5 things you never thought will make your end users happy
I recently had an issue with my Telecom network and it disturbed my routine in making or receiving calls. I wanted to fix this issue ASAP but didn’t like the idea of calling their customer support which would test my patience. Immediately, I checked their social channels which were much easier and messaged their customer support to fix my issue. Personally, social channel is more convenient for me to contact any business for support.
All of us experience service encounters in our personal and professional lives. Similarly, IT end users’ expectations vary based on their personal life experiences. Therefore, B2B applications should match their service delivery experience with B2C applications. There is a chain reaction that when you make your employees happy, your customers will also be happy. The interaction with the IT team should be a hassle-free experience to your end users. Let us now discuss top five things you probably never thought that would make your end users happy. It takes twelve positive experiences to make up for one negative experience.
1) Let end users know what’s going on
IT end users get frustrated with uninformed changes because they disrupt their routine. Effective communication is key in informing your end users at the right time. Always, include end users to beta test new applications and follow an inclusive approach. Therefore, avoid making a system unavailable overnight because this would create conflict, mistrust and chaos.
Take baby steps rather than a big bang approach to introduce any new application or change. Click To Tweet
While working on a ticket, update your users, follow up closely and acknowledge their requests.
- Make announcements digitally via touch points such as Enterprise Social Network (ESN)
- Share your IT initiatives and innovations to everyone in the organization and not just management
- Utilize alerts and notifications of service desk solution to send triggers at the right time. For example, IT network maintenance which might cause a downtime for end users should be informed well in advance.
2) Set realistic commitment
How many times have we canceled our taxi ride because it takes more than expected time to arrive? Similarly, set clear expectations that are realistic and achievable. When a user reports a ticket, acknowledge and communicate the time it would take for resolution. Do not over commit and under deliver. For example, when a user is trying to upgrade his laptop, do not promise to install higher versions without understanding users’ requirement and urgency.
- IT end users always want fastest resolution – Set a clear Service Level Agreement (SLA) to overcome this
- Keep them aware of progress items
- Let them track the ticket status without human intervention
3) Provide multi-touch points that users love
Accessibility to IT is crucial for better communication. Therefore, understand your end users’ preferences and provide as many IT touchpoints as possible. Touchpoints may include IT kiosk in workplace, IT group in enterprise social network (ESN). Millennials and Gen Z love chat as a support channel due to its familiarity, faster connectivity and personal convenience. It is also reported that chat delivers higher customer satisfaction rates compared to email and phone. Therefore, depending on your employee demographics and preferences, allow relevant channels to end users to contact IT. Social channel is significant to cater to millennials workforce as the engagement rate is higher.
- Do not restrict them to connect to IT from personal devices
- Marketing your service desk to end users is an important step
- Embrace new technology and integrate into IT
4) Build an emotional connection
IT is the valued partner of support in any organization to ensure business is always up and running. It is necessary to build great relationships with your end users to be transparent and user friendly. Treat your IT end users like customers and address them as “customers”. Learn from every customer interaction being empathetic and appreciate them for their patience. Do not be a techie guy using IT jargons rather be a problem solver with a real human touch. Respect your users and build trust among user groups.
- Get a real time feedback and thank your end users
- Provide badges to your users for self-service and fixing issues by themselves
- Share IT success stories across organization to describe how IT helped users in critical situations
5) Make your knowledge base fun
End users love to be independent and try to fix problems by themselves. They do not prefer writing long emails or calling IT support when something breaks rather explore the available repository themselves. However, lengthy technical documentation does not attract users and hence, customize your knowledge base with visual elements such as images, videos and GIFs. Get real time feedback from end users about how helpful the article is and improve based on the feedback.
- Let your Knowledge management be visually appealing
- Make it easily accessible
- Allow like and dislike buttons in knowledge base articles
Today’s modern users are influenced by their personal digital experiences and expect the same level of service at workplace too. This demands a modern approach to IT and therefore, IT needs to be up to date with technological trends to cope up with this changing expectation. Positive end user experience results in team collaboration, improved productivity and trust building.
Happy employees make happy customers
