How to successfully implement the Help Desk? 12 examples (part 1)
We - the developers of Okdesk - Help Desk systems for service companies love numbers, but not always the effect of using some kind of automation tools is easy to measure. So, we often hear that the introduction of Helpdesk does not give direct and meaningful results, especially for customer support.
As a confirmation of the thesis that the introduction of automated systems for customer support really allows us to improve a number of business indicators, especially for the Habr community, we picked up 12 stories about the results of implementing the Help Desk and Service Desk systems in companies from different markets, mainly from developed .
The selection included both world-famous giants and small services and service companies belonging to the SMB segment. Their experience once again shows that the benefit does not always consist only in streamlining activities. Yes, and the very establishment of order causes a positive chain reaction, which is reflected in various aspects of activity.
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Introducing the first batch of 6 stories!
Wrong is the one who believes that problems with the service can only be found in companies from the SMB segment, and in a large, especially well-known business world, everything has been arranged for a long time.
More recently, the British division of Sennheiser - a company specializing in the development and production of audio components for consumers and professionals - could not cope with the avalanche-like stream of support appeals sent to several e-mail boxes. Among them were many complaints - and it is clear what, because The average response time to a client request was set at 5 days. At the same time, letters were often duplicated, since the same calls were sent between employees.
The introduction of Service Desk tools has reduced the number of incoming calls. The order provided by the tool (in particular, the sorting of incoming letters), made it possible to get rid of duplication, which in itself reduced the response time. Plus, customers receiving a quick response from the support service stopped writing complaints, which further reduced the volume of correspondence (and accelerated the receipt of a response). Now the reaction time to customer requests is only a few hours .
Automation support tools have made buyers a little happier, and the company's staff is no longer afraid to communicate with customers.
A similar story happened at Whirpool, whose plants are located in 14 countries of the world, and sales are made in almost every country. At one time, the company had already spent time and money on building business processes of interaction with production, in particular, on automatic processing of incoming correspondence using Lotus Notes. However, everything is changing - including the order of relations with counterparties.
Due to the introduction of the new Help Desk system (more relevant to current requests), the home appliance manufacturer has relieved its partners of the need to duplicate messages on the same topic several times. Receiving automatic notifications about the start of processing their message, the counterparties do not overload the inbox for incoming mail. As a result, the volume of incoming applications fell at once by 15-20%.
The success of the implementation of the Help Desk system does not necessarily have to be determined by the achieved benefits - reducing time or saving money. Sometimes the fact that the support service continues to fulfill its promises, in spite of everything, is an achievement in itself.
A good example is the observance of the terms of the SLA in a business that has strongly pronounced seasonality. So in the JibJab service, despite the increase in the number of tickets in the billing system from 8 to 80 thousand . per month during the holidays (from November to December), the rate of response to customers within 24 hours is guarded . During this period, the company receives about 60% of annual profits.
Back in 2013 (before the introduction of application accounting automation tools), the situation was quite different: customers waited for answers to their requests for several weeks. Naturally, they did not like it. True, nobody missed the lost profit then.
SLA - Service Level Agreement (Service Level Agreement) - an external document (existing between the customer and the contractor), describing the parameters of the provided service. “Compliance with SLA” is equivalent to the fact that the service works in such a way that the actual parameters correspond to the metric values ​​stated in the agreement. Although the term SLA itself appeared in IT, today such documents are used to describe a variety of services, both in IT and in other B2B segments, for example, in servicing commercial real estate, in repairing specialized equipment, etc. Read more about what SLA is in our article .
One of the reasons that the team resists automation tools is the fear of cuts, especially ordinary personnel. In this Western colleagues are very similar to the situation in Russia. Abbreviations do happen.
The company Jamberry specializes, may the community of Habra forgive us :), on the network sale of decorative nail pads. Initially, support for both end customers and consultants at various levels was provided by one department through e-mail. The company once again proved by its example the postulate that non-core tools cope with the task only up to a certain time. With the growth rate that was achieved, it became a real nightmare. Jamberry even tried to outsource support, but ultimately returned the “reins of government” associated with customer interaction to her own office by implementing a system for automating the recording of applications.
