First, the definition of "incident" as used with PhaseWare Tracker: an incident is the reason the customer contacted you. Other names for it are Trouble Ticket, Problem Ticket, Complaint. In Tracker, an Incident record will have all of the information about the customer, the source, the product, billing status, a description of the problem, the assigned agent, and quite a few other details. So....when the customer calls, an Incident is created.
And what is a Quick Incident, you ask? A Quick Incident is " a repetitive incident that is typically entered very quickly by the support staff and resolved on the first contact." (PhaseWare Tracker User Guide). A Quick Incident can be created:
1. From the Main Menu. Select Data Entry options then Quick Incident. You would do this if you recognized at the beginning of the contact that it would be resolved on the spot.
2. From the Incident Screen if an Incident has already been created but still has a status of NEW, meaning it has not been saved or posted and is not yet visible in the Incident Manager. Once it is saved. an Incident can no longer be converted to a Quick Incident.
Quick Incidents are set up as templates by the system administrator. The templates contain prerecorded information to save you unnecessary keyboarding and giving the incident standardized content and format. The templates can be restricted to specific groups which will become evident when viewing the quick incident template list for your group.
For information about Tracker or other PhaseWare products visit www.phaseware.com.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
7 Important Features of Online Self Service from PhaseWare
It can seem like adding a feature that puts the onus of work back on your customer is counterintuitive. Kind of like when we all had to start pumping our own gas. But this type of self service means more convenience for your customer and a significant cost savings to you. A deflected call is one call you don't have to spend dollars on. Instead you spend only cents because the customer could look online, at a time of their choosing, and access what they need.
So there really aren't any more than these 2 reasons for having this application. But the application itself can contain some features your web savvy customers will love.
Downloads: When your customer can download the newest software version or the latest user guide or anything else you can offer, this is one less step for you. Even a request for these things by email will use more time that could be put to better use.
Notice Board: Let your customers know any important news right up front when they log in. The notice doesn't even have to visible to everyone. Maybe only one segment of your business needs a particular piece of information.
FAQs: Well, how could we get along without them?
Solutions: Let your customers look for solutions here for their issue before they call and leave a message on your phone at 3 am. If an issue has already been researched and resolved, put it here.
Forums: Your web savvy customers want a community to discuss their business, your products, and other experiences with. It could be that another customer could answer the question just as readily.
Knowledge base: Here is a feature that will give access to all of those above via a natural language search function able to comb through all the solutions, notices, forums, and downloads to answer whatever is on that customer's mind.
Incident Submission: Sometimes it's unavoidable. Something happens that cannot be fixed by self service. This gives your customers a place to submit their problems and track the status and resolution online.
Not all features are needed in all instances, but when you think about how people are using the internet these days, you realize that expectations have been raised regarding access to almost everything. Service has become the only differentiator between you and your competition. Leverage every channel of service you can manage and do it well. You'll keep your customers coming back. And they will bring their friends.
Link to an example of a self service center.
So there really aren't any more than these 2 reasons for having this application. But the application itself can contain some features your web savvy customers will love.
Downloads: When your customer can download the newest software version or the latest user guide or anything else you can offer, this is one less step for you. Even a request for these things by email will use more time that could be put to better use.
Notice Board: Let your customers know any important news right up front when they log in. The notice doesn't even have to visible to everyone. Maybe only one segment of your business needs a particular piece of information.
FAQs: Well, how could we get along without them?
Solutions: Let your customers look for solutions here for their issue before they call and leave a message on your phone at 3 am. If an issue has already been researched and resolved, put it here.
Forums: Your web savvy customers want a community to discuss their business, your products, and other experiences with. It could be that another customer could answer the question just as readily.
Knowledge base: Here is a feature that will give access to all of those above via a natural language search function able to comb through all the solutions, notices, forums, and downloads to answer whatever is on that customer's mind.
Incident Submission: Sometimes it's unavoidable. Something happens that cannot be fixed by self service. This gives your customers a place to submit their problems and track the status and resolution online.
Not all features are needed in all instances, but when you think about how people are using the internet these days, you realize that expectations have been raised regarding access to almost everything. Service has become the only differentiator between you and your competition. Leverage every channel of service you can manage and do it well. You'll keep your customers coming back. And they will bring their friends.
Link to an example of a self service center.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
How do software companies justify expending money for Customer Service?
