The helpdesk continues to be one of the most valuable tools for business leaders focused on ensuring amazing CX and team productivity. Capable of helping with everything from managing customer conversations, to providing self-service opportunities, helpdesks are becoming increasingly valuable. Now more than ever, your clients are looking for the best possible support and service.
With customer expectations evolving, and more channels for teams to manage than ever before, helpdesks are evolving to suit a more advanced workforce. While it’s difficult to know for certain what the future of the helpdesk may bring, the following trends are likely to make an impact in 2022.
Agent Experience Will be Essential
Helpdesk technology can offer self-service portal support to clients and provide your employees with extra assistance when they need it too. As the workplace grows increasingly hybrid and distributed, staff will be more reliant on helpdesks to keep them productive, informed, and empowered.
The only way to ensure agents are getting the most out of their helpdesk technology is to choose software which puts employee experience first. Simple and intuitive dashboards with built-in guidance will be crucial to generating adoption.
At the same time, agents will be looking for tools that integrate seamlessly with the tools they already use, like contact center software, or unified communications tools. The fewer tools an employee needs to switch between when working in today’s complex world, the faster they can get work done.
Support for Hybrid Teams
One of the biggest factors driving an increased focus on agent experience in the help desk is the rising popularity of hybrid work. Today’s employees are working in a range of different environments – not just in the office. With this in mind, the helpdesk will need to adapt to suit a range of staff members. The right technology must be accessible on all devices, including through mobile apps.
Additionally, to empower hybrid teams, helpdesk solutions need to allow for the easy management and sharing of information. Cloud-based knowledgebase storage will be essential to ensuring all members of staff get access to the latest versions of crucial documents and files.
Every employee should be able to access the same crucial functionality, regardless of where they are. Of course, making this transition will also require companies to consider the security and privacy elements of their helpdesks.
Intelligent Automation
Automation is quickly becoming one of the most valuable tools in the customer service and experience ecosystem. The COVID-19 pandemic forced companies to embrace new solutions for boosting productivity and efficiency, and automation can be extremely useful for this purpose. With automation, it’s easier for companies to streamline and even manage repetitive tasks without the input of human employees.
For instance, a helpdesk system could send automated reminders or notifications to members of staff when they need to follow up on a customer issue. The same technology could also collect information about which employee and customer issues are most common, so business leaders can create better FAQ guidance and self-service tools for the future.
Increased Use of AI Self-Service
Self-service support is at the heart of most helpdesk technology. However, the slower, more old-fashioned methods of searching through FAQs and knowledgebase articles are quickly being replaced with access to intelligent systems, bots, and virtual assistants. Chatbots and intelligent IVRs with access to natural language processing can understand the issues facing customers and present potential solutions in a matter of seconds.
Using helpdesk technology, companies can build self-service portals for both clients searching for common troubleshooting solutions for their issues and agents looking for extra guidance. Even basic chatbots can save users a lot of time and effort by using keyword searches to pull up potential articles and knowledgebase resources which might help with answering various questions.
Intelligent AI systems must be constantly updated and improved to ensure they can continue to offer the highest level of support.
A Wider Range of Support Mediums
Many of the helpdesk tools of the past relied heavily on articles and FAQs to answer questions. In today’s highly digitized world, we’re looking at more immersive and advanced ways to serve both agents and customers. The modern helpdesk, for instance, could include video guides and instant escalation options for customers who need to request a call back from a professional
In the future, as extended reality options become more accessible, we might even find helpdesk technology being enhanced with VR and AR guides that walk customers through things like user manuals and troubleshooting strategies in a more engaging manner. These high-quality solutions for support should reduce the number of professionals who need to be called out to specific locations to assess and solve customer problems.
Shifting to Proactive Customer Service
As mentioned above, many of the helpdesk solutions available today are beginning to integrate with other tools for analytics and customer service in the CX landscape. Because of this, it’s much easier to use analytical and reporting tools to gather an end-to-end view of the customer journey. With better insights, it will be possible for companies to predict trends and even see which issues their customers are most likely to struggle with.
Gathering this behind-the-scenes information will allow business leaders to develop proactive strategies for customer service. For instance, you could use your helpdesk information to figure out whether your customers usually have problems connecting a new phone to their network. If that’s the case, you can put a guide to installing new phones on your helpdesk, on the front page, so it’s easy to find. Or you might send emails out with links to these guides attached.
With customers now demanding incredible experiences from every company – no matter how big or small- brands can’t afford to underestimate the value of the right technology. A proactive, engaging, and intelligent system for helpdesk functionality will be a must-have for business leaders. If you’re investing in a helpdesk going forward, make sure you keep these trends in mind.
