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The 5 Biggest Customer Support Blunders

1) Viewing Customer Support As An Expense To Be Minimized

Good customer support is essential because it is the front line interface between your customer and your business. Customer support should not be viewed as a necessary evil, but as an opportunity to meet and exceed your customer's expectations and build upon your relationship. By implementing an interactive set of remote assistance features on your website for support, your company can allow customers to interact real-time with support staff and other customers; as well as research and identify possible solutions. Instead of waiting for customers to call up with questions one after another, your agents can multi-task and field questions concurrently. After normal business hours, your support website can still be available 24 x 7 to let customers know that their issue has been recognized and confirmed and help is on the way. In addition to the good will that you build up with the customer, automated help desk solutions means savings in productivity and employee morale.

2) Being Reactive, not Proactive

Most business managers have no vision or foresight – because they don't know what they don't know.  It's not that they're dumb or incapable, it's just that they're spending all of their time maintaining, updating, and trying to keep the old processes and systems running. They put all of their focus on projects and deadlines -- until the proverbial SH*T hits the fan.  And only then will they spend 10 times the time and money trying to fix a problem that could have been prevented with a little foresight.  And these days, foresight means getting a cloud-based customer support and help desk solution. With cloud-based computing, you are renting a service that is provided, provisioned, maintained, and operated offsite. Your customer care team simply invokes their web browsers to provide remote assistance to customers and customer computers. Don't let the wave of cloud computing wash your business away.

3) Working the Process Rather Than the Problem

Your support staff should not be blindly focused on completing a pre-defined process. Their focus should be on solving the customer's problem and identifying opportunities to extend the relationship with the customer.  If your agents spend more time on the paperwork and loading software and filling out forms than resolving customer issues - you need to change the process.  Or your customer will change theirs.

4) Under-Delivering or Over-Selling

You know that your product is the best solution for your customer's problem.  You should remind them of that fact as often as you can. But if a competitor's product can do the job just as well or better in some circumstances, you better get with engineering or operations to make sure that your product soon meets and exceeds the other guy's. And if you let customers know when your company has made a mistake, you are simply humanizing your brand.  Customers connect to humans, not corporate behemoths. Never let your customer wonder who they're doing business with, or if they’ve been over-promised and over-sold.

5) Deploying Faulty Technology and Technicians

If your customer support and help desk software is poorly chosen, poorly configured, poorly implemented, or installed on bad or out-dated hardware, you will be re-doing it. And if the software is not manageable, configurable,  or customizable, you will be spending more money modifying it than buying it.  And if the customer support software is being used by poorly trained managers and technicians, and customer problems fall through the cracks, unresolved, you will be hearing about it. Don't become monolithic, inflexible, or unable to keep up. In today's ultra-competitive business landscape, loyalty is awarded in months, not years. Your competitors are a mouse click away. Don't give your customer a reason to click away.

 

If you are looking for a reliable and interactive help desk and remote support service, I recommend eBLVD. For a detailed review as well as more information visit eBLVD.com.

Marv Toyer is the founder of eBLVD.com, a privately held pioneer of web based communication software and professional remote access tools.  Marv has helped businesses plan and implement their customer-focus initiatives on every continent and in most North American cities. To learn more about eBLVD visit www.eBLVD.com, call (760) 727-7277 or email him at marv@eBLVD.com

 

Best Practices for Running an Effective Help-Desk

Best Practices for Running an Effective Help-Desk

Remove barriers to success by reducing the effort your customers must make when they call your Help-desk or Call Center with these best practices to improve customer service.

 

1. Give all your employees excellent product knowledge.

New employees should thoroughly review all existing documentation available as well as how to access the knowledge base. If your organization doesn't have a knowledge base, see #2 below. Make staff aware of all available resources, and communicate clearly with your staff the expectations for ongoing training. Put into place a continuous knowledge transfer program where product development and support staff get together to exchange information.

2.  Use systems and Web 2.0 tools that support great customer service.

Find a software solution to fit your needs and use it effectively to record incidents electronically, publish a knowledge base of common issues, connect to the remote desktop of users computers and servers for diagnosis and repair; and finally survey customers to see how you're doing.

One of the best support and help desk products on the market today is provided by eBLVD. This product features a cloud-based ticketing, chat, and remote access and diagnosis tools that are perfect for any sized business. For years, they have been providing remote support and help-desk solutions to enterprises of all sizes. What is great with the solutions they provide is that they are not just effective and simple, but affordable as well.  

3. Resolve customer issues at the first point of contact.

The goal of each customer service agent should always be to resolve problems for customers at the time they first call in.  Not only do repeat callers have a negative impact on the operational efficiency of your call center, frustrated customers can spread their negative experience in ways that affect your business from top to bottom. The industry standard for first call resolution is between 80 and 95% of your calls.  In order to reach this goal, support staff should possess strong listening, communication and diagnosis skills; be detailed and organized; possess excellent follow-through skills; as well as be able to multi-task.

