Customer Support: What is a Helpdesk service?
A Helpdesk call center, also known as a support center or hotline, is a service that deals with customer requests. This may be a request for information or a need for technical assistance. The helpdesk’s role is to : Present the company’s products/services to customers; Assist customers with problems related to the company’s products/services; Help customers with product troubleshooting or maintenance. Telephone, mail, website are the means by which customers can contact the Helpdesk. A helpdesk or support service is made up of different levels of assistance. This level varies according to the complexity of the problem to be resolved.
The functions of a Helpdesk telephone support center
Helpdesks play a vital role for companies and customers. Supporting customers via the helpdesk The main task of the helpdesk is to provide customers with the solutions they need. As a customer support service, the helpdesk must provide customers with appropriate information and solutions. It must listen to customers, identify their needs and provide them with appropriate responses. Help desk as a means of managing customer relations A help desk is more than a service for resolving customer problems. It is a tool for managing customer relations as effectively as possible. This will help companies to satisfy their customers and maintain relationships with them. In this way, the helpline helps companies to develop a relationship marketing plan.
Optimal customer service management is essential to your company’s success in order to detect and win over new customers, retain them, support them and secure your customer portfolio. With its years of experience and skilled, motivated teams, Advancia Teleservices, Helpdesk call center support and assistance, meets all your needs in terms of remote support and assistance in a call center with high added value, outsourced customer relationship management, customised multi-channel management, etc. Our aim is to offer services that are always more appropriate to your requests and needs, while ensuring the quality of our interventions. Advancia Teleservices, Helpdesk call center, is able to respond to all requests inherent to your activity. With the same rigour for each support request, our teams will work on customer satisfaction in order to build long-term loyalty. Discover Advancia Teleservices offers and particularly the Helpdesk support call center service which will satisfy your most demanding requirements.
Leading Tunisian Helpdesk, a high added value Support Call Center
Also called support assistance center or hotline, the Helpdesk designates the service in charge of assistance requests from users. Advancia Teleservices, Tunisia’s leading Helpdesk, offers you a platform enabling you to assist your customers remotely, provide technical support or assist company staff in managing a specific task. Advancia Teleservices, Helpdesk leader Tunisia, is able to bring help at the right time thanks to an expertise of several years in BPO outsourcing services. Advancia Teleservices provides high-performance helpdesk support adapted to new uses in order to better maintain customer relations. Whether you have one-off or recurring needs, make your hotline a strength by managing customer requests optimally. Advancia Teleservices, Tunisia’s leading helpdesk, works closely with you to define the procedures to be applied in the situations encountered, based on your formalised requirements.
Telephone assistance: principles and operation
Helpline principles
Good customer relationship management offers a number of advantages to a company. Maintaining a commercial relationship with customers gives you sales opportunities and helps you gain a foothold in a highly competitive market. But while the importance of customer relations has been recognised, the question is how to manage them effectively. Customer acquisition and loyalty now depend on customer satisfaction. With customers demanding information, a platform is needed to meet their needs. With this in mind, many companies opt for telephone assistance. In this case, the entire customer relationship is managed by the helpdesk.
A help desk is made up of different levels of support. This level varies according to the complexity of the problem to be resolved. For example :
It handles more general questions that require basic knowledge on the part of the assistant. At this level, customers simply need more information about the company’s products/services;
The assistant is called in when the customer’s problems are more complex. Solving the problem requires specific knowledge on the part of the advisory technician. The idea is to guide customers remotely in order to troubleshoot and solve their problems;
They intervene when customer problems have not been resolved at the previous level. This is because they need to be dealt with by specialists in the field in question. Level 3 support is therefore made up of teams specialising in the company’s products/services to provide customers with the assistance they need.
In general, a help desk needs to offer these different types of support in order to better manage customer requests and resolve them, however complex they may be.
The functions of a call center
The telephone helpdesk plays an essential role for both the company and its customers.
Supporting customers through the helpdesk
The main task of the helpdesk is to provide customers with the solutions they need. As a customer care service, the help desk must support customers with information and appropriate solutions. Its role is to listen to customers, identify their needs and offer them the right answers.
The helpdesk as a means of managing customer relations
The telephone support center is much more than a service for resolving customer problems. It is a tool for managing customer relations as effectively as possible. It will help the company to satisfy customers and maintain the relationship with them. In this way, the call center helps the company to put forward a relationship marketing programme.
Relationship marketing
Relationship marketing includes all the actions that enable a company to strengthen and maintain its relationship with customers over the long term. The idea is to establish an ongoing, personalised relationship with customers in order to build loyalty.