The helpdesk solution allowed us to bring order to our clients and more than 40 thousand consultants around the world. Thanks to this, Jamberry has reduced the number of support staff from 100 to 77 (more than 20%). At the same time, the new scheme of work fully supports business expansion without undue stress for employees.
In the company “Keysystems-Ivanovo”, whose employees implement specialized IT solutions in state and local government in Ivanovo, Vladimir, Vologda, Kostroma, Nizhny Novgorod, Novgorod and Yaroslavl regions, until recently used Excel spreadsheets to record customer requests . We have already mentioned above that non-core tools are suitable for companies only at the beginning of their development. The example of “Keysystems-Ivanovo” is another proof of this.
After switching to Okdesk, the company managed not only to “tighten” customer satisfaction ( up to 96.4% of 100 for one of the spring months of 2017, which preceded the publication of the open implementation report), but also to solve tasks that were beyond the power of the previous tool. For example, in the company appeared the prediction of the load on the technical support service. Read more about this domestic experience here.
With the transition to a web-based toolkit for accounting and automating support, an energy company from Texas was able to reduce the time required to solve a client problem by 40-60% .
The previous solution, used for the same purpose, did not allow tracking the status of the application. In addition, there were difficulties with the processing of applications received through different channels (e-mail, telephone, etc.). And the lack of a single knowledge base increased the time it took to solve the same customer problems.
To solve the problems in the local infrastructure, a 100% web-based help desk desk solution was deployed. Simultaneously with the reduction in the cost of implementation and maintenance, the product made it possible to significantly improve the quality of service, reducing the response time due to quick access to a database of ready-made solutions for typical problems.
Many of these examples do not describe direct financial benefits, but they ultimately lead precisely to monetary advantages - by increasing the loyalty and “return” of existing customers, attracting new ones by word of mouth. In many respects, this explains the lag of automation in the companies of the SMB segment in Russia from Western colleagues - when deciding on the introduction of a new tool, we want to see a quick and direct financial return, and sometimes a plus is not at all.
Other examples of vivid results of the Help Desk implementation are in the second part.
As a confirmation of the thesis that the introduction of automated systems for customer support really allows us to improve a number of business indicators, especially for the Habr community, we picked up 12 stories about the results of implementing the Help Desk and Service Desk systems in companies from different markets, mainly from developed .
The selection included both world-famous giants and small services and service companies belonging to the SMB segment. Their experience once again shows that the benefit does not always consist only in streamlining activities. Yes, and the very establishment of order causes a positive chain reaction, which is reflected in various aspects of activity.
')
Introducing the first batch of 6 stories!
1. Sennheiser UK reduces the response time to applications more than 5 times
Wrong is the one who believes that problems with the service can only be found in companies from the SMB segment, and in a large, especially well-known business world, everything has been arranged for a long time.
More recently, the British division of Sennheiser - a company specializing in the development and production of audio components for consumers and professionals - could not cope with the avalanche-like stream of support appeals sent to several e-mail boxes. Among them were many complaints - and it is clear what, because The average response time to a client request was set at 5 days. At the same time, letters were often duplicated, since the same calls were sent between employees.
The introduction of Service Desk tools has reduced the number of incoming calls. The order provided by the tool (in particular, the sorting of incoming letters), made it possible to get rid of duplication, which in itself reduced the response time. Plus, customers receiving a quick response from the support service stopped writing complaints, which further reduced the volume of correspondence (and accelerated the receipt of a response). Now the reaction time to customer requests is only a few hours .
Automation support tools have made buyers a little happier, and the company's staff is no longer afraid to communicate with customers.
2. Whirpool reduces the number of incoming emails from production by 20%.
A similar story happened at Whirpool, whose plants are located in 14 countries of the world, and sales are made in almost every country. At one time, the company had already spent time and money on building business processes of interaction with production, in particular, on automatic processing of incoming correspondence using Lotus Notes. However, everything is changing - including the order of relations with counterparties.
Due to the introduction of the new Help Desk system (more relevant to current requests), the home appliance manufacturer has relieved its partners of the need to duplicate messages on the same topic several times. Receiving automatic notifications about the start of processing their message, the counterparties do not overload the inbox for incoming mail. As a result, the volume of incoming applications fell at once by 15-20%.