4. Deliver on your promises.

Take responsibility and ownership for any real or perceived problem that the customer is reporting. Don't make excuses, and humanize the experience by explaining that nothing ever goes perfectly every time, and you will work with the customer until he is satisfied. If the agent is unable to resolve the issue, provide exact details regarding who will be following up to address which issue. And do whatever it takes to make sure the follow up occurs.

5. Measure the Results.

Measure your total requests against the total completed and resolved tickets to see how you're doing. Data such as first call resolution rate, average incident completion time, agent by agent performance, and problem identification by product and by customer are important metrics. Valuable information can be obtained to improve product offerings and customer support.

 

 

If you are looking for a reliable and interactive help desk and customer support system, I recommend eBLVD. For a detailed review as well as more information visit eBLVD.com.

Marv Toyer is the founder of eBLVD.com, a privately held pioneer of web based communication software and professional remote access tools.  Marv has helped businesses plan and implement their customer-focus initiatives on every continent and in most North American cities. To learn more about eBLVD visit www.eBLVD.com, call (760) 727-7277 or email him at marv@eBLVD.com

3 TIPS FOR GREAT WEB MEETINGS

Web meetings are good for your business. They can save time and money on travel, increase rapport with workers and clients, and are a great sales and training tool. With these greater rewards come risks: a misstep can cost your company an opportunity, a deal, a client. A misstep can cost you a sale, a commission, a promotion. Are you prepared?  Use these tips for great web meetings:

1) Respect the gift of attention. A web meeting is a time commitment for everybody. Be prepared. Be succinct.

Change up your content, ask questions, and solicit feedback to keep things moving.

How much time should you consume?  A good ballpark number is 30 minutes. Any less and your participants start to wonder "what was the point of all this?". Any more and you'll lose them to Facebook or to that bird slingshot.  If you need more than 30 minutes, schedule a break.

2) Share a great story. Entertain them. Shock them. Web meetings are VISUAL -- use charts, web sites, video, and pictures to tell your story. Keep them engaged. Limit side conversations. Keep text to a minimum.

If you're just reading text from a PowerPoint on the screen, it's as if you're talking, and your slide is also talking, and your participants are wondering, "Should I listen or should I read?"

Their answer: Facebook or that bird slingshot.

3) Have a great entrance, and a great exit. Open your meeting 10-15 minutes early. The starting slide should confirm the meeting details (meeting name, start time, conference call information, etc.).

Introduce yourself. Take a minute, get their attention, state the purpose of the web conference and let them know exactly what is on the agenda. For smaller meetings, ask others to introduce themselves as well.

At the end, thank them for their gift. Follow up and clarify any open items. Call them to action. Take their order.

 

If you are looking for a reliable and interactive web conference and online meeting service, I recommend eBLVD. For a detailed review as well as more information visit eBLVD.com.

Marv Toyer is the founder of eBLVD.com, a privately held pioneer of web based communication software and professional web meeting tools.  Marv has helped businesses plan and implement their customer-focus initiatives on every continent and in most North American cities. To learn more about eBLVD visit www.eBLVD.com, call (760) 727-7277 or email him at marv@eBLVD.com

eBLVD Online Meetings and Web Demos

5 Dumb Mistakes That Will KILL Your Web Conference

When using an interactive web conferencing service, make sure to avoid these common mistakes to make yourself look like a pro. Don't break the cardinal rule of hosting a web conference, distance training seminar, or sales presentation.

1. Starting late
Don't break the cardinal rule of hosting a web conference, distance training seminar, or sales presentation. Be at your desktop and on the phone at least 10 minutes prior to your pre-arranged meeting time. Use the time to 'get in the zone', put on your 'game face', and organize your online presentation physically and mentally.

2. Technical problems
When done well, a properly executed web demo will impress your prospects, 'wow' your colleagues, and make rain fall from the sky. When you spend 20 minutes trying to debug somebody's home network, firewall, or 3G connection, you look like a schmutz -- and Mr. Opportunity has already left the building.

Here's a tip: stay away from smaller or newer web conference providers - especially the ones that are Java or Adobe Flash based. If your user doesn't have Flash or the right version of Java already pre-installed, your sunk. Use a 'name brand' service that doesn't require 3rd-party software and has been around for a few years to smooth out the kinks. A good online meetings and web conference service guarantees connectivity through any firewall and doesn't require third-party add-ons to make it work.

