This article demonstrates how you too can benefit from implementing Self-Help.
Systems in .... System. And you have an idea of the type of software you should.
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Business Issues
Benefits of Implementing Self-Help Systems
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ver the last three years as the Support Manager and Chief Technical Writer for ModernGigabyte, LLC., I have assisted thousands of customers in getting their ModernBill systems installed, configured, and running properly. One of the greatest experiences as both the Support Manager and Chief Technical Writer is the ability to implement, write, and manage SelfHelp Systems that deliver extraordinary benefits to any company requiring support. This article demonstrates how you too can benefit from implementing Self-Help Systems in your own organization. Hosting companies typically depend on their helpdesks and phone systems as a support channel to their customers. But is it efficient to solely rely on using just a helpdesk or phone system to answer potentially thousands of questions? How
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by Dave Young
much is it costing your company to have technicians available to answer those thousands of questions? Is your churn rate too high? Is the quality of support represented by your company its best? So, how can you increase the quality of support for your company, reduce cost, reduce churn, and create a powerful impact on your customers? It’s simple. Implement Self-Help Systems. A Self-Help System is defined as a KnowledgeBase (KB), TroubleShooter or Manual for organizing and presenting articles, documentation and tutorials to your customers. The most efficient way to populate these Self-Help System is to utilize your helpdesk technicians. Since your technicians are trained to answer questions from your customers that are specific to your company, have them
populate your Self-Help Systems by writing articles, documents, and tutorials on the most frequently asked questions. If your Self-Help Systems are written specific to your target audience they can be extremely beneficial to the level of support you maintain. Even as we bring on additional technicians to cover our helpdesk at ModernGigabyte, we are able to implement content to cover all departments that require support. We also publish on our support site the exact locations of all our Self-Help Systems that are freely available. Customers are able to instantly create a PDF document for any of our Self-Help Systems. This allows them to print out the document and use it as a reference without having to go online, thus reducing bandwidth and overall server usage. If [continued]
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Business Issues you set the expectation that Self-Help Systems are available to your customers at no charge, they will continue to look in those systems prior to contacting you. Keep in mind there are customers that prefer to get help on the phone or may still need to utilize the helpdesk, but most likely they will attempt to try your Self-Help Systems first and foremost. Your Self-Help Systems are only as useful as the content you provide. If your customers cannot understand your writing or your delivery, be it organization, layout, wording, spelling, grammar, or lack of knowledge, your Self-Help System can have a negative impact on your support. If your customers get used to your Self-Help Systems not having the right content and information available to help them initially, they will revert to calling you via phone or revert to utilizing your helpdesk system. In turn this will create the need for more staff to handle your phones and helpdesk. Make it easy for your customers to access your Self-Help Systems. Give them the resources they need to be successful with your products and services. The more you provide, the easier it is for your customers to understand that you are willing to put forth more effort than your competitors in order to ensure they are successful. Lack of information leads to less desire to continue using your products and services. And that directly results in less revenue for your company. Support is one of the most important aspects of any service based business, especially the hosting industry. Most hosting companies state they provide 24/7/365 support. Having SelfHelp Systems available allows you to provide that extra level of support 24/7/365. As long as your systems are available, your servers are up and running, and your technicians are maintaining a constant flow of up-to-date information, your customers will be clear on how well you run and operate your business. Churn is also another important factor in a service based business. One way to reduce churn is to provide the level of services customers demand in the hosting industry. Create a process and flow of procedures your customers should use when requesting support, Self-Help Systems being the first priority. After your Self-Help System has been up and running for a while, pay attention to your website’s traffic and the statistics in your KnowledgeBuilder. You should see the values increase on the number of articles viewed, printed and searched on in your SelfHelp System and the number of visitors to your support portal. Reduced churn relates to increased revenue. Reduced support cost relates to an increased bottom line. The two together will make your company more profitable. You can then take that profit and put it back into maintaining your network, hardware and software for an overall increase in service and product quality. For example, since implementing our KnowledgeBase at kb.modernbill.com to support our ModernBill Version 4 (www. modernbill.com) product, the success of our Self-Help System
has significantly improved our support. We now have nearly 250 articles. Collectively these articles have been viewed over 100,000 times since implementation back in late 2004. This has drastically reduced the amount of tickets we have in our helpdesk database. Our first level technicians now reference the KB articles more than the manual created in RoboHelp. And as we continue to grow our customer base, our Self-Help Systems continue to grow as well while reducing the need for support staff. I also recommend you hire a technical or professional writer to review all your Self-Help Systems following each article produced by your technicians. A technical or professional writer can ensure the quality of your articles, documents, and tutorials are at their highest level. A qualified writer can also understand the technical aspects of your services and products. That said, they can translate the difficult steps into easy steps for your customers based on the knowledge level of your target audiences. An excellent writer can also write to a wide range of audiences from beginning users to advanced users. This is important as the knowledge level of your customers can be diffent from one individual to the next. The organization of your content must also be correct in how you present information to your customers. If your content is scattered across many places on your website, customers find it irritating and annoying when trying to find the information they need. Even in cases where the answer is simple, it can be buried somewhere in your site. Using ActiveCampaign’s KnowledgeBuilder will help you build an organized Self-Help System. Make it as easy as possible for your customers to find what they need. It’s that simple. Now you know all the benefits of implementing a Self-Help System. And you have an idea of the type of software you should use to create your Self-Help Systems. Increase the quality of support for your company, reduce costs, reduce churn, and create a powerful impact on your customers. They will reward you for it by praising your support and spreading the word about the quality your company delivers.
Support is one of the most important aspects of any service based business, especially the hosting industry.
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Writer’s Bio: Dave Young is the Support Manager and Chief Technical Writer at ModernGigabyte, LLC. With over three years experience in managing support to thousands of customers, Dave’s main focus has been implementing processes, policies, and Self-Help Systems to increase the level of support in all areas of ModernGigabyte’s products and services.
