Business Challenge

The transportation company is committed to providing exceptional customer service and support for its next-generation technology. With a customer base that spans both U.S. and international markets,the help desk function is a critical business driver for the organization.

Unfortunately, that touch point was leading to some very bad experiences for their customers. Their existing help desk partner couldn’t support even the most basic requests.

“We had a lot of complaints from our user base,” said the company’s executive director of IT. “The skill set was just not there to resolve issues without escalations. Customers might call for password resets or software installs, and it was very disappointing that the help desk couldn’t resolve the issue. They just didn’t possess the very basic IT skill set required.”

An additional challenge was that the help desk operator was based overseas, leading to language barriers and miscommunications. As the company’s corporate services manager explained, “We became very sensitive to the English language problems, and knew we needed an organization that was based in the United States.”

With their reputation on the line, the transportation company considered bringing its help desk operations in house. As they assessed an internal vs. external solution, three factors in particular supported an outsourced solution:

1. The costs to staff a help desk 24/7 would be considerable.

2. The management team would be forced to spend valuable time managing the help desk on a daily basis, limiting the team’s availability to focus on more important strategic enterprise initiatives.

3. Acquiring, customizing, and maintaining the ITIL tool sets needed to support the help desk would require a major capital expense and significant effort.

In light of these considerations, the company realized an internal solution would be too resource-intensive to work. Thus began their search for a help desk provider better suited to deliver the quality of support its clients expected and deserved.

Solution

As the company looked for a new partner, Global Help Desk Services (GHDSi) quickly rose to the top of the list. When the company shared their core challenges, GHDSi offered solutions tailored to solve them.

U.S.-Based Help Desk Support 

The transportation company was keen to help their customers avoid any more communication problems. Since GHDSi’s agents are entirely based in the United States and can render assistance in both English and Spanish, the transportation company was confident that language barriers would not be a problem.

Specialized Support for Complex Technology  

After their previous experience, the transportation company wanted to find help desk support that could handle tickets without unnecessary escalation.

As part of the onboarding and discovery process, GHDSi spends significant time with the client’s technicians to learn about what kinds of issues customers face. This process also involves extensive documentation to set expectations and define support processes, ensuring that customers can get the help they need.

Kind, Helpful Support 

The transportation company knew that, for many of their customers, the help desk would be the face of the company. It was important that the help desk be with staffed agents who were trained to offer kind and helpful support.

For GHDSi, emotional intelligence is one of the key qualities an agent needs to possess. Coupled with technical knowledge and excellent communication skills, it’s an invaluable part of ensuring our help desk team helps our clients put their best face forward.

Consequences

GHDSi was put to the test during their very first week of service. The transportation company’s entire network went down for several days – a major crisis that had never happened before. GHDSi kept their cool through the whole situation. Even when fielding the most frantic customer calls, GHDSi presented a public image for the client that was competent and assured … exactly the way any enterprise would want to be portrayed when an emergency strikes.

Today, that crisis has long been resolved. GHDSi is now focused on the KPIs most important to the company: improving first-call resolution rates and minimizing call abandonment rates. GHDSi proactively reviews service tickets to try to identify more areas where they can provide first-line issue resolution. If needed, GHDSi will also request additional documentation or training from the client to continue to improve the level of service they deliver.

As a result of this highly collaborative, results-oriented approach, customer feedback has been overwhelmingly positive from all areas of the world. This represents a major turnaround in the client’s help desk reputation.

“Global Help Desk is definitely working to turn around the perception of our call center, which is a huge accomplishment for us,” said the corporate services manager. “We’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback from our customers all over the world.”

"Global Help Desk stays plugged in with what’s going on in our environment, and they offer suggestions to wherever they can help improve processes and take more off of our plates. I really like their proactive approach.”

- Executive Director of IT, Transportation Company