Category: Technical Support

In today’s competitive market, the one thing that most successful businesses have in common is a remote working team and excellent technical support services. Remote working has become a total game-changer, especially during the pandemic times. You can save costs, boost productivity, increase efficiency and employee engagement, and have happy employees. Many support workers, such as customer service agents, IT technical support agents, and other business workers, have turned their homes into offices.

Global Workplace Analytics found that 5 million people worked from home in 2018, a 173% increase from 2005. The same study also found that 86% of employees feel that working from home reduces stress, and 77% believe working remotely improves their general health.

Remote working can indeed lead to great things for a business, but this can only happen when implemented effectively. The key to making a thriving remote working environment lies in employee engagement. Happy and inspired employees perform better. Better performance leads to better business. There’s no secret formula here. In simple words, happy employees lead to satisfied customers and a thriving business.

How to Build a Remote Technical Support Services Team?

Whether you are building an IT technical support team or any team from scratch, ensure it is structured to succeed with a strong foundation. This can be done with a bit of homework from your end.

Define ‘great technical support service’ for your company

There isn’t a business that doesn’t promise excellent customer service. But not all customers have a great customer experience. Thus, there is always space for improvement. Therefore, when building an IT technical support team, decide on the service quality you will provide and include your entire team in that process. Once you have set the ideal benchmarks for your services, you will have a standard against which you can measure your technical support service team.

Decide on which channels to provide your support

It’s pretty easy to say, “We are available on all channels all the time!” but following through with that commitment isn’t! Most companies tend to expand their services in all channels and fail to deliver quality services as they are all over the place. That ends up in a lack of quality, leading to bad reviews. Therefore, any day, choose quality over quantity. Providing good services over a few channels goes a long way than spreading your team to provide inconsistent services.

A great way to figure this out is by researching the customers’ platforms. Figure out what kind of support channels will be ideal for your business. For IT technical support, emails are the best as they are specific and detailed. But the wait for a response can get frustrating, especially if you are in a hurry. Live chat services can be a great way to address quick queries and issues of customers.

Building a Team with the Correct People

We all know that the first step to a successful team is hiring the right people, and those aren’t easy to find. As the saying goes, “Your employees are the people that make and break your business” holds this context. So how do you pick your teammates, then?

While hiring, apart from the skills and qualities you are looking for in your team, here are a few pointers you can consider that will help you build a more vigorous and more productive team-

Focus on What They Want to Achieve

Understanding their goals and dreams to align them with yours. This will also let you know how enthusiastic and dedicated they are at their tasks and their willingness to grow.

Efficient Communication Skills 

Basic communication skills are crucial for any team. Also, make sure they are team players.

Remote Working Potential

Even though it sounds easy, long-term remote work requires discipline, good prioritizing skills, and the confidence to work without constant supervision. Assess each applicant to see if they are an asset or drain to your remote team before you hire them.

Relevant Experiences in Those Roles

For a remote technical support service team, freelancers and contractors are ideal as they are already used to a remote environment. They understand expectations and challenges better and are back with solutions to tackle them.

Industry Knowledge

Working with someone who knows your business beforehand is much easier than training a new applicant.

How to Train Your Team to Increase Efficiency?

Training your team is as important as setting up a business. Your team needs to know what exactly is required from them for your business. Simply put, “Teamwork makes your dream work.” Therefore, here is a checklist to help your team increase efficiency.

Provide Extensive Onboard Training and Support

As remote support teams work alone, they might need more time to get help. Therefore, provide them with extensive training so that they can work autonomously. You can also set up a self-service help center or searchable knowledge base so that your teammates can look up and get access to the latest and most accurate information about your services and products.

Provide Them with the Right Tools

Tools act as the arms and legs of your team. Therefore, providing them with all the necessary hardware and software tools to perform their tasks is crucial.

Develop Clear Remote Working Policies

Set clear expectations for your team. Create and publish policies that tell what is and isn’t allowed. Have procedures for internal communication, recorded data of customer interactions, backup for emergencies, and at-home time tracking.

How to Create a Productive Work Environment?

Unlike other departments, remote working teams don’t get to spend time like other on-site teams. Therefore, developing a healthy work culture that will benefit your business, in the long run is vital. Wondering how to do that? Then there are a few pointers to help you decide on the things you need to implement-

Develop a Knowledge Base

Investing in a knowledge base can be time-consuming, but it can go a long way. Internally, your new employees can utilize it to solve specific issues and learn how to use different tools. Furthermore, it will help you solve recurring customer issues and assure them that there is a knowledge base for them anytime. 

Secure Your Data

Remote working increases complexity, especially when it comes to security. Therefore, implement security policies and conduct security awareness training if necessary. 

