There are a lot of issues that you need to keep in mind when you are trying to run a business during any economy. These challenges can be harder for small businesses during the pandemic.
One of the biggest frustrations that small business owners face is making sure that customer service is handled properly. They need to use the right help desks and other support to make sure that their customer needs are make.
The Role of Help Desks During the Pandemic
From troubleshooting your internet connection to returning a pair of shoes, almost every individual has had to contact a help desk at one time or another. As the name aptly suggests, help desks are a beach for guidance on almost any topic imaginable. As technology continues to advance at a rapid rate, help desk channels are expanding beyond the phone to instant messaging, websites, social media, email, and text messages. With so many channels to monitor, customer issues and requests can easily slip through the cracks.
The unprecedented nature of the COVID-19 Pandemic presented a variety of information technology scenarios that businesses never expected. With more individuals working from home than ever and businesses shut down to stop the spread of the virus, help desk departments and companies became overwhelmed with the number of contacts. More individuals than ever were shopping, working, working out, and communicating with family and friends from home. This means that companies need to rethink their customer service strategy during the pandemic.
What is Help Desk Software?
In the simplest form, help desk software assists businesses with service management automation. These services are used internally by employees who need help with a problem or externally by customers who have purchased goods or services.
This technology is mostly used for business IT support, IT asset management, and customer support. In recent years, there has been a quick move from nice-to-have to being a necessity. In a user survey conducted by ManageEngine, researchers found the following benefits of help desk software from respondents:
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- 98% showed improved productivity.
- 95% experienced a considerable increase in customer satisfaction levels.
- 71% measured performance by tracking and identifying key metrics.
- 39% implemented a knowledge base for the first time.
- 20% use help desk software in addition to other departments besides IT.
Email and spreadsheets can only grow the business so much. To improve customer satisfaction and employee productivity, help desk software must be adopted.
Lessons from the Help Desk
Help desks were able to manage the vast influx in calls due to implementing the best help desk software. Although the Pandemic rages on, society has learned many lessons from the help desk trenches in 2020.
Finding the top help desk software
Businesses and help desks quickly understood the importance of finding the best help desk software to meet their needs. Help desk software goes beyond simple troubleshooting by offering smart resources for automating certain processes or sharing macro elements. Also, many companies offer self-service resources for internal and external users to relieve the burden of troubleshooting with a live representative. Furthermore, excellent help desk software offers analytics and reporting tools that deliver insight about the help desk operations including trends in historical tickets, average resolution times, and user sentiment. This information, direct from the consumer, is marketing gold.
Increase in Cybersecurity
With more users than ever online simultaneously, this was an excellent opportunity for cybercriminals to wreak havoc. Most remote employees were protected by their company’s VPN, but personal Internet users were still susceptible. IT and bank help desks had their work cut out for them when malicious attacks would occur, exposing sensitive information. The lesson learned was to never keep your guard down with cybersecurity.
The rise in Virtual Communication
From business to personal use, connection and engagement have been a key requirement for a healthy lifestyle. Since the quarantine prevented face-to-face engagement, more virtual communication software was launched and used than ever. From Zoom and Teams within the corporate world to SKYPE and Houseparty in the personal world, these programs and apps had their fair share of problems, and help desks at multiple levels needed to be prepared. The result was learning a great deal about these different products to get users back up and running as fast as possible.
The bottom line is finding an alternate way to work and effectively communicate with others in a business and social setting was paramount in 2020. Since most of the world was stuck at home, indoors, virtual conversations were their outlet for human contact. As a result of most of the population being home, help desks and customer service at businesses were more overwhelmed than ever. During this time, they learned the importance of using excellent help desk software, increasing cybersecurity, and the overall rise in virtual communication.