D$E Contest: Talk > Type > Ticket

The IT geeks in the IT department take to heart a special recipe for customer service, based on the ZCoB recipe for handling customer complaints.

IT Steps to Great Customer Service
1.    RESPOND
•    Respond within 24 hours
•    Ask questions (helps solve and communicates engagement)
•    Provide a fix or a time assessment for a fix
2.    RESOLVE
•    Resolve within time period estimated or renegotiate before deadline
•    Accurately resolve bigger issue
•    Be polite
•    Be enthusiastic
•    Communicate (make sure they know the progress and when the issue is resolved)
3.    DOCUMENT
•    Send an email to the client and IT saying what you did or enter in tracking system
4.    FOLLOW UP
•    After resolving the issue, check back with the client
•    Go the extra mile
•    This may restart the process!

This recipe has worked very well for us. Recently, we’ve found a way to set the bar even higher for customer service!

Apart from our online helpdesk ticketing system, we often hear about problems through calls to our cellphones, personal visits to the office, and face to face requests when we go out to the different businesses. Most of the time, we try to solve them right on the spot. These issues had been going down without a trace.

We’ve implemented a new guideline for handling support issues: LOG EVERYTHING. Even the tiny “it’ll take me two minutes” ones. So far, the effects on our productivity and service have been great!

What are the results?

Our number of trouble tickets increased! That’s a good thing. We are now getting a more accurate picture of the technical health of the ZCoB.

Patterns emerge! When we started logging all the problems we encountered, we saw trends in the tickets and were able to address the larger encompassing issues.

Better communication = faster service! By logging all the issues as they come in, all members of the IT staff can contribute their solutions to issues that otherwise would not have been on their radar. Also, any IT geek regardless of expertise in an area can refer to old tickets to find the appropriate solutions. This helps us resolve problems faster and get our customers happier in no time!

This allows us to make better use of our human resources. Every ticket gets evaluated against the other tickets in the system. The most urgent ones are prioritized and get immediate attention. This way, the last IT geek in the office won’t run off to fix a squeaky printer when there is a critical issue in the system.