The problem:
Let’s face it – if you are running a small to midsize software company, your resources are precious and they are best used in building a competitive solution; keeping it competitive with new features and functionality; and fixing the bugs that creep into the code occasionally. Add to that mix the resources necessary to market, sell and install your solution – and there are very few cycles left over for supporting your growing customer base. At first, this is not a large problem, but as your products mature and your customers become more savvy in using your solutions. You see more demands from your customers – more questions, more problems, more data to track – and things start falling through the cracks. You add more resources to customer support, but this doesn’t completely fix the problem. More and more you are having to use your development and implementation resources to stay on top of customer issues. What are you going to do?
The choices:
1. Well, you are a software company after all -- why not develop your own customer service solution? As you think about this several problems pop into your thought process – 1) it will take resources from your development team, 2) this is not an area of expertise within your company, and 3) it will continue to take away resources as it needs changes, fixes and updating.
2. You could outsource your customer support. After thinking about this for three and half seconds, you decide that this is not an acceptable answer.
3. You could purchase a customer support solution. You are reluctant to purchase software. You build software, you don’t buy it, right? Plus, the needs of a software company to support their customers are more specialized than what you are aware of being available. Then you get two calls in one morning from long term clients that are less than happy because of the lack of communication and responsiveness they are experiencing with issues that they had reported last week. You decide that it is time to make this a priority. You start looking at potential products. You are surprised at the number of customer support and help desk solutions that are available. Your hopes are buoyed. This turns out to be temporary euphoria, as your research shows that there seems to be a mix of either complex, expensive solutions or low cost, low function, inflexible products. It is very confusing.
The decision:
You decide that option #3 is your only viable choice. But, only if you can find a company that specializes in customer support; builds a flexible, but robust product; and will continually update it with new functionality. In other words, a company just like yours. You will let them be the experts in customer service, while you concentrate on keeping your clients competitive by enhancing your solution. And, if you can find the right company – one like yours – their product will make your customer service a differentiator. It will be one of the reasons that your customers choose you and stay with you. After all, that’s what your solution provides to your clients. You feel better.
Narrowing the field:
You’ve made your decision. Now all you have to do is find the company that makes the best solution for your business. You have found a few companies that seem to meet your needs as far as the functionality that you are looking for, but their features vary and their price tags are quite different. It is tempting to go with the low cost solution, but you want to be wise in making your choice since this is a long term commitment and you have decided that customer support will be an integral, strategic part of your business. You have an idea.
Let’s face it – if you are running a small to midsize software company, your resources are precious and they are best used in building a competitive solution; keeping it competitive with new features and functionality; and fixing the bugs that creep into the code occasionally. Add to that mix the resources necessary to market, sell and install your solution – and there are very few cycles left over for supporting your growing customer base. At first, this is not a large problem, but as your products mature and your customers become more savvy in using your solutions. You see more demands from your customers – more questions, more problems, more data to track – and things start falling through the cracks. You add more resources to customer support, but this doesn’t completely fix the problem. More and more you are having to use your development and implementation resources to stay on top of customer issues. What are you going to do?
The choices:
1. Well, you are a software company after all -- why not develop your own customer service solution? As you think about this several problems pop into your thought process – 1) it will take resources from your development team, 2) this is not an area of expertise within your company, and 3) it will continue to take away resources as it needs changes, fixes and updating.
2. You could outsource your customer support. After thinking about this for three and half seconds, you decide that this is not an acceptable answer.
3. You could purchase a customer support solution. You are reluctant to purchase software. You build software, you don’t buy it, right? Plus, the needs of a software company to support their customers are more specialized than what you are aware of being available. Then you get two calls in one morning from long term clients that are less than happy because of the lack of communication and responsiveness they are experiencing with issues that they had reported last week. You decide that it is time to make this a priority. You start looking at potential products. You are surprised at the number of customer support and help desk solutions that are available. Your hopes are buoyed. This turns out to be temporary euphoria, as your research shows that there seems to be a mix of either complex, expensive solutions or low cost, low function, inflexible products. It is very confusing.
The decision:
You decide that option #3 is your only viable choice. But, only if you can find a company that specializes in customer support; builds a flexible, but robust product; and will continually update it with new functionality. In other words, a company just like yours. You will let them be the experts in customer service, while you concentrate on keeping your clients competitive by enhancing your solution. And, if you can find the right company – one like yours – their product will make your customer service a differentiator. It will be one of the reasons that your customers choose you and stay with you. After all, that’s what your solution provides to your clients. You feel better.
Narrowing the field:
You’ve made your decision. Now all you have to do is find the company that makes the best solution for your business. You have found a few companies that seem to meet your needs as far as the functionality that you are looking for, but their features vary and their price tags are quite different. It is tempting to go with the low cost solution, but you want to be wise in making your choice since this is a long term commitment and you have decided that customer support will be an integral, strategic part of your business. You have an idea.
