The Help Desk experience has been a cornerstone of innovation in business over the past decade. An enormous amount of investment has been placed on every corner of allowing consumers to help themselves. WAV Group routinely consults with enterprise brokers, MLSs, and large real estate technology companies on streamlining help desk to improve customer service and reduce costs. We have developed a new paradigm around encouraging self-help that you may want to consider.
The customer who uses automated self-help tools like product FAQs and video before calling for support is normally the most dissatisfied customer.
About the self-helper
The self-helper is someone who dreads calling in and being placed on hold. This is a person who has a high degree of self-confidence in their ability to learn how to work through problems and is handy at configuring software. They understand how computers, software, and the Internet work.
The broken first-tier experience
We have all had help desk experiences. The routine is always the same. You call the support line and you wait in a queue. You are directed to first tier support. This person walks you through the FAQs that are on the self-help menu.
For the self-helper, this is a huge burden as they may have performed these activities multiple times before calling in. This is a significant point of frustration that typically turns the customer irate and burdens your first tier support to run through exercises that have already been performed by the customer. After exhausting the first tier support routines, the customer is placed into the second tier support queue to start all over.
The direct to second-tier experience
Advanced call centers are crafting a direct to second-tier paradigm for users who go through the self help routines before calling in. They effectively skip the first-tier experience, sit in shorter queues, and are supported by more experienced support staff.
The Results
Companies who have deployed these second-tier direct solutions have increased the number of users who try to help themselves before calling for support. Their overall help desk calls have been reduced. Satisfaction with second-tier support calls has increased.
An extra tip
Your advanced self-help user is pretty cleaver. Once they get ahold of the tier 2 support phone number, they will use it. So you need to hide it. You should use a call back solution or generate a unique case pin number once the user has exhausted the self-help FAQs.
