Customer Help Desk: Support Resources vs. Agent Decisions
When running a customer help desk there are two types of problems a support agent can encounter:
- A problem that can be solved by referencing your support resources.
- A problem that requires a decision.
What is the difference and why does it matter?
Problems That Can Be Solved by Your Support Resources
First, let’s define what a support resource is. Your support resources are resources that are currently in place and can be referenced by the support agent. This might include:
- Software documentation
- Video tutorials
- User forums
Another aspect of your support resources are policies that your organization has established for dealing with specific issues. For example, you might have a refund policy or volume discount policy.
If a question comes in that has already been dealt with in your support resources then the support agent doesn’t have to take time to make a decision. Your customer help desk can easily point the customer to the answer they need or refer to your organization’s policy on the matter. No time is wasted making a decision since the decision was previously made and stored in your support resources.
Problems That Require Support Agent Decisions
Unfortunately not all problems are as easily solved. There are many problems that support agents can’t solve by referring to your resources. These types of problems might include:
- A new, previously unknown bug in your product.
- A customer who wants to use your product in a novel way.
- A customer who asks a “how to” question that is not covered in your documentation or forums.
When a support agent encounters this type of problem they have to make a decision. They may need to refer the problem to the development team, contact their manager or seek other resources for an answer. This takes much more time than simply pointing a customer to a support resource.
Improve Your Support by Improving Your Resources
Time is the most valuable asset you or your customers have. Support incidents that require a decision take more time than those that don’t. Your goal as an organization should be to reduce the number of incidents that require decisions. How do you do that? Improve your support resources.
Your support resources can’t possibly answer all questions your customers will have. You will never be able to predict every situation. But your support resources can continually improve to answer more of your customers’ questions.
Assessing Where You Are At
Take some time to take an inventory of your support requests. How many are being solved by your support resources? How many are requiring your support agents to make decisions? How can you expand your resources to decrease the number of support requests that require decisions? Ramp up your resources and you will improve your help desk.
