Customer Support Software Featured Articles

In the contact center or at the help desk, every second counts. Managers are continually eyeing metrics such as average handle time for success, and schedules often don’t have a lot of room for errors. For this reason, it’s critical that the contact center have an efficient workflow management system in place to shave precious seconds off of transactions and ensure that errors that could cost the company money or annoy customers aren’t made. It’s also a great way to eliminate duplicate efforts on the part of employees, and ensure that inquiries or trouble tickets aren’t slipping through the cracks.

In the insurance claims industry, where transactions are very complex, it’s particularly critical. Claims management companies such as ACD use features like AutoLink to dramatically decreases cycle times, increases customer communication and leverages technology to speed up the claims process.

But call center workflow solutions aren’t only for the insurance industry. Any organization handling customer support transactions can benefit from software solutions that not only handle phone calls, but multimedia transactions, as well.

Help desks, which often handle very complex transactions and high value customers, are the perfect spot to find efficiencies with workflow management solutions. While some simpler solutions handle one-on-one agent to customer interactions, some products are built to handle team interactions, which are increasingly common in call centers and help desks today. Collaboration allows help desks to resolve issues faster without the need to transfer calls or other contacts between people and departments.

TeamSupport, whose product was designed specifically for the B2B software industry, offers a “big picture” solution designed to bring visibility to every member of a support team and provide tools that support complete collaboration to resolve customers’ primary concerns. The product can help call centers and help desks be proactive rather than simply reactive, bringing about faster closure to customer issues, allowing for simplification of processes and helping team members collaborate more effectively. Agents are better able to find support tickets immediately, and in some cases, TeamSupport has reported that clients are able to eliminate one full-time position.

Using workflow management solutions such as these, companies are also better positioned to examine their historical and real-time interactions and find process efficiencies. Multichannel support built into these products allow call centers and help desks to service customers via any channel they choose, including phone, e-mail, chat and Facebook (News - Alert), which customers are increasingly using to contact the companies with which they do business.