This is achieved through ongoing dialogue between the company and its customers. The success of relationship marketing depends on the interaction between them. The aim is to establish a relationship of trust with customers, on an ongoing basis, with a view to retaining them.
There are a number of ways in which companies can achieve success in relationship marketing. Hotlines are one of them. The aim is to provide customers with information and appropriate solutions, and to maintain contact with them in order to keep the business relationship going.
Setting up a telephone helpline enables a company to maintain its image with customers. It represents a solution for meeting customer needs. It also helps to strengthen the bond between them and the company. The main aim of telephone assistance is customer satisfaction. But it can also be advantageous for the company.
Helplines for the benefit of the company
While the main objective of a support center is to help customers, the company can still benefit from it. The question often arises as to the profitability of a telephone support center. It should be noted that having one is just as beneficial for customers as it is for the company. To make it more than just a complaints desk, you need to know how to make the most of the resources it generates.
The helpdesk, a promoter for the company
Every contact with customers represents an opportunity for the company to tell them about its offerings. A large proportion of customers call on the technical support service to find a suitable solution to a particular problem. The company can do more than just provide them with information. It can take advantage of this to propose offers that best meet customers’ needs. To this end, the help desk should be used to identify customer expectations. The technical advisers then present offers that meet these expectations. However, this requires real skills on the part of the technicians. The presentation of new offers must be seen as a solution to customers’ needs and not as a marketing strategy.
A tool for building customer loyalty
Information plays a vital role for customers. Before or after the sale, they always ask for support. Setting up a service to meet this need for information from customers is therefore a way of satisfying them. Of course, customer satisfaction leads to customer loyalty. Staying close to customers and dealing with their requests are effective ways of retaining them.
Listening to customers to personalise offers
The telephone hel pline enables us to get to know our customers better and understand their needs. The information that customers share with the center can provide the company with sales leads. The telephone support center is a way of finding out what customers want. You can also gather their opinions on the company’s offers and their dissatisfaction. From this, the company can make improvements to its offerings. Or put forward new offers that better meet customer needs. In this way, the company will be able to retain its existing customers and win new ones. Understanding the needs of target customers is essential to providing them with offers that meet their expectations.
The help desk as a sales lever
The technical support center is a tool for boosting sales, thanks to the combination of satisfaction and loyalty. The longer the relationship with customers continues, the greater the sales opportunities for the company. Through the support center, you can :
Satisfy your customers’ needs.
Build user loyalty.
Generate more sales opportunities.
On the other hand, the support center can also increase the company’s sales by understanding customer expectations. Listening to customers gives you a better idea of their expectations. You then have the opportunity to put forward suitable offers. You will also have an idea of the profiles of the ideal targets. This will help you attract new prospects/customers. In this case, the telephone assistance center allows you to :
Listen to customers to find out what they need.
Develop offers that meet customer expectations.
Retain existing customers and win over new targets.
The technical support center is an investment that can easily pay for itself. There is a chain of benefits, from the customer to the company, that lead to maximising profit for the company.
Single, multi or omnichannel?
Single-channel refers to the use of a single channel to assist customers.
Multichannel, on the other hand, allows several channels to be mobilised within the support center. The idea is to enable customers to get in touch with the company using different media: telephone, mail, email, chat.
Finally, omnichannel is an extension of multichannel. The omnichannel strategy consists of interconnecting different media to assist customers. This means they can move from one medium to another in a seamless process.
What strategy should you adopt?
It should be noted that customers use at least two communication channels on a daily basis. Companies are therefore obliged to keep up with this rhythm in order to serve their customers better. It must have at least two channels to offer customers different ways of getting in touch with it.
Omnichannel is a step ahead
Offering customers the opportunity to contact the company through different channels is already a plus. But to deliver a better customer experience, omnichannel is the way forward. This involves interconnecting the different channels to carry out actions relating to customer assistance.
The advantages of omnichannel are :
The possibility for customers to navigate through different channels.
A seamless journey from one channel to another.
Personalisation of the customer journey.
An optimised customer experience.
Customers may have to move from one channel to another to solve their problems. Repeating requests each time they switch channels is not appropriate for them. Omnichannel telephone assistance is therefore a strategic solution for satisfying customers and managing their requests more effectively.
Outsourcing telephone assistance
Customer relations are essential to any business. So it’s important to choose the best option for managing this function effectively. It is possible to outsource the telephone assistance center. In this case, the company calls on customer relationship management service providers to take charge. Outsourcing is sometimes seen as a way of reducing the company’s investment costs. However, it offers much more than that.
