Users play a role in the resolution of their issue and it’s easy for users to not consider this simple truth when creating a case. Meaning, support has to reach back out to the user to ask for more specific information in order to investigate further. This ultimately extends the life of the case, takes more time away from the user to respond, delays a resolution time, which in turn takes more time away from resolving other user cases.
Everything we do in the support space has a cascading affect on our users. Let’s put our users and ourselves in the best position to be successful when raising a case.
When a customer raises a case with support, too often, there is not enough specific detail to investigate, answer and/or resolve the case with the first response.
Improve customer service response times by reframing how we ask users for information when raising a case without bloating or overcomplicating the case raise form.
Provide visual aid in the form of an example case so users can see a baseline of what a “good” case raise looks like.
If we make it too complicated for users to raise a case then they may not raise one.
If simplicity was the goal, then a call to action to raise a case would be front and center when a user logs into the help center or when the support journey begins. Instead, we guide them through a series of requests through multiple web pages and mouse clicks to finally present them with the option to raise a case. In short, we demand a lot from users as is (both in time and effort) before they reach a point where they can raise a case. We are doing our users a further disservice by not being deliberate in how and what we ask for when they get there.
Improving this process bolsters our support model and demonstrates to our users that we respect their time by asking for what we need from the start.
Detailed initial raise by the user allowing support to respond and close cases with first response back to the user.
Less touches / back & forth for a single case.
Faster response times for all users.
Higher NPS scores.
Reduced propensity for poor behaviors and the need for training opportunities that arise from process missteps that occur when agents don’t know how to move forward with a case.
eg. sending call requests form and/or asking for invites then dumping case to queue at EOS for “faster response”, a slew of other excuses that ultimately just equate to passing the buck
note: I understand that, in and of itself, this is a separate conversation entirely but is a direct effect of the problem I’m trying to solve.