How a Technical Support Answering Service Can Help Field Your Calls

In a perfect world, your eCommerce website would be sufficient to attract, engage and assist all of your customers. However, in the real world, some of your customers will require additional assistance in their times of need.

Outsourcing your incoming calls to a technical support answering service will save your eCommerce business time, money and unneeded stress. A virtual helpdesk can provide: 

• • 24/7 Customer Service
• • Technical Support from a Live Agent
• • Support Ticket Logging and Tracking
• • Secure Phone Order Processing
• • Real-Time Messaging to On-Call Engineers and C-Level Executives
• • Compassionate and Empathetic Complaint Handlers
• • Multilingual Customer Service Representatives

Let’s walk through some of the general services a technical virtual representative can offer you.

24/7 Telephone Customer Service and Support

Most business answering services will offer you phone coverage 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Having continued telephone coverage for your business is the greatest benefit you gain from outsourcing your calls. But if you’re looking for a robust and dedicated support team, your priority should be finding a company that allows you to fully customize your account. 

A reputable answering service will take you through an extensive process to build your technical support team.

Step 1: The Initial Consultation

During this stage, your web answering service will ask you a series of questions to gauge what services would be most beneficial for you. For instance:

• • Who currently answers your business telephone calls?
• • Do you currently send customers to voicemail after normal business hours?
• • On average, how long must a customer wait for a callback?
• • What telecommunication issues is your business struggling with?  
• • Around how many calls does your business receive each month?
• • Do you need a basic messaging service or a more customized technical support service?
• • Would you like to transfer your business calls directly or would you like to be designated a 1-800 phone number?
• • Do you have an on-call or in-house programming, engineering or specialist team?

Step 2: Customizing Your Account

After you’ve learned more about the technical support answering service and feel confident in their abilities, you then move forward with customizing your account.     

This will be the point when you start to train an in-house programmer and account specialist on how you want your calls handled. The more detail you provide, the better your new technical support team can assist your callers. A technical representative will be able to:

• • Answer your callers’ technical frequently asked questions;
• • Troubleshoot any website navigation issues your customers have;
• • Dispatch emergency service orders to an on-call team member;
• • Provide step-by-step instructions on how to use your product, service, app, etc.;
• • Track delivery orders and update information in your client portal; and
• • Handle complaint department and document positive/negative feedback.  

Step 3: Training the Tech Support Team 

“Do you train the people who will be answering my lines about my business or do you just give them a script to follow?”

This question is extremely important to ask all business answering services you interview.

You need to outsource your calls to an answering service that provides specific training on your account. Scripts will be essential when it comes to highly customized tech support services, but you need to confirm that all representatives will be trained on your business and policies.

Step 4: Receiving Live Information 

Each time your new technical support team speaks with a caller, you’ll receive a message detailing the