Remote Support by GoToAssist

It’s the ongoing dilemma:  How do we increase customer satisfaction while reducing agent burnout?

SupportIndustry.com just released a study to answer that exact question.  With an in-depth survey of support professionals, they indentified five tactics to increase customer satisfaction and agent performance.

The five tactics to happiness include:

1. Support really does make people happier. Support transactions have a measurable impact on customer frustration levels – close to 85% are frustrated before the transaction, but more than 60% are not frustrated at all afterwards. Likewise, over a third of support operations deliver customer satisfaction levels in excess of 90%, while fewer than 15% deliver less than 80%.
2. Training helps, but only the right kind. Training has a measurable impact on customer satisfaction levels, but only when (a) you train both supervisors and frontline staff and (b) your training approach includes accurate call simulations and measurable performance objectives. There is also a correlation between the amount of training you do and how satisfied your customers are.
3. Agents do well – with the right tools. Over 80% of respondents rate their agents as being confident, and the vast majority report good relationships between agents and their managers. The biggest challenges remain access to problem-solving technology, as well as communications and people issues on both the internal and external side.
4. Performance evaluation is an art and a science. Metrics, customer feedback, and the old standby of what the boss thinks all remain a big part of how agents are evaluated. Session monitoring, surveys, and coaching are less frequently used, showing a trend toward less labor-intensive approaches for performance evaluation.
5. Remote support is here to stay. The era of blindly troubleshooting customer issues over the telephone has gone the way of the 8-track tape. An overwhelming majority of respondents now use remote support tools, in operations of all sizes, particularly for remote access to customer systems. Other features such as file transfer and remote diagnostics are popular as well, while sites using these tools for live collaboration and escalation remain in the minority.

Get more tips for customer and agent satisfaction by reading the complete paper, “2010 Service and Leadership Trends in Customer Support.”

Happy supporting!

Today, as I was driving around in the pelting rain (it rarely rains in Santa Barbara but this week we’ve seen six straight days of it) I started thinking about what support means.

It can mean so many things to so many people but there is always a human element. Yes, technology can help us improve the support experience, allowing problems to be resolved faster, reducing frustrations and improving customer satisfaction but it is really the humans involved in support and remote support who make the difference. Technology, no doubt has improved our lives, it is a means to an end. The people in service and support get the credit.

I know this came up today in part because of the catastrophe in Haiti. I started thinking about how much support Haitians needs and will need, and how something of this magnitude can bring out the humanity in us. Everyone needs support sometimes.  The type of support we need can greatly vary and only our human bits can discern what is needed. I can’t imagine how horrible it is for people in Haiti but their experience has changed my perspective on my challenges. I have nothing to complain about.

Support = to sustain (a person, the mind, spirits, courage, etc.) under trial or affliction