3. SLA agreement. JibJab funny postcard support service stays within SLA even during peak loads
The success of the implementation of the Help Desk system does not necessarily have to be determined by the achieved benefits - reducing time or saving money. Sometimes the fact that the support service continues to fulfill its promises, in spite of everything, is an achievement in itself.
A good example is the observance of the terms of the SLA in a business that has strongly pronounced seasonality. So in the JibJab service, despite the increase in the number of tickets in the billing system from 8 to 80 thousand . per month during the holidays (from November to December), the rate of response to customers within 24 hours is guarded . During this period, the company receives about 60% of annual profits.
Back in 2013 (before the introduction of application accounting automation tools), the situation was quite different: customers waited for answers to their requests for several weeks. Naturally, they did not like it. True, nobody missed the lost profit then.
SLA - Service Level Agreement (Service Level Agreement) - an external document (existing between the customer and the contractor), describing the parameters of the provided service. “Compliance with SLA” is equivalent to the fact that the service works in such a way that the actual parameters correspond to the metric values ​​stated in the agreement. Although the term SLA itself appeared in IT, today such documents are used to describe a variety of services, both in IT and in other B2B segments, for example, in servicing commercial real estate, in repairing specialized equipment, etc. Read more about what SLA is in our article .
4. Jamberry reduces support staff by more than 20%.
One of the reasons that the team resists automation tools is the fear of cuts, especially ordinary personnel. In this Western colleagues are very similar to the situation in Russia. Abbreviations do happen.
The company Jamberry specializes, may the community of Habra forgive us :), on the network sale of decorative nail pads. Initially, support for both end customers and consultants at various levels was provided by one department through e-mail. The company once again proved by its example the postulate that non-core tools cope with the task only up to a certain time. With the growth rate that was achieved, it became a real nightmare. Jamberry even tried to outsource support, but ultimately returned the “reins of government” associated with customer interaction to her own office by implementing a system for automating the recording of applications.
The helpdesk solution allowed us to bring order to our clients and more than 40 thousand consultants around the world. Thanks to this, Jamberry has reduced the number of support staff from 100 to 77 (more than 20%). At the same time, the new scheme of work fully supports business expansion without undue stress for employees.
5. “Keysystems-Ivanovo” - IT contractor for state organizations in several areas - reaches a quality rating of 96.4%
In the company “Keysystems-Ivanovo”, whose employees implement specialized IT solutions in state and local government in Ivanovo, Vladimir, Vologda, Kostroma, Nizhny Novgorod, Novgorod and Yaroslavl regions, until recently used Excel spreadsheets to record customer requests . We have already mentioned above that non-core tools are suitable for companies only at the beginning of their development. The example of “Keysystems-Ivanovo” is another proof of this.
After switching to Okdesk, the company managed not only to “tighten” customer satisfaction ( up to 96.4% of 100 for one of the spring months of 2017, which preceded the publication of the open implementation report), but also to solve tasks that were beyond the power of the previous tool. For example, in the company appeared the prediction of the load on the technical support service. Read more about this domestic experience here.
6. AP Gas & Electric shortens ticket closure time by half
With the transition to a web-based toolkit for accounting and automating support, an energy company from Texas was able to reduce the time required to solve a client problem by 40-60% .
The previous solution, used for the same purpose, did not allow tracking the status of the application. In addition, there were difficulties with the processing of applications received through different channels (e-mail, telephone, etc.). And the lack of a single knowledge base increased the time it took to solve the same customer problems.
To solve the problems in the local infrastructure, a 100% web-based help desk desk solution was deployed. Simultaneously with the reduction in the cost of implementation and maintenance, the product made it possible to significantly improve the quality of service, reducing the response time due to quick access to a database of ready-made solutions for typical problems.
As intermediate output
Many of these examples do not describe direct financial benefits, but they ultimately lead precisely to monetary advantages - by increasing the loyalty and “return” of existing customers, attracting new ones by word of mouth. In many respects, this explains the lag of automation in the companies of the SMB segment in Russia from Western colleagues - when deciding on the introduction of a new tool, we want to see a quick and direct financial return, and sometimes a plus is not at all.
Other examples of vivid results of the Help Desk implementation are in the second part.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/339170/
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