How a Help Desk Decision Tree Increases Your Efficiency
A help desk decision tree can be created and used in two ways for two different purposes:
- An interactive guide for customer self-service directing users to the common problems with step-by-step solutions.
- An internal system for help desk advisors and managers to approach and solve problems and protocols for creating trouble tickets, priorities, and escalation.
In practice, these two different ways to approach customer service are often combined or used in combination. In many cases, offering customers the option for self-service can increase first call resolution of problems. It can also relieve help desk advisors of the burden of having to deal with basic and repetitive problems that occur frequently. This helps with agent burn-out and allows agents to deal with less volume. That means the help desk can handle more customers in total.
Interactive and Automated Guides
Callers can be guided interactively either online or through the call center process. Online, FAQs and troubleshooting guides can handle routine inquiries. Options for call, chat, or email are available for those wanting to use these options or when troubleshooting guides do not fix the problem. IVR (Interactive Voice Response) decision trees can greet callers to more accurately direct their inquiries to the right agent.
Rules-Based Decision Making
Rules-based decision making and logic flows can be established for callers and advisors as they work through issues. This automated process speeds up the decision making by eliminating the need to think about which direction to go. When one question is answered, the next logical course of action pops up.
It can make the advisor’s job easier and the customer happier especially for complex issues. One of the biggest complaints customers have as they try to resolve support issues is having to repeat the same information to multiple people. The right help desk software solution, combined with strong decision tree rules, can alleviate this problem. For example, every time someone calls with an issue the help desk software should use ANI (Automatic Number Identification) for phone and chat to match caller IDs. This information is used to automatically display the caller’s information and history. If the search fails to find a matching record, it pops up a new user record and guides the agent through the process of gathering necessary information. When calls are escalated, this information – along with notes – is transferred making sure the next advisor on the decision tree is aware of what’s already been done.
By making the intake of calls more efficient, you can improve the customer flow and increase volume.
Help Desk Knowledge Base
At the heart of the problem, the solution is your knowledge base. Guiding customers through the process to get the right answer is the key to efficiency. Using your decision tree, you can provide comprehensive answers that are researched and consistent. There’s no reason to reinvent the wheel each time. With keyword lookup and pre-formatted responses, speed to resolution will increase.
New questions and answers can be added quickly. As patterns emerge, or gaps in knowledge are noted, additional research or training can be done to fill in the gaps.
According to the Consumer Reports National Research Center, more than 60% of all customers complaint about these specific issues which decision-trees can help resolve:
- Transferred to a rep who can’t help
- Long waits on hold
- Repeatedly asked for the same information
- Disconnected and having to start all over
- Phone menu doesn’t offer needed options
8x8 Offers Built-In Decision Trees In Help Desk Software
8x8’s virtual call center solution has built-in decision trees which you can customize for your business. Because it is cloud-based, agents, advisors, and managers can work anywhere you want. If they have access to a phone, a browser, and an internet connection, they can all be connected to a single platform that integrates with most popular CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tools, including ZenDesk, NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics, and Salesforce.
Choose a world-class help desk and SaaS technology solution and focus on what's important: growing your business. Call 1-877-361-2574 or fill out the form below to request a no-obligation quote from an 8x8 product specialist.