Focus on the outcomes

Rather than checking if your teammate has completed 9 hours of work, check whether they have delivered all tasks for the day. Focus on what is being accomplished than on how long it took to complete it.

Let Them Grow

Inspire your teammates, and give them attainable goals they can look forward to. This helps them push a little harder and stay optimistic. Collect feedback and conduct reviews to let them know the areas they can work on. 

Reward and Recognize Great Work

There’s no better motivation than getting appreciated for a job well done! Recognize your team’s efforts and reward them for their outstanding performances. This will create a healthy competitive culture in your workplace.

Lastly, always have your team’s back, and trust your business is in good hands. It is essential that your employees feel that they are well taken care of. After all, healthy employees are productive employees.

As more companies embrace remote working, technical support outsourcing has become quite common.

This is a much more feasible option for busy businesses looking to provide support around-the-clock.

Final Thoughts

We at Wow customer support have learned what works and what doesn’t. This firsthand experience and expertise in this field make us one of the industry’s best customer support service companies. If you want to outsource technical support services, your search ends today!

Contact us today to learn more about small business technical support services.

Interesting posts to read:

How to Build a Successful Offshore Team for Customer Support?

Why Is Customer Support Services Vital for Online Retail Business?

Statistics indicate that 24% of small enterprises use outsourcing. Large corporations outsource even more frequently than small businesses and are 66 percent more likely to do so.

There are several practical advantages when you outsource technical support. Cost savings, accessibility to cutting-edge tools and people, increased security, and more.

Understanding the benefits and drawbacks of technical support firms is crucial before hiring one so you can steer clear of any potential hazards. 

By reading on, you can learn more about the advantages and risks when you start to outsource technical support.

Pros of Outsourcing Technical Support

IT is a complex function to manage by nature. Companies no longer have the luxury of putting up with malfunctioning IT as operations grow more digital.

Most firms don't consider IT to be a fundamental function. However, obsolete or malfunctioning systems can seriously harm a company's production, clientele, security, and financial position.

Businesses may ensure that their IT operations are running smoothly by starting to outsource technical support. According to a dependable provider, systems are always current, completely functional, and secure.

In addition, when you outsource technical support, your businesses can be free from many of the responsibilities associated with internal IT management.

Here are a few of the potential rewards in more detail.

Minimize IT Costs

Cost savings are one of the most alluring advantages when you start to outsource technical support. This may seem contradictory because getting things done professionally typically costs more money.

However, businesses can benefit from several in-house IT expense reductions when they start to outsource technical support. So much so that 87% of organizations say cost-cutting is the main reason they outsource their IT.

Outsourcing IT can replace staff-related overheads and unreported expenses with a set monthly fee. When you add a new IT employee, your overhead and payroll costs increase. These costs include things like:

• Equipment and space for offices
• unemployment insurance and employee taxes
• Payroll expenses
• Benefits
• Paid leave
• Training
• Overtime

In addition, internal IT management may involve unplanned expenses and capital expenditures.

You can swap unexpected; unpredictable IT costs when you outsource technical support for a fixed, known monthly cost.

Additionally, you won't have to be concerned about depreciating IT assets. As opposed to asset expenditure, the cost of these items will be recorded as an expense.

Low Capital Expenditure

A substantial amount of money may be needed to install and improve IT systems. As a result, many organizations wind up operating on obsolete or weak equipment.

The capital expenses for improvements will be integrated into your monthly cost if you outsource technical support. As a result, they become more inexpensive, and your company is never forced to utilize an out-of-date system due to a lack of funding for improvements.

More straightforward Access to Expertise and World-Class Capabilities

Businesses can access top people and capabilities of the highest caliber is another vital benefit of outsourcing IT.

According to research, the national skills deficit is already impacting 87% of firms. Particularly in demand are IT professionals, and it can be challenging to find the right people.

It is challenging for small enterprises to get qualified IT employees. Because of this, one of the leading IT problems that small firms encounter is a skills shortage.

You may draw on a wealth of knowledge and IT talent when you outsource technical support. Outsource technical support businesses must stay current on market trends to remain competitive. Otherwise, they will cease operations.

A team of experts is much more potent than a single skilled professional operating in isolation. A solid managed IT services company may produce better outcomes than an internal IT department by combining knowledge and skill sets.

Managed IT service providers collaborate with numerous companies across numerous sectors. They can develop customized solutions and capabilities that your IT department might not have been able to due to their expertise working with different firms.

Greater Safety

Better corporate IT services and security are some of the most beneficial advantages of outsourcing IT. Cyber and data security is crucial for any firm in the modern world.

