If you really want your business to be successful, you can’t skate by with poor customer service. In fact, it has to be one of your business’ top priorities. Because when it comes to standing out against your competitors, exceptional customer service is how you’ll win.
And exceptional support means personalization, which is more important than ever — 81% of agents and 73% of mobile workers say customers expect a personal touch more than they used to. In order to create memorable customer service experiences, support teams need to be equipped with the right tools.
They need a customer service desk.
What is a customer service desk?
A customer service desk, also commonly referred to as a help desk or support desk, is a platform designed to centralize customer support inquiries and help teams manage them efficiently.
These customer inquiries, also known as support tickets or cases, can be anything from a billing issue, customers experiencing technical issues, or general questions about a company and its product. By using a customer service desk, teams can easily organize, prioritize, manage, and respond to customer issues in a timely, efficient manner.
What makes up a customer service desk?
There are several essential features that make a customer service desk not only effective but also an indispensable tool for almost every business today. And by every business, we mean if you have customers, a customer service desk should be at the top of your list of tools to adopt.
Below are some of the key customer service desk features needed to change the way your team works:
Shared inbox
A shared inbox allows service teams to funnel all customer service issues into one integrated interface. From there they can easily delegate and assign tasks to the appropriate team members, ensuring every customer request is in the right hands at the right time, and helping prevent issues from falling through the cracks.
For example, if you have a specific team member who manages billing-related questions, the team can easily route billing conversations to the responsible agent, resulting in faster response times, and more accurate responses.
Internal and external knowledge bases
33% of service managers believe their agents can easily find the information they need to assist customers. That means that 67% of service managers are worried that their customer service teams don’t have access to the information they need and that their customers aren’t getting helpful, accurate information. Yikes.
That’s why creating a high-quality knowledge base is critical. A knowledge base can serve two major purposes:
A knowledge base used internally can help teams organize and share company knowledge and product information so they have the consistent, up-to-date knowledge they need to help customers.
A knowledge base used externally provides customers and site visitors with a self-service option to find answers to their questions — think FAQs and troubleshooting issues — on their own, reducing the need for them to contact the support team at all.
Third-party integrations
When teams are using dozens of tools a day, they’re bound to waste a big chunk of time toggling between them. Your service desk solution should seamlessly integrate with the other tools your business already uses, such as CRMs, messaging apps, or project management tools. By bringing all the tools into one central platform, your team can have all the information they need at a glance.
Let’s say, for example, your business uses Salesforce as its CRM. If your customer service desk integrates directly with Salesforce, your support team can see all recent customer interactions with your company and provide more personalized responses without the need to switch between tools to get the context needed.
Workflow automation
Customer service desks are helpful when it comes to organizing and managing requests, but workflow automation is the powerhouse behind a noticeable increase in efficiency. Support agents are often responsible for many different tasks — responding to new inquiries, following up with existing requests, and carrying out daily operational to-dos — but by automating the manual work, they can reduce their workload significantly.
With workflow automation, teams can create custom workflows to trigger responses, route tickets, or notify the appropriate team member to handle a task, saving them time so they can focus on tasks that require personalized attention.
Service level agreement (SLA) management
Responding to service requests in a timely manner is crucial for maintaining high service standards — that’s where service level agreements (SLAs) come in. SLAs help ensure that customer queries are handled within a predetermined time frame. With clear SLAs in place, your team can meet performance targets, keep customer satisfaction high, and even position your company to win against competitors.
Benefits of a customer service desk
While there are many upsides of implementing a service desk, the biggest benefits are centered around improved operations and customer satisfaction. They include:
Better teamwork with clear ownership
A customer service desk fosters clear ownership and collaboration among team members by providing a centralized place for tracking and resolving issues. This increased visibility and accessibility ensures that each query is handled by the right team or person, and escalated when necessary. To make it even easier on teams, some help desk software solutions have started providing teams with collaboration features like commenting, tagging, and draft sharing so teams can work together even more seamlessly.
More loyal customers through efficient support
Service desks help teams respond to customers more quickly and efficiently. With features like a shared inbox and knowledge base, teams can streamline support processes and provide fast, convenient assistance to customers. When customers experience short wait times — or even better, experience real-time support — they feel valued, increasing their satisfaction, trust, and ultimately loyalty.
Key insights, from CSAT to resolution time
Customer service desk tools can gather and analyze data that provides service teams with valuable insights into customer needs and preferences. By tracking key support metrics such as response times, resolution times, and CSAT scores, businesses can identify trends and make data-driven decisions to improve customer experiences.
More time for your team with automation and self-serve
By automating repetitive tasks and providing self-service options for customers, a customer service desk frees up your team to focus on more complex issues. This not only boosts team efficiency but also improves morale, as agents spend less time on mundane tasks and more time solving meaningful problems.
How can I implement a customer service desk?
If you’re curious about how to get started with a customer service desk, here’s a simplified step-by-step process to give you an idea of what adopting the new tool will look like:
Set up your team inbox
Begin by creating your shared inbox where all customer requests will funnel to. You can create separate inboxes for different types of requests (take billing or technical support, for example) to ensure that each query is directed to the appropriate team.
Enable automatic ticket routing
Once your inbox is set up, new messages will come in and you’ll want to get them to the right person or team or distribute them evenly amongst your team. By setting up workflow automations to automatically route and assign incoming messages, every message gets where it needs to go, no one wastes their time manually sorting, and issues are addressed in a timely manner.
Monitor support performance with analytics
Utilize the analytics and reporting capabilities of your customer service desk software to monitor your team’s performance. Keep an eye on response times, customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores, and other key metrics to identify where improvements can be made both on a team and individual basis.
Set up a system for complex requests
Not all customer requests are created equal — some are simple, while others require more attention. Set up a clear system to escalate complex requests so that your team can address high-priority or more challenging issues effectively.
Streamline your customer service with Front
Investing in a customer service desk is more than just a nice-to-have — it’s essential for delivering seamless customer experiences, improving internal collaboration, and boosting your support team’s overall efficiency.
Ready to start exploring your customer service software options? We’ll make it easy on you. Start with Front today.
With Front, teams don’t just get the basics — they’re equipped with a complete customer service platform that provides features like an omnichannel inbox, no-code workflow automation, and powerful integrations, all of which make it easy for teams to be their most productive while providing customers with one-of-a-kind service experiences.
Written by Jordan Vanden Heuvel
Originally Published: 1 November 2024