Running A Service Desk
Running a helpful and efficient service desk is key to spotting problems that may be developing between your business and your customers. Yet many service desks don’t have the basic practices and tools in place to identify and address potential customer relations problems.
Some key requirements for an A-1 Service Desk are:
· The Right People
Even if requests are basic and repetitive, your staff needs to remain courteous and helpful. After all, the service desk is meant to provide service to your customers – often when the situation isn’t ideal. That’s why you want to make sure that your employees’ response is always positive.
· Good Management Practices
Effective service desks follow consistent procedures to resolve customer requests and complaints. It is imperative that management lays out the procedures they want their staff to follow and the information they want them to collect. Besides written procedures (and don’t forget to train your staff on the procedures you expect them to follow), there should be a written form or – better yet – a computer template to gather necessary information for each incident.
You want your employees to “fix what they can” or escalate the incident to a manager if they either can’t “fix” the problem or aren’t authorized to do so. But no matter which it is, they must always be courteous and helpful to the customer.
· Identify The Most Frequent Problems
It’s critical that you have some way to identify problem areas. With a template as mentioned above, you should be able to sort your data. It could be something as simple as an Excel or Access template. If you’re not sure how to proceed and need help, CCS’s support staff can help you create a template. Once you have a tool in place, you can find the answers you need, such as:
– Are multiple customers returning the same item? Maybe your vendor shipped you a palette of lemons.
– Did a piece of clothing shrink beyond wearability after one washing? Once might be the customer’s fault. But if you sold 12 and 6 are being returned for this reason, maybe it’s your vendor’s fault.
– Did your customers find the item they bought at a much lower price at another store? Is it your policy to allow items to be returned for this reason?
· Someone To Analyze Reports
It’s no good to simply track problems or how frequently they happen. You need a staff member to be able to identify the most common ones your service desk is seeing. Once you have the information in hand, you are ready to make a management decision on what needs to be done.
And – as always – remember that a happy customer is a return customer.
Talk to you soon. ~Norma