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Technology is growing every day and it is constantly improving the way we help our customers. Email and social media, for example, can help us identify problems and improve customer satisfaction much quicker. However, this growth in communication can lead to new issues within our customer service departments.

One of the most common problems businesses face is how to deal with the growing number of inquiries. In the past, customer service departments usually consisted of a few phone representatives. Unfortunately, a few phone representatives don’t always have time to read emails, monitor social media, help customers on the phone and chat on websites. If you aren’t sure how to handle this issue, we are here to help. Use this guide to see when you should invest in an online help desk.

When You are Just Starting Out

New companies never know how many inquiries they are going to get during a pre-launch or launch. It isn’t that it is hard to gauge public interest; it is that nobody can predict when something will go wrong. In case of a customer service emergency, you need to be prepared to answer everyone in a timely fashion.

Companies that are just starting their services online might not be prepared for the multitude of inquiries they get. By having a system in place from the start, you are ensuring that you are able to tackle any issues your customers may have as quickly as possible.

When You Have a Growing Social Media Presence

Are you just getting started with social media? While most small businesses won’t have to deal with too many inquiries on Facebook or Twitter, the more they grow, the more they will have to interact. The problem is that both of these large social networks move very quickly and you need to respond as fast as possible to protect your reputation.

Help desk software helps you manage your social media accounts in a number of ways. First of all, it converts your wall posts and replies into tickets. This allows you to respond to them using a system, rather than the site directly. You also won’t need to have a representative on Facebook or Twitter all day long; alerts can make it so your representative knows when to respond.

When You Get Too Many Inquiries

One problem many growing companies face is that they get too many inquiries for their current staff to handle. This doesn’t mean that the company is receiving constant complaints; it could just mean that a lot of people have general questions about their product or service. There are two ways to handle the issue: create an online database and use automatic responses.

Creating an online database filled with common questions and answers can help reduce the number of overall requests that you receive. Setting up automatic responses and using algorithms to organize customer inquiries can further reduce this number. By establishing some automatic responses, you are eliminating the need to have someone manually enter in information every time. This gives you more time to spend on the inquiries that really need your attention.

When You Don’t Have Enough Funds to Expand

Customer service can actually be very expensive, especially for small or medium-sized businesses. For example, if you can only afford one representative on payroll, you cannot hire a phone representative, email correspondent, and social media expert. Instead, you need to find ways to combine these roles into one or two jobs.

The easiest way to do this is by investing in help desk software. Your customer service representative can use the software to gather all inquiries into one place and answer them in the order they are received. If necessary, they can forward the inquiry to another department with the touch of a button. This improves efficiency with the employees you already have.

 When You Need to Get Organized

It’s no secret that organization is the key to success. This doesn’t just apply to how we keep our desks, it applies to how we delegate tasks as well. Having a well-organized customer service department will allow you to maximize your efficiency and ensure that every inquiry is accounted for. This helps improve customer satisfaction.

One way online help desk software helps to organize is by keeping all of your things in one place. When someone writes a ticket, it is automatically recorded and stored using algorithms that you put in place in advance. You’ll know exactly where archived conversations are and what inquiries still need to be answered.

How Online Desk Software Works

Help desk software is very easy to use and incorporate into your business model. Here is the step by step process:

1. Customers write replies on social media or contact you via phone, email or live chat.
2. These contacts are recorded and automatically converted to tickets.
3. Tickets are organized with algorithms.
4. Each ticket is sent to the appropriate representative.
5. Representatives receive a notification.
6. The representative can log on to the help desk using the device of their choice.
7. Tickets can be answered from anywhere with a wi-fi connection.

Vision Helpdesk’s products are all designed to take the human error out of gathering and processing each ticket. This allows your customer service representatives to focus more on answering each inquiry in a timely fashion.

Help desk software has a lot to offer companies, even those just getting started online. To learn more, please contact us today.