subject: Finding Great Customer Service Staff And Managing Productivity [print this page] Finding excellent customer service staff regardless if you are building the team in house of if you are help desk outsourcing is crucial. Keep in mind that this is the team that will constantly be in contact with your firms customers. So if they have excellent customer service skills, the help desk team would be instrumental to keeping regular customers, encouraging repeat business, and attracting new customers.
Use the guidelines of excellent customer service as a guide to finding the right team of help desk specialists. You want a team that values the customers time. So ask your potential customer service team how they put customers on hold and what their solution would be if customers often need to be transferred to several departments.
In cases when customers have to be put on hold, an excellent customer service staff whether hired in house or through help desk outsourcing would, first of all, make sure that the customer is informed why he or she is being put on hold and what are being done or what can be done to resolve the issue and assist the customer. Look for the little things that let customers on the other end of the line know that the company values their time; these are the little things that an above average help desk team knows so well and does regularly.
If you are outsourcing, you should also prepare a list of help desk tasks that you are going to outsource. Add their corresponding timelines so you have a clear idea of the tasks that should be prioritized. The right help desk vendor for your company is one that takes note of these priorities, finds out how these tasks figure in the overall goals of your company, and then works out an outsourcing solution that helps accomplish these tasks and the goals. A service provider that can be a true partner as your business grows is one that also addresses the requirements of your companys sector or industry and continuously finds better, faster, more efficient, and more cost effective ways to deliver results. This is the kind of service provider that can help your company remain competitive.
The list tasks, timelines, and priorities can also serve as a way to maintain and monitor performance. Discuss the requirements with your service provider and come up with reasonable, realistic, and measurable targets. Dont forget to set deadlines. Be strict with the deadlines and make it clear that it will be part of how performance will be measured.
Make sure, too, that the customer service staff vendor has a sound quality assurance strategy in place. Try to find out more about service level objectives and other ways that the quality of customer service is measured in the help desk outsourcing industry. Ask your potential service providers to walk you through the process of quality assurance for their help desk service. Does the outsourcing company use customer satisfaction surveys? Find out how this process goes. Aside from that, ask the service provider how the service level expectations are set and how the promptness of response to calls and to email requests is measured.
