer’s minds that the Support centre or the parent organization cares for them - hence Customer Care. These follow-ups should be maintained properly, possibly by a Scheduling application program. Support Coordinators should be trained to place such calls and keep track of the client’s activities.
Every caller presents a different problem, but 60 per cent callers have their problems traced down to one or two common issues. If these issues were well documented, the agents’ work load would be minimized on resolving each call. This would lead to less escalations and lesser agony to the client, while the Back-line engineers can spend more time specializing and improving their skills on the various products that the parent company offers to its clients.
In earlier years, common issues and problems were documented on paper and placed in files, in the form of FAQs. Today, Knowledge-bases are maintained in electronic format, by specialized software packages that are meant to handle raw data and its storage in defined formats for easy searching and retrieval in the future. This makes call resolution very fast, resulting in increased customer satisfaction. The Help Desk should use its Knowledge centre not only to log and recall problems or solutions, but also to analyze the frequency of recurring problems to indicate training needs.
There was a time, not long ago when support was provided on phone calls only, and most people confused support with service. Today, even the most basic support centre needs to keep pace with the rapidly changing technology to survive. To meet expectations and demands in the most efficient and time saving manner, the following tools of the trade have to be adopted.
In order to handle the fast traffic of customer calls, an ACD is an essential requirement. This equipment works with a normal PABX, while adding intelligence to its functions. It makes intelligent decisions on routing customer calls to the agent who can give the best solution. Some of the benefits of ACDs are:
— Intelligent call routing
— Minimize load on the PBX Operator by allowing callers to choose their destinations .
— Generation of MIS reports like list of calls received per department, call volume, etc.
— Recording of calls for later review by engineers; especially useful for support centres located in a different geographical region than that of the caller.
Voice Over IP systems enable call centres to cut down their phone call expenses. This technology is the driving force behind outsourced Call Centres that have sprung up in the Asian subcontinent, leveraging support to their principal concerns around the globe, especially in the United States and United Kingdom.
Customers can now receive support by fax as well. Callers can just select the type of problem they are facing from an automated menu on the phone, respond by pressing the appropriate key(s) and hang up. The support centre sends the answers to their problems from a FAQ database or from the knowledge-base by fax. This helps callers in avoiding the usual holding delays when they call, and also saves them the added stress of explaining their problems to the engineer(s) who takes up the call.
For call centres using e-mail, customers can send an email with their problem in the body of the mail. This saves them the long-distance calling charges of being in geographically disparate locations. Support centres should maintain and follow an email receiving, handling and responding policy, which assures clients receive continued support and every customer is treated in a similar fashion.
Having electronic Problem Submission Forms on the organization’s web site increases the availability of the support centre to its customers. While e-mails can contain problem definitions in disorganized form, Web forms can have various fields / boxes to classify and categorize data pertaining to the problem. This way, the query can be better routed to an Agent. For example, a customer is having problem with his printer and fills up the form, selecting Printer in the Problem Category box. When this form is received by the web-server, an intelligent program can automatically route this problem to an agent who specializes in handling problems related to printers & printing.
Various types of Help Desks and call centres can find specialized softwares in the market to help in logging, handling, hand-over and tracking incoming calls. These software packages, mostly Client / Server systems, generate reports valuable for the management. Tabulated reports portray the trend of calls & callers, the handling abilities of agents, prediction of the number of agents required to handle day-to-day call volume, etc.
Many people take support lightly. They tend to look at it as receiving calls and giving appropriate answers, though this is not the case. Support is call handling, providing service, maintaining PR, management, all mixed into one. Several books can be written on this topic alone, but there are a few points to consider if you wish to take up support as a full-time career option.
First, it’s an established fact that no one has enough time to call up a support centre unless he/she is really stuck and probably running out of time. This explains their bad attitudes towards the agents. An agent must therefore have excellent control over his nerves and have the ability to remain calm and collected.
Another major issue is that callers detest repeating their problems. They want the first person attending the call to resolve their problems, even if it’s the company’s operator who answers the phone. Once an agent does get the call, he/she should listen carefully to the problem and then think proactively whether to escalate the call, log it and request to call back or resolve it right away.
Engineers/agents must understand the psychological mindset of customers who call the Help Desk. Particularly important is the sense of helplessness felt by most customer calling the support centre. Today, if a customer’s computer fails, they can’t do their job. Customers want the support team to solve their problems, not bureaucratically pass them on to someone else.
The writer
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