3. Getting an email or instant message interruption
We've already established that you're a technically savvy rain-maker - so you're using online web conferencing to display your nifty PowerPoint slides, brag about the re-designed web site, and show off your cool software widget right from your desktop. Desktop sharing is a great feature to 'virtually' connect everybody to the same desktop in the same room - whether your attendees are a cubicle or a continent away. But don't risk getting interrupted by an embarrassing Instant Message from a colleague that gets broadcast to everybody in your meeting. Prior to all of your online web demos, make sure you close your IM, email, and other social-network programs.

4. Boring content
Don't limit your spiel to a 20-page canned PowerPoint presentation. Your goal is to keep your participant's attention. Keep it interactive with discussion, surveys, or pass control to your prospect and let them "Drive" to see for themselves. We recommend just a few introductory slides, then a quick interactive tour of your product or web site.

5. Boring pace
Respect everyone's time and keep your presentation flowing and interesting. Don't get side tracked and leave individual discussions and scenarios until after the meeting. And I'll end the article here, or risk myself being boring and disrespectful of your time.

 

 

If you are looking for a reliable and interactive web conference and online meeting service, I recommend eBLVD. For a detailed review as well as more information visit eBLVD.com.

Marv Toyer is the founder of eBLVD.com, a privately held pioneer of web based communication software and professional web meeting tools.  Marv has helped businesses plan and implement their customer-focus initiatives on every continent and in most North American cities. To learn more about eBLVD visit www.eBLVD.com, call (760) 727-7277 or email him at marv@eBLVD.com

5 Things Your Staff Told You Absolutely Needed (But Do You?)

As an entrepreneur, I truly believe in the goodness and ingenuity of the human spirit. Your staff wants to do the right thing, and shares in each success of the enterprise. A view from the top, however, holds that to ensure the survival of the enterprise in tough economic times -- every business decision should be made with an eye towards recent technological innovations.

Satellite Office(s)

According to Colliers International, 2009 rates for office space per square foot are ranging between $27.37 and $41.15 in U.S. suburban and downtown office markets. Even if your satellite office space is cramped and modest, rents are a sunk cost that doesn't really increase sales.

For small remote operations, consider setting up employees, sales personnel, and consultants with home offices. Equipped with a PC and Internet connection, a VoIP phone, and web meeting and web conferencing technologies like Web Conferencing and Web Demos, you can 'virtually' meet on a regular basis as if in the same room.

Additionally, remote employees can gain secure access to the corporate network's files, intranet, and devices using remote technologies built into Online Remote Access and Online Remote Desktop services. Leading edge organizations recognize that telecommuting is a trend that has benefits for both employer and employee. Today, more than 30 million US adults telecommute and that number is expected to double within the next 6 years. Besides the obvious cost benefits, studies have shown that productivity actually improves when your employees work at home.

Email and Web Server(s)

Everything that happens on the internet is through the client - server communication model. A client is a device connected to the internet through a unique internet protocol (IP) address. A server is another device connected to the internet with its own IP address and does the task of serving web pages and email messages. But the server can be located anywhere on the Internet - remember this key point for later.

It's a given that companies will equip an employee's desktop with the client piece of the equation, i.e. a PC, Mac, laptop, etc. But is it possible that your web site and email servers could run more reliably, securely and cost-effectively if the server devices were to reside somewhere other than the home office?

Remember, servers are simply computer programs that run on high speed machines. Third party providers such as Google, Network Solutions, RackSpace, and others offer business class email, cloud and web hosting for a modest fee. These providers use machines designed to accurately handle the concurrent requests of millions of clients who need access and delivery of a webpage or email. These services are self-managed, secure, reliable, and flexible - with the ability to rapidly scale up or down.

Phones and Phone System(s)

Now that you've got so many employees at disparate locations, how do you manage to (economically) stay in contact with them, and keep them in contact with customers and associates? The answer is found within another Internet technology known as Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP). This technology is used to make telephone calls via the Internet.

With a VoIP phone, your remote employees can have an 'extension' on the home office PBX by using a SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) connection. This is a service offered by an Internet Telephony Service Provider (ITSP) that will 'virtually' connect any number of remote VoIP phones to your company's main PBX, and to the existing telephone system infrastructure via the Internet. Inbound calls are routed through the main office toll or toll-free phone number, and outbound calls have the Caller ID of the same number.

And my favorite part is that the SIP connection typically will use the same Internet connection that is used for web and email access - so the cost is virtually zero.

Large Help Desk Department / IT Staff

Nothing irks me more than when I analyze cost-per-call and call volume data of our 'Help Desk' to find large holes of nothingness where this staff is basically being paid to breathe air.

What is needed is  a tool that allowed internal and external customers to report a problem online, instantly alerting an IT staff member to alter the rules of physics and jump on the customer's desktop - while controlling the keyboard and mouse to diagnose and fix the problem - thereby restoring everything to perfect harmony.

