Help channels in the Help Desk. Research sites IT service companies in Russia
The last 8 years in Russia have been marked by an explosive growth of interest in building sales, organizing relevant processes, introducing a CRM system, using services and systems that, according to marketing newsletters, “Increase sales,” “increase conversion by 300%,” etc. Quick wins were what company owners and investors wanted. At the same time, in pursuit of the next “lead”, many have forgotten that long-term relationships are taking shape over the years and the sale process is just the starting point. The reality of the past 1.5 years has forced everyone to think a little over and begin to implement the Help Desk systems and automate after-sales service.
Many market experts say that the "fat" years are over.
“Let's admit - the crisis has come to us for a long time. Buyers will no longer be. Advertising does not work anymore. It won't work out. ” - Mikhail Tokovinin
Is there a way out? Perhaps this is not immediate sales and a big check, but long-term relationships and the struggle for each client, including at the expense of the quality of the services provided.
')
In a mature market, the cost of attracting a new customer grows, and the costs associated with retaining almost always remain low. In confirmation, we give indicative statistics from the book “Service as a competitive advantage” by John Showle, a recognized expert in service:
We checked the readiness of small IT service companies in Russia for new, changed realities and preserving current customers. For those who want to save their time, we will give a spoiler: “Not ready. Quite. " The rest - you are welcome under the cat.
We selected more than 300 companies and their sites (selected randomly at the request of "subscriber services for computers" and "IT outsourcing").
In order not to get results in Moscow and do an incorrect extrapolation to the whole of Russia, IT service companies were chosen from Pervoprestolnoy, Samara, St. Petersburg, Chelyabinsk, Kazan, Omsk, Perm, Nizhny Novgorod and others (from each of the cities ).
We limited ourselves to the analysis of company websites and examined the presence of 5 of the following communication options with customer support:
When choosing channels of references for analysis, we proceeded from our own experience and peculiarities of the service business. We, among other things, have put ourselves in the place of a client of an IT outsourcing company (legal entity) with which we have a subscription service contract. It is obvious that the first filter on the way of successful long-term interaction and the formation of loyalty to the service provider is not so much the execution of the application as a convenient way to contact the Help Desk. In the framework of the current research, “nishtyaki”, in the form of auto-opening of the email sending form at the click, we did not consider. We also did not make outgoing calls, did not use the chat session, that is, in fact, did not evaluate the availability or response time of the support service.
Based on the description of the client profile, we have excluded from consideration the channel of appeal through social networks - this is more suitable for handling complaints or customer service of individuals (the so-called “customer support” ). We see that recently, even among the IT service business, interaction with customer support via Viber, Telegram, etc., is gaining popularity, but this year we decided not to include an analysis of these channels.
In our opinion, high-quality service support of legal entities and a convenient functional Help Desk system, for example, such as Okdesk , cannot but provide a “Client portal” with functions:
First of all, in the described relations, absolute transparency is important, including the history of all interactions on applications, and the Client Portal is undoubtedly one of the main and most convenient tools for creating this transparency.
When we were planning a study, we were sure that the availability of email and a telephone is 146% mandatory for any IT (and not only IT) service company.
The results of the study confirmed that one of the basic channels of interaction with the Help Desk is in the majority: 96% and 77%, respectively.
However, the first disappointment was the realization that 25% of the surveyed sites did not even have at the same time 2 “must have” ways of contacting the support service: email and telephone .
Surprisingly, almost every 2nd site has an embedded web form .
We assumed that access to the “Client Portal” is provided by a small number of companies. The forecasts were confirmed - only 21% of the “investigated” sites we found a link for authorization (beyond the scope of this study, the question of the functionality of the portal remains). We also assume that some IT service companies do not publish a link to the public domain, but, for example, send it out personally to customers or VIP customers.
Next, we checked the presence of multiple ways to contact support. Here the situation is sad:
IT outsourcing companies in Russia and companies engaged in customer service computers do not work with current customers, at least in terms of providing them with convenient means of contacting customer support.
For the majority of “respondents,” a phone number and email (for every 3 out of 4 companies) are sufficient conditions for forming long-term and loyal customer relations regarding the convenience of interacting with the Help Desk service.
Convenient and functional "Client Portal", which allows to increase transparency between the client and customers on the registration and resolution of applications is still an unclaimed communication channel (we could not find it on 79% of sites).
As a bonus, read to the end - general infographics .
What do you think: has the time come to think about long-term relationships with customers in general and in the IT service business in particular?
Many market experts say that the "fat" years are over.
