4 Of The Most Common Challenges Facing IT Customer Support Staff

When you're trying to sell the newest software or hottest gadget, you're going to end up with a lot of customer service requests that are highly technical. Hiring the right IT customer support team is a good start, but you also need to prepare them to face common challenges to ensure the quality of service remains high no matter what happens. Prepare your team for these four common challenges to optimize your IT customer support experience.

Going Out of Scope

For example, consider a situation in which a company offers data services for mobile devices. Obviously the support team is well-versed in handling issues with the service itself, but many calls will likely involve issues with the various devices that have nothing to do with your company. You should decide from the beginning if your team will train to handle these out of scope requests, refer callers to a different support line, or take a different action to resolve the problem.

Developing Empathy

Did you know that it's not technical ability that customers value in a support technician, but rather empathy for their problems? It may seem like something you can't train, but there are plenty of training programs available specifically for increasing employee empathy skills. You can also tailor your response scripts and handling techniques to reflect a higher level of compassion and care for the issues bothering your customers. Just letting your IT support team know that customers are looking for a sympathetic response rather than a highly technical one can help them better tailor their approach to a challenging situation.

Providing Consistency

It's very frustrating for a customer to get amazing support one day and receive little to no help the next time. Creating consistency across the tech support experience spectrum can be tricky, but it is possible if you're dedicated to monitoring customer feedback and acting on it. Customer feedback is your best tool for identifying when a particular support team member needs more training or replacement, or when there's an issue with your processes that is interrupting the quality of service provided. Giving your team the best possible software and other tools also helps them maintain a great experience across a wide range of customers. 

Connecting with Engineering

Imagine that your customers are reporting a bug or flaw in your software, but the engineering team is never receiving notifications of the problem. This problem can be created by IT customer support team members who fail to push through work orders, or software that doesn't communicate clearly between departments. Discover why there's a disconnect between support and engineering and solve it promptly if you want your customers to feel like they're actually being heard when they call for support.


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