Web-based remote support and remote access  tools can restore order to cost-per-call numbers, and can help any business owner who has one or more computers in his/her organization that occasionally under-performs. These tools are also a great way to economically support your remote satellite locations, as well as remote web, email, and phone servers.

Large Travel Budget or The 'Million Dollar' Video Conferencing System

We can all agree that connecting with prospects, customers, associates, and vendors is important in the business world. But does every contact require a road or plane trip, with one or more hotel stays, countless meals, time away from family, etc. etc. etc.?

With a technology called web conferencing, each participant sits at his or her own computer and is 'virtually' connected to the other participants via the internet. With web conferencing, your organization can easily provide web demos, webcasts, webinars, online sales presentations, and live online meetings to customers and prospects. Additionally, web conferencing can be used for conducting online training, collaboration, and online meetings with associates, simply from each other's desktop.

 

If you are looking for cloud-based online conference, online meeting, remote desktop, remote access, customer support, help desk, and/or  remote support tools, I recommend eBLVD. For a detailed review as well as more information visit eBLVD.com.

Marv Toyer is the founder of eBLVD.com, a privately held pioneer of web based communication software and professional web meeting tools.  Marv has helped businesses plan and implement their customer-focus initiatives on every continent and in most North American cities. To learn more about eBLVD visit www.eBLVD.com, call (760) 727-7277 or email him at marv@eBLVD.com

Best Practices for Web Conference Presenters

Have you ever been in a web conference and the "weakest link" was the presenter? If you use web conferencing technology, don't be the weakest link in a web meeting. A bad online meeting can cost you and your business money — either in lost sales, lost productivity, or lost self-esteem.

 

1. Establish Clear Objectives

When you establish a clear objective, your audience is able to focus its energy and attention. Once set, the activities you undertake in your web meeting should all support the achievement of your chosen goals.

 

When you set an objective, you send an image to the subconscious mind of your attendees. It remains there until the objective becomes reality.  This is how all creative people work - they transform the images they seed in their subconscious minds into a concrete form.

 

Henceforth, only items in support of your objectives are brought up in the meeting. Examples of objectives that can be established are: "Discovery session of how our widget can solve the problem of... ", or "Exploration of the various uses of the widget", etc.

 

2. Prepare

Today's modern web conferencing systems allow the presenter to easily invite and accept attendees. But that's just the beginning. Make sure you are familiar with the functions that you'll need to have a great web meeting.

 

The basic 8 functions you'll need are: desktop sharing, participant list/control, drawing tools, remote keyboard and mouse control, text chat, session recording, VoIP (for sending sound from your PC to the attendees), and polling/surveys.  (These are the absolute minimum requirements - if you don't have these functions you'll need to find another vendor). Read on to discover how you'll use these tools.

 

3. Provide Visuals (a.k.a. channeling your "inner Steve Jobs")

Does this sound familiar? You're interested in a new widget and get invited to a web demo by the Widget Company. The presenter at WidgetCo opens up his stock PowerPoint presentation, goes through it slide by boring slide, then asks you for your P.O. or credit card number.

 

P-L-E-A-S-E. Take advantage of this powerful online conference technology. Make your presentation incredibly compelling. There's nothing wrong with PowerPoint - but don't "kill them" with it. Use a handful of visually appealing PowerPoint slides to establish and interactively highlight the key points. Then, bring out the widget. Pass the controls to the audience so they can "touch", "smell", and "taste" the widget. Start the fog machine. Mix in some audio and video. Go to your web site to show them where to learn more. Are you getting the idea?

 

4. Interact with your audience

Solicit questions from your attendees. Check in often to gauge the interest level.  Unlike a physical meeting you can't read the body language of your participants.  Pay attention to little things, like the breathing (or snoring) on the other end. Remember your established objective and stay focused. Fail to do so at your peril - you may have lost the sale before you even realize it.

 

5. Follow up

Offer attendees a meeting summary consisting of the presentation slides, documents, session recording for later review, and chat logs. Afterwards - conduct polls, evaluations, and even quizzes. Finally - send thank-you notes, solicit additional questions and establish the next steps.

 

In summary, your next online meeting can be a success, as long as it's carefully planned, properly executed, compelling, and focused. Stay in contact with your participants even after your session has ended, and your web meeting will have proven to be a success.

If you are looking for a reliable and interactive web conference and online meeting service, I recommend eBLVD. For a detailed review as well as more information visit eBLVD.com.

Marv Toyer is the founder of eBLVD.com, a privately held pioneer of web based communication software and professional web meeting tools.  Marv has helped businesses plan and implement their customer-focus initiatives on every continent and in most North American cities. To learn more about eBLVD visit www.eBLVD.com, call (760) 727-7277 or email him at marv@eBLVD.com