That advances in technology in the last few decades has revolutionalized nearly every aspect of life is not in contention. Productivity has increased significantly and automation has made it possible for few people to do the work previously done by scores of people. Technological breakthroughs in engineering, medicine, and other important fields have made life much easier than it was at the turn of the 20th century. Importantly though, technology users are not equally competent or skilled to use the technology yet they cannot isolate themselves from the technological progress (Rubens, 2005). A successful company must be able to not only sell its products, but to also help its customers use the products. On numerous occasions, customers have enquiries about products while others have complains to lodge over purchases. Companies are thus expected to put in place mechanisms for handling customer feedback. In fact, the presence of an efficient customer feedback handling mechanism in an organization can draw the line between world leaders and mediocre companies. This paper discusses some of the important strategic steps that companies should take to ensure that their IT users can access adequate and reliable technical support.
Set up a technical support desk
One of the first steps that a company should take to ensure that users have access to technical support is to have a team of competent and knowledgeable workers to deal with customer in need of such support. Secondly, the company must make it its responsibility to inform the users of the existence of the technical support team in the company. It should also make it easy for the users to reach the technical support team and relay their concerns (Microsoft Corporation, 2009). For instance, there should be telephone extensions or dedicated lines to improve users access to the technical staff. This will encourage more and more users who have problems with the system to pass their concerns promptly so that prompt action can be taken.
Train the Customer service staff
While customer service desks and customer feedback hotlines are now part of almost every company, few companies have invested in educating and training the faces behind their customer service desks. Customer service staffs provide the all-important link between customers or products users, and company managements or the departments responsible for the products. This being the case, it follows that customer care staff should be well-educated and trained to handle the users feedbacks. Equally importantly, they should be empowered sufficiently to deal with some of the customer feedback without having to necessarily raise the attention of the management (Bayan, 2004 Hoffman, 1996). Most customers will be more comfortable discussing their problems with knowledgeable, confident and competent staff members than with ignorant workers who have to consult their bosses on the slightest issues. It is prudent for companies to employ qualified and motivated workers. Proper training and empowering of customer care staff reduces the length of time required to solve most problems.
Understand the users
It is difficult for any individual or company to satisfy their customers needs fully without understanding the users and their needs.At any given time, a company deals with a wide diversity of customers, all of whom it must aim at satisfying and retaining. Different customers come with different needs and have different ways of expressing these needs. Due to the diversity of their needs for example, different users may make different recommendations or may make different complains in relation to the services they are getting. It is the responsibility of the customer care staff to make note of the complaints and recommendations to the technical staff so that those responsible can explore and implement necessary changes. It is almost impossible to satisfy these customers without making deliberate efforts to understand the customers or the users.
Solve problems promptly
Users will mostly complain about a problem and expect a quick response (Kay, 2007). The technical support team should respond to the users complaints as soon as the problem is reported or at the nearest available opportunity. Letting complaints pile up before taking action can be detrimental to the organization as the users will lose faith the in technical support team, and the organization in general. The technical support team should therefore take action as soon as it is reported. Having solved the immediate problem, the team should then explore further to look for ways of preventing the particular problem, and related ones from happening in future. The technicalk support should not just react to reported problems, but should be proactive enough to identify and fix problems before they occur (Spolsky, 2007).
Upgrade systems
Technology is never static. Instead, technology keeps progressing, at a pace which has been increasing significantly in the recent past. The implication of this technological development is that new opportunities and new problems are arising every day. The technical support team must thus be quick to harness the new opportunities, as well as to develop solutions to the new or more advanced problems which characterize the technological progress.If it is slow to grab the opportunities, then it will be of little help to the users. If it cannot handle users complaints, it again becomes useless to the users. The company must therefore continously update its system while investing in training the technical support staff and arming them with the latest skills.
Set up a technical support desk
One of the first steps that a company should take to ensure that users have access to technical support is to have a team of competent and knowledgeable workers to deal with customer in need of such support. Secondly, the company must make it its responsibility to inform the users of the existence of the technical support team in the company. It should also make it easy for the users to reach the technical support team and relay their concerns (Microsoft Corporation, 2009). For instance, there should be telephone extensions or dedicated lines to improve users access to the technical staff. This will encourage more and more users who have problems with the system to pass their concerns promptly so that prompt action can be taken.
Train the Customer service staff
While customer service desks and customer feedback hotlines are now part of almost every company, few companies have invested in educating and training the faces behind their customer service desks. Customer service staffs provide the all-important link between customers or products users, and company managements or the departments responsible for the products. This being the case, it follows that customer care staff should be well-educated and trained to handle the users feedbacks. Equally importantly, they should be empowered sufficiently to deal with some of the customer feedback without having to necessarily raise the attention of the management (Bayan, 2004 Hoffman, 1996). Most customers will be more comfortable discussing their problems with knowledgeable, confident and competent staff members than with ignorant workers who have to consult their bosses on the slightest issues. It is prudent for companies to employ qualified and motivated workers. Proper training and empowering of customer care staff reduces the length of time required to solve most problems.
Understand the users
It is difficult for any individual or company to satisfy their customers needs fully without understanding the users and their needs.At any given time, a company deals with a wide diversity of customers, all of whom it must aim at satisfying and retaining. Different customers come with different needs and have different ways of expressing these needs. Due to the diversity of their needs for example, different users may make different recommendations or may make different complains in relation to the services they are getting. It is the responsibility of the customer care staff to make note of the complaints and recommendations to the technical staff so that those responsible can explore and implement necessary changes. It is almost impossible to satisfy these customers without making deliberate efforts to understand the customers or the users.
Solve problems promptly
Users will mostly complain about a problem and expect a quick response (Kay, 2007). The technical support team should respond to the users complaints as soon as the problem is reported or at the nearest available opportunity. Letting complaints pile up before taking action can be detrimental to the organization as the users will lose faith the in technical support team, and the organization in general. The technical support team should therefore take action as soon as it is reported. Having solved the immediate problem, the team should then explore further to look for ways of preventing the particular problem, and related ones from happening in future. The technicalk support should not just react to reported problems, but should be proactive enough to identify and fix problems before they occur (Spolsky, 2007).
Upgrade systems
Technology is never static. Instead, technology keeps progressing, at a pace which has been increasing significantly in the recent past. The implication of this technological development is that new opportunities and new problems are arising every day. The technical support team must thus be quick to harness the new opportunities, as well as to develop solutions to the new or more advanced problems which characterize the technological progress.If it is slow to grab the opportunities, then it will be of little help to the users. If it cannot handle users complaints, it again becomes useless to the users. The company must therefore continously update its system while investing in training the technical support staff and arming them with the latest skills.
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