How to Retain Customers with Helpdesk Software

Most people tend to think that a helpdesk is a mere ticketing software. However, they couldn’t be further from the truth. A helpdesk software is far more contemporary and advanced when compared to a ticketing system.

A ticketing system has been traditionally responsible for simple customer support through email. A Helpdesk, on the other hand, does everything a ticketing system does and helps retain customers, generate leads, and analyze the effectiveness of your support apparatus.

In this blog, however, we are concerned with how a good helpdesk can help you retain customers. Read on to find out how!

Understanding Customer Retention

Before we go any further, understanding customer retention is important. Customer retention is an important metric for a business. Having a good product is no guarantee that a customer will stay. The only way to ensure that a customer stays with you or a new client becomes a customer is to retain them once they contact your brand’s support. Providing customer support through email has been a traditional way to invite your customer at your platform or to greet them with onboarding emails for using your services.

Customer retention can boost your business revenue. This growth is exponential, meaning that a 5% improvement in your support can increase your revenue by upto 25%.

Good Customer retention has various advantages. The greatest advantage of good customer retention provides you is that retained customers can act as indirect brand promoters. A customer that is satisfied with your product and support system will recommend you to other people. Overall, such a customer attitude works wonders for your brand value. To summarize, customer retention is directly proportional to your brand’s value in the market.

Let us take the example of Amazon affiliate marketing. When Amazon began selling books, it got an extensive promotion from people that needed an easier way to buy books. People who had grievances with their deliveries were quickly sorted out making them more satisfied and more likely to buy again. Fast forward, two decades Amazon is the leader in the eCommerce space.

A good support system can guarantee that you can retain your customers. Helpdesk is one such support system.

The Role of a Helpdesk in Customer Retention

A Helpdesk is a key to a good customer retention strategy. It provides one of the simplest ways to retain a good customer base for your business and brand. Here’s how a helpdesk can help you with the same:

• Brings all your support channels under one interface:

Companies have multiple channels to interact with their customers. From social media to help centers, every place provides a way for a customer to contact you.

A helpdesk can help you homogenize your support and can be used to bring all these channels in the form of tickets to your support channels. These tickets can be divided on the basis of their type an assigned to specialized support individuals.

• Agent Reporting and Analytics:
  A perfect customer support strategy can be ruined if your support agents aren’t good enough. This is where a Helpdesk can help. Helpdesk automatically records everything in a ticket and automatically uses the information to generate analytics and reports for your agents.
• The metrics provided in agent reports are accurate and can be directly used to judge agent performance. This information can be used to help your agents get better at answering tickets.
• Task Automation:

A good helpdesk can help you automate various tasks. Tasks like ticket allotting and prioritization can be automated by presetting certain parameters and keywords. What this does that it assigns the tasks to the most relevant agents improving the quality of your support team. Improvement in support quality is the precursor to more customer satisfaction which leads to better customer retention.

• CSAT Tracking:

CSAT stands for customer satisfaction. CSAT is the most direct metric you have, to judge if your customer retention strategies are working. CSAT can be obtained by asking every customer how their experience with your customer support went. The better your CSAT score, the more likely a customer is to stay with your brand.

CSAT scores can also be isolated for agents and can be used as a metric for judging agent performance. Good helpdesk software has built-in functionality for CSAT tracking.

Choosing a Good Helpdesk Software

There are a lot of Helpdesk software out there. However, there two factors that make up a good Helpdesk software. These factors are:

• Affordability
• Ease-of-Use

Affordability

An affordable Helpdesk is a good helpdesk. Helpdesk software are very important for a business. However, a good helpdesk should also be maintain a proper cash-to-value ratio.

Ease-of-Use

The major reason why ticketing systems have gone out of fashion is their poor interface. Thanks to the rapid evolution of design standards, modern helpdesk have better interface. However, a good-looking interface is not necessary a good one. A software must always be intuitive to use. The only way to know if a Helpdesk is the right fit for your agents, is to try them out before buying. Many helpdesks provide trial versions for their software. Experiment until you find the right one.

Conclusion

Before we end, let us summarize how you retain customers with a helpdesk. A helpdesk provides you the ability to report and analyze every single ticket that goes through your system. You can use the information gathered from each ticket to generate a lot of analytics to assist your retention strategy. One of the key analytics that can be obtained is the CSAT score. The CSAT score is key to understand your success at retention.

Apart from that, a helpdesk ensures that your support quality goes up. It does this by providing reports for your agents and helps supervisors understand their agents better. It also automates ticket allocation and divides tasks in such a way that agents get tickets that play to their strengths. Lastly, a proper Helpdesk brings together all your support channels in one place to ensure that your support is homogenous no matter what platform a customer or client approaches you from.

Author

Abhinav Girdhar is the founder and CEO of Appy Pie. Abs has a cumulative experience of over 10 years in the world of technological development and entrepreneurship.

His in-depth knowledge of mobile app development technology and his sharp observations offer valuable contributions to the blog. His areas of expertise are SEO, trends in the mobile app world, and the latest innovations in artificial intelligence and machine learning.

He has a passion for fitness and likes to get his daily dose of endorphins from a run and a strenuous session in the gym.