Benefit from expert know-how
Take advantage of the expertise of external customer relations centers: outsourcing is the right choice for ensuring quality of service. External customer relations centers are often staffed by teams who have mastered assistance techniques. This enables them to offer customers appropriate care and better support in resolving their problems. Outsourcing ensures a better service for customers, especially if the company works in a field outside customer relationship management;
Focus on your core business
Focus on your core business: outsourcing customer relationship management to external centers allows the company and its employees to concentrate on their core business. Employees can focus on the company’s value-added activities;
MORE flexibility
Having a flexible service: the advantage of outsourcing call center services is that it provides a platform that works according to the needs of customers and the company. Whether the service has to operate on a permanent or part-time basis, an external technical customer relations center is always available. Outsourcing is therefore a way of offering customers a service that adapts to their needs. It is also possible to handle all customer requests, whatever their volume. Quality, efficiency and adaptability of service are the reasons why companies opt to outsource their technical support center
However, as customer relationship management is crucial, certain criteria need to be considered when choosing a service provider.
The service provider’s experience should be taken into account: years of experience are an asset for a service provider.
Service flexibility: is the chosen customer relations center able to adapt to customer requirements, in terms of time slots for example?
The level of support to be outsourced: what level of support should be entrusted to the service provider, and does he have the resources to handle it?
The channels to be used: you need to agree with the service provider on the channels to be used to determine whether it has the resources to mobilise them. And above all, the strategy to be adopted: multi-channel or omni-channel.
Given its importance,telephone assistance should be entrusted to a service provider capable of satisfying customers. But also to maintain a good corporate image. The customer relations center you choose must be capable of carrying out all the tasks entrusted to it. This is to ensure that outsourcing is a lever for optimising customer relations management for the company.
Sectors that use a telephone assistance center
It’s important to know that a call center is not just for companies working in telecommunications. In general, any company can use one to put itself in touch with customers.
The more technical sectors are the ones that absolutely need a support center. Why is this? Because there are a lot of requests for information. An industrial helpline, for example, can be very useful in helping customers to better understand the company’s products and services. It is also necessary to support customers with technical solutions when needed.
It should also be noted that thetelephone help desk is not only used in B to C relationships. Many companies working in B-to-B sales also use them. A B-to-B helpdesk helps to support business customers and build loyalty. As the B-to-B buying cycle is often long, building customer loyalty is important for companies. This enables them to reduce the investment costs involved in acquiring new customers.
How do you manage your call center?
To maximise customer satisfaction, the after-sales service hotline needs to be managed methodically. Good after-sales service management also means that the service can be used to the company’s advantage.
Having the right resources
In a technical assistance center, the primary objective is to satisfy customers. To achieve this, the technicians working there must have the necessary skills to provide customers with the answers they want. They must be able to offer a qualified and efficient service.
In addition to human resources, the center also needs to mobilise the material resources it needs to run smoothly. For example, it is essential to mobilise all the useful communication channels and CRM tools required.
Focus on customer interaction
The technical support center must be a service that helps the company to better understand its customers and their needs. It should also enable customers to get to know the company and its products/services better. The emphasis must therefore be on dialogue and sharing. Communication needs to be a two-way street to ensure better interaction between the company and its customers. The idea is to listen carefully to customers so as to understand them better and provide responses tailored to their expectations.
Service accessibility is important
The technical support center must be available to customers in order to respond to all their requests. A saturated line will increase customer dissatisfaction, as will non-responses. The service must therefore be accessible at times that are convenient for customers.
In short, telephone assistance is a fast and effective tool for satisfying customers and building loyalty. The company’s objective is to provide a service that meets customers’ needs: availability of information, quality and adaptability of service. Customer satisfaction can only improve sales and boost turnover.
Tunisia helpdesk and support outsourcing solution
Setting up a high-performance helpdesk support service requires substantial resources to develop and maintain the necessary skills. For companies wishing to benefit from a high-quality outsourcing helpdesk solution while optimising costs, Advancia Teleservices call center offers a range of services tailored to your needs and meets all your requirements. The quality of your customer service has a direct impact on your brand image. Whether for your support operations, customer loyalty or customer retention, benefit from the expertise of Advancia Teleservices by opting for the most effective outsourcing helpdesk solution in Tunisia. The effectiveness of a technical assistance service is measured by the speed with which requests and incidents are handled, the relevance of the responses proposed, and the follow-up of incidents until they are resolved. Whatever your call volume, Advancia Teleservices call center agents are available and equipped with the most scalable outsourcing helpdesk solution in Tunisia to handle your customers’ requests.