Saturday, August 4, 2007
PhaseWare Help Desk Tips #2
PhaseWare Help Desk Tips #2
Time tracking is so important when working on a help desk. When time is spent on any activity, that time should be tracked. If the time can be captured in a system then it can be pulled into a report. This is such a fundamental idea, but it amazes me how many help desk do not make this a priority. These help desks work on customer issues as they arrive, but there is no way to tell if one customer is taking up more resources of a help desk than another.
Actions to take are to record every interaction with a customer and document how much time you spend with each customer. Even if the phone calls is only 5 minutes. The simple action of logging each call will supply data to management when the time comes to evaluate the need for additional help desk resources.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
PhaseWare - Customer Information is power
PhaseWare Tracker - The power of Customer Information
With PhaseWare Tracker customer information is always available. While you are in an Incident you always have the Customer History, Contact History, Quick Customer Information and Quick Contact Information only a click away. We even have some quick information tabs at the bottom of the screen that you do no even have to click on to get information, all you have to do is hover your cursor over these tabs and information populates the tabs and pops up.
Having a 360 view of the customer that you are working with is critical to providing Excellent Customer Support. With Tracker your support team can have those tools that they need to make the customer feel that the support technician understands them fully.
-Hoyt Mann
Co-Founder PhaseWare, Inc.
www.PhaseWare.com
With PhaseWare Tracker customer information is always available. While you are in an Incident you always have the Customer History, Contact History, Quick Customer Information and Quick Contact Information only a click away. We even have some quick information tabs at the bottom of the screen that you do no even have to click on to get information, all you have to do is hover your cursor over these tabs and information populates the tabs and pops up.
Having a 360 view of the customer that you are working with is critical to providing Excellent Customer Support. With Tracker your support team can have those tools that they need to make the customer feel that the support technician understands them fully.
-Hoyt Mann
Co-Founder PhaseWare, Inc.
www.PhaseWare.com
Monday, July 30, 2007
PhaseWare Tracker Knowledge Base Search
PhaseWare Tracker's Knowledge Base is based on Microsoft's SQL 2005 Full Text Search engine. What this means in non-technical terms is that once you enter knowledge into the database it is easy to search and chances are high that you will find what you are looking for. There is nothing worse that someone spending the time to capture valuable information on a topic and not being able to retrieve the data in a time of need.
Returning the search results in a "Google Like" results list helps find that small piece of information that could be critical in solving a problem. This means that searches made to the PhaseWare's Knowledge Base are not performed on an exact patterned based match. If you search on Printer, the results returned could be phrases that have the words, Print, Printer, or Printed. This helps find more articles that could assist in solving the problem.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
PhaseWare helps Software Companies take their Customer Support to the next level
PhaseWare helps Software Companies take their Customer Support to the next level, by Hoyt Mann Co-Founder of PhaseWare, Inc.
Being a successful Software Company takes 2 things; a product and a customer. The first couple of customers are not too hard to manage, but when the 5 customers become 50 or 500 customers, providing excellent Customer Support can become challenging.
PhaseWare not only brings disruptive technology to the Help Desk software market with products like Sentry, but also moves at the speed of a Software Company. Our technology continues to evolve at the same rapid rate that our customers are moving. Being able to stay 2 steps ahead of the competition helps PhaseWare bring tremendous value to our customers ultimately helping them be more competitive in their select industries.
The PhaseWare solution suite includes three complementary applications that work together to power total customer service across all phases of interaction.
Being a successful Software Company takes 2 things; a product and a customer. The first couple of customers are not too hard to manage, but when the 5 customers become 50 or 500 customers, providing excellent Customer Support can become challenging.
PhaseWare not only brings disruptive technology to the Help Desk software market with products like Sentry, but also moves at the speed of a Software Company. Our technology continues to evolve at the same rapid rate that our customers are moving. Being able to stay 2 steps ahead of the competition helps PhaseWare bring tremendous value to our customers ultimately helping them be more competitive in their select industries.
The PhaseWare solution suite includes three complementary applications that work together to power total customer service across all phases of interaction.
- PhaseWare Tracker is the core application that integrates all areas of help desk support including creating tickets, service level agreements, creating custom reports, billing and maintaining your business process workflow.
- PhaseWare Sentry is our powerful event management tool. It works seamlessly with Tracker to take automatic actions based on business rules criteria you set.
- PhaseWare Concierge is a web-based user portal that lets your customers and employees log tickets, check the status of tickets and access the knowledgebase for self-Help.
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