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Though you’d think technology companies would excel at providing quality tech support, many struggle. This is often because they’re more interested in developing new leading-edge solutions then supporting what they’ve already produced. After all, what forward-thinking techie would want to field phone calls about their current product when they could be working on developing the next one? No one. That’s why tech support companies often fall short of supporting the innovative products they produce.
But there is a solution. They can outsource level 1 help desk work to a BPO call center that specializes in providing level 1 help desk services for their client companies.
Brett Stevenson started his new job as director of customer support on Monday. He held high expectations and exuded much enthusiasm. But by the end of the week he wondered if he’d made a mistake. A huge mistake. The company, known for its pioneering products and forward-thinking perspectives, was everyone’s dream employer. That’s why Brett said “yes” when they made him an offer. But from a practical standpoint, customer service didn’t exist. At least not an acceptable level of customer support.
The company hired Brett to fix their ailing customer service department. Yet, in truth, he needed to start one. At present, support calls went to the engineering team, a task they all loathed. Though the new engineers, the ones just out of college, took most of these calls, each one infuriated them and brought them one step closer to quitting. They joined the company to create something revolutionary, not help people reset passwords. The seasoned engineers were even more vocal when they received these customer service calls, calls they felt were beneath them. The results were curt responses and brusque treatment.
The customers loved the product, but they hated the support. The outcry online was brutal. Something needed to be done, and that fell to Brett.
Brett had done this kind of thing before, so he wasn’t too worried. But with his new department assigned an old storage space as their office, things weren’t off to a good start. At best he could fit in four workstations, one of which was his own. He hired a technician, trained her on the company’s product, and turned her loose fielding phone calls. He planned to ramp up in a controlled manner and hire more technicians once his first one got up to speed. However, on the day his technician answered her first phone call, the engineers refused to take any more. The result was way more calls than his technician could handle, even with Brett helping.
This wasn’t working. Things went from bad to worse. That’s when Brent thought about quitting.
At his prior job, Brett had hired an answering service to take messages from callers after business hours. Then his help desk team could call them back the next business day. Though less than ideal, because the customers had to wait to get their problems resolved, it was acceptable because there were few time-critical issues that needed immediate attention.
Brett wondered if this answering service could do more than take messages, by providing level 1 help desk support to his callers. They said “yes” and began taking overflow calls that his technician couldn’t get to during the day and all calls in the evenings and on weekends. Yet the answering service wasn’t a full-service answering service, so providing basic tech support was beyond their capabilities, even though they tried their hardest to make it work.
Though Brett had earned praise for getting all the phone calls answered without interrupting the engineers from their primary job, the level of support failed to wow callers. They complained even more vehemently.
Brett felt his idea of outsourcing level 1 help desk services was the right idea, but he just needed to find the right call center to handle the work. That’s when he consulted his faithful companion, Alexa. After asking a series of questions, Brett realized his hunches were correct. What he needed was a BPO (business process outsourcing) call center that specialized in providing level 1 help desk support.
Armed with the knowledge of what he needed, Alexa began making suggestions. From these Brett quickly whittled the list down to one company: Direct Call Centers. They were a BPO call center, specialized in tech support as one of their key horizontal markets, and had experience providing level 1 help desk services, even level 2.
The BPO went to work, setting up service for Brett and training their staff to handle his tech support calls. All the while, Brett hired and trained two more technicians, bringing his inhouse, daytime staff up to three, four if he counted himself. His plan was to ramp up staff during business hours, so they could take all the help desk calls in-house, and then send after-hours level 1 help desk support calls to the BPO.
The BPO impressed Brett when they refused to rush into handling his calls. They insisted on adequate training for their staff before they answered his first call. This paid off huge. Though the first night or two uncovered some issues Brett hadn’t considered, the call center quickly fine-tuned their procedures to encompass this new information. From then on it was smooth sailing—at least in the evening and weekends.
The level 1 help desk service from the BPO call center quickly proved their value to Brett. They had an extensive QA program to ensure consistent quality. They also recorded all calls. Brett had secure access into the BPO’s call recordings for his company. He randomly listened to some of them. The results impressed him.
With evening and weekends handled, Brett could turn his attention back to his daytime technical staff and build up his team. His three employees couldn’t keep up with the workload, and calls often set in queue for several minutes until a technician could answer. Brett knew that hiring one more technician, who would take over Brett’s desk in their tiny room, would solve this problem. But as he was interviewing for this position, his first technician quit in frustration over the workload and the never-ending string of calls in queue. His two remaining technicians struggled to handle the calls, but callers routinely waited for over half an hour for the “next available technician.” Statistically callers were more likely to hang up then to reach a technician.
That’s when the solution dawned on Brett. It was so obvious.
When they got busy during the day, he could route overflow calls to his BPO. They excelled in handling evening and weekend calls, so it was a no-brainer for them to take overflow calls during the day. This immediately addressed the problem of their long queue and callers needing to wait thirty or more minutes to talk to someone.
When one of Brett’s remaining technicians gave notice, the BPO call center automatically adjusted to pick up the extra workload. Brett now realized that the best solution was to have the BPO call center handle all their level 1 help desk calls 24/7. He helped his remaining technician move into an engineering support position in the company.
Then he revamped their work area into a decent office for himself. Everyone wins.
Direct Call Centers provides call center and contact center services to clients across the United States and around the world. Specializing in business process outsourcing (BPO), Direct Call Centers is your single source for essential contact center work and critical BPO support services, with a focus on four primary horizontal market niches: customer service, tech support, lead processing, and chargeback support. Get a free quote today to explore if Direct Call Centers is the right match for your company’s BPO needs.