Help desk positions experience a high level of turnover. These valuable positions are the face of your organization for your customers. How they are treated by this first point of contact, often defines their perception of the company and if they will engage in more transactions in the future. Therefore, poor customer service at the help desk leads to a poor reputation and eventually diminishing returns. Management must come up with innovative ways to keep help desk conversation productive and friendly. This can be a challenge when most companies use rigid and uncreative scripts to interact with customers.
Unfortunately, consumers have learned to recognize when help desk associates are following a script. The majority of consumers believe that scripted interactions are a sign that the company doesn’t sincerely care about them, and are not interested in real problem solving. Since the proliferation of the automated system, many people recoil at the thought of having to interact with a robot when they have a pressing issue that needs to be resolved quickly. This recoil is problematic when many scripts are so precisely crafted, that customer service reps are mistaken for robots – good help desk representatives don’t want to feel like robots.
Flexible scripts give reps the freedom to improvise and more accurately address customer concerns, and giving them more autonomy in their jobs. Generally this translates into better customer service, and increased job satisfaction which reduces turnover.
But scripts should not be abandoned all together. This will give reps too much autonomy, which presents another opportunity for bad customer service. Great scripts should serve as a guideline for representatives to follow. Key phrases like “I’m sorry you’re having this problem.” “Let me see what I can do,” add clarity to customer conversations. Have associates engage in mock calls, rehearsing customer interactions and key phrase integration. This will ensure a fluid conversational style that will reassure customers and resolve more customer issues.
Great help desk associates are only part of what makes a functioning help desk business. A help desk merchant account with eMerchantBroker.com will ensure that your customer payments are processed quickly and efficiently.