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Our lives are complicated. Most of us are juggling tight deadlines, impossible targets, crazy air travel and personal responsibilities with a reasonable aplomb. However – if there is one thing that can get under our skin and get us riled up, it is a difficult conversation with a customer service rep (or a Tech Support call). Perhaps the velocity of our daily lives already has us on the edge – we are practically ready to be “impatient” with some unfortunate customer service rep – OR worse still, banging our head against a “system”.

Be as it may, a customer wants what they want – and based on numerous conversations with scores of customers & fellow helpdesk/operations practitioners – here is my take on what everyone needs.

Multichannel & Accessible

A customer/employee shall be able to reach the business and get the issue resolved by ANY channel conceivable. Voice, Chat, SMS, Email, mobile – it should not matter. The industry has talked about this for a while – but the time for being totally multichannel is here.

One Stop Shop

When a customer/employee reaches out to you – please do not make them repeat their story to someone else. Please do not transfer to a totally different desk. Please do not call them back for more information – please take all the information you need the first time. Please do not give them a different number to call because of their special circumstances. They have already made an effort to reach you, please help them.

Short and Quick

If an issue can be understood and resolved (and this might mean raising a GOOD ticket) in less a minute in most circumstances, that is a big win. No one wants to spend a second more with helpdesk than absolutely required.

That good old concierge feeling

Instead of a customer having to search for answers or to look for links or generally feeling lost, the helpdesk should really cater to their commonplace needs. It might be an easy search – but don’t let them do it – do it for them and find the right answers. Most people are like you and me. Everyone wants to feel “served”.

SMART

We all dig a smart conversation. Something that makes sense. And hate senseless IVRs. For example if my initial description of request contained a detail that could have avoided a longer conversation – please let us skip to the good part.

A note for Helpdesk/operations leaders: If you looked at the list above and thought – “well, I could do all that if I had a few extra millions tucked in my budget somewhere. I would most certainly implement those. Everyone knows that adding more customer service reps can perhaps move the needle in the right direction. But who has that kind of budgets anymore?”

The answer lies with AI. At Actionable Science, we are leveraging AI to create a next generation of helpdesk/operations revolution – and it is here now. Our AI driven virtual agents will help you achieve these key attributes to your helpdesk quickly.

Do reach out to us with your comments, questions and demo requests.