Businesses that experience security breaches may incur costs of several hundred thousand dollars or perhaps have to shut down. You might experience legal ramifications if they involve private customer or employee information.

To safeguard their clients' systems, IT outsourcing businesses make it their business to stay abreast of the most recent security dangers. They have experience working with companies to cover frequently overlooked topics, like employee passwords, devices, and 2-factor authentication.

The majority of reputable IT outsourcing firms also provide 24/7 monitoring and support. Your monthly plan at Wow includes our 24/7 monitoring and when you start to outsource technical support service.

We continuously check your systems for indications of instruction or questionable behavior. If an alert sounds, we can respond to it right away.

A component of an outsourced technical support company's responsibility is ensuring you have a complete data backup and recovery plan in place, in addition to regularly monitoring your systems.

One indication that you require IT support is if you don't have a data backup strategy.

IT Outsourcing Aids You in Concentrating on Core Activities

The reason why you need to outsource technical support is because it will keep your systems secure and give you more time to concentrate on your primary business.

When you decide to outsource a technical support company that offers a specific service you may trust them to manage the majority of the operation of your systems. You'll save time and effort by doing this. You can concentrate more on generating income operations if you don't constantly deal with IT problems.

All it takes to contact your outsourced technical support company should a problem occur with your system is a phone call.

Scaling Is Easier

One of the well-known advantages of outsourcing is that it makes scalability simpler. This is incredibly accurate for IT outsourcing.

IT scaling can be pretty challenging. Because IT equipment and software are expensive, expanding your system alongside your company can feel like a full-time job. Additionally, compatibility problems and application siloing might arise very rapidly if you don't have the necessary expertise on board.

Businesses have a way out of the issue of IT scalability thanks to IT outsourcing. Your experience with scaling will be almost entirely painless, thanks to an expert outsourced IT supplier. You may upgrade to a larger package with your provider as your demand grows, and they will take care of the rest.

More Productivity and Less Downtime

Your company may see less downtime and greater productivity due to outsourcing IT.

These days, downtime is costly. For large enterprises, the average cost is roughly $5,600 per minute.

You will inevitably experience downtime if your company uses the break/fix IT strategy.

Outsourced IT services rarely use this outdated maintenance strategy. Instead, the majority use remote monitoring to perform proactive maintenance. A reputable outsourced IT company would respond quickly to address issues before they cause downtime whenever there are failure warning signs.

You only need to contact your provider if an issue leads to an outage. If your service provider provides monitoring and supports around the clock, they ought to be accessible at all times to apply a remedy.

Day or night, a technician is always on call at Be Structured to respond to situations.

Cons of IT Outsourcing That May Exist

Although there are several practical advantages when you outsource technical support, there are also certain drawbacks. In most cases, rather than outsourcing technical support, inept suppliers are to blame for the negatives of outsourced IT.

The number of MSPs in the US is currently believed to be over 40,000, albeit not all of them adhere to high standards.

Make sure you take the time to evaluate and choose a supplier to safeguard yourself from any potential pitfalls of technical support. You can avoid the drawbacks we have highlighted below by doing this.

Reduced Control

Reduced control is one of the obstacles to using IT that has been outsourced. Businesses that outsource their IT must delegate supervision of their essential operations to a staffing group from outside the company. Management and employees may become very frustrated if problems are not appropriately resolved.

It may feel like you have no control over the situation if issues arise and your outsourced IT supplier doesn't deal with them immediately.

The good news is that modern technology allows live phone answering service firms to provide services that are at least as good as those offered by onsite technicians. It's time to stop doing business with your provider if they are not doing this.

Every company we work with is treated as a unique entity with specific needs. We also have a lot of expertise in offering IT help for particular industries.

Untimely Communication

Outsourcing your phone answering service could lead to communication delays if you hire the wrong vendor. Providers not concerned with customer happiness may take a while to reply to messages and fulfill requests.

The slower an outsourced live phone answering service responds to your inquiries; the more services will be impacted. This may affect productivity and make you regret beginning IT outsourcing.

The best defense against these phone answering service providers is to assess their communication abilities and response times before working with them. A potential provider should be avoided if they respond slowly.

Contemplating If You Need to Outsource Technical Support?

You can save money, save time and attention for vital business activities, improve security, lower downtime, and more by outsourcing your technical support. You must, however, pick the best provider. If you don't, you could expose yourself to various problems, including data loss and sluggish reaction times.

You can also come up with solutions that aren't suited to your requirements and end up making operations more difficult rather than making them more efficient.

Are you trying to outsource a phone answering service provider who will genuinely look out for your demands and take care of your security? Wow Customer Support is here for you! We provide top-notch phone answering services for any type of business. Contact us today to know more!