“Let's admit - the crisis has come to us for a long time. Buyers will no longer be. Advertising does not work anymore. It won't work out. ” - Mikhail Tokovinin
Is there a way out? Perhaps this is not immediate sales and a big check, but long-term relationships and the struggle for each client, including at the expense of the quality of the services provided.
')
In a mature market, the cost of attracting a new customer grows, and the costs associated with retaining almost always remain low. In confirmation, we give indicative statistics from the book “Service as a competitive advantage” by John Showle, a recognized expert in service:
- depending on the industry, attracting a new client is 5-10 times more expensive than retaining an existing one
- reduction of customer churn by 5-10% can bring the company up to 75% additional profit
We checked the readiness of small IT service companies in Russia for new, changed realities and preserving current customers. For those who want to save their time, we will give a spoiler: “Not ready. Quite. " The rest - you are welcome under the cat.
Study coverage
We selected more than 300 companies and their sites (selected randomly at the request of "subscriber services for computers" and "IT outsourcing").
In order not to get results in Moscow and do an incorrect extrapolation to the whole of Russia, IT service companies were chosen from Pervoprestolnoy, Samara, St. Petersburg, Chelyabinsk, Kazan, Omsk, Perm, Nizhny Novgorod and others (from each of the cities ).
Research methodology
We limited ourselves to the analysis of company websites and examined the presence of 5 of the following communication options with customer support:
- by email;
- via chat support;
- by phone number;
- through the customer portal;
- via web form.
When choosing channels of references for analysis, we proceeded from our own experience and peculiarities of the service business. We, among other things, have put ourselves in the place of a client of an IT outsourcing company (legal entity) with which we have a subscription service contract. It is obvious that the first filter on the way of successful long-term interaction and the formation of loyalty to the service provider is not so much the execution of the application as a convenient way to contact the Help Desk. In the framework of the current research, “nishtyaki”, in the form of auto-opening of the email sending form at the click, we did not consider. We also did not make outgoing calls, did not use the chat session, that is, in fact, did not evaluate the availability or response time of the support service.
Based on the description of the client profile, we have excluded from consideration the channel of appeal through social networks - this is more suitable for handling complaints or customer service of individuals (the so-called “customer support” ). We see that recently, even among the IT service business, interaction with customer support via Viber, Telegram, etc., is gaining popularity, but this year we decided not to include an analysis of these channels.
In our opinion, high-quality service support of legal entities and a convenient functional Help Desk system, for example, such as Okdesk , cannot but provide a “Client portal” with functions:
- self-registration of applications;
- control and monitor all stages of the application;
- fixing invoices issued by the contractor in the framework of performing one-time work;
- access to service parameters and contracts.
First of all, in the described relations, absolute transparency is important, including the history of all interactions on applications, and the Client Portal is undoubtedly one of the main and most convenient tools for creating this transparency.
results
When we were planning a study, we were sure that the availability of email and a telephone is 146% mandatory for any IT (and not only IT) service company.
The results of the study confirmed that one of the basic channels of interaction with the Help Desk is in the majority: 96% and 77%, respectively.
However, the first disappointment was the realization that 25% of the surveyed sites did not even have at the same time 2 “must have” ways of contacting the support service: email and telephone .
Surprisingly, almost every 2nd site has an embedded web form .
We assumed that access to the “Client Portal” is provided by a small number of companies. The forecasts were confirmed - only 21% of the “investigated” sites we found a link for authorization (beyond the scope of this study, the question of the functionality of the portal remains). We also assume that some IT service companies do not publish a link to the public domain, but, for example, send it out personally to customers or VIP customers.
Next, we checked the presence of multiple ways to contact support. Here the situation is sad:
- only 8.8% of sites have 4 key ways to interact with the Help Desk ;
- Only 1.3% of the sites have all 5 of the investigated options for contacting the technical service .
Instead of conclusions
IT outsourcing companies in Russia and companies engaged in customer service computers do not work with current customers, at least in terms of providing them with convenient means of contacting customer support.
For the majority of “respondents,” a phone number and email (for every 3 out of 4 companies) are sufficient conditions for forming long-term and loyal customer relations regarding the convenience of interacting with the Help Desk service.
Convenient and functional "Client Portal", which allows to increase transparency between the client and customers on the registration and resolution of applications is still an unclaimed communication channel (we could not find it on 79% of sites).
As a bonus, read to the end - general infographics .
What do you think: has the time come to think about long-term relationships with customers in general and in the IT service business in particular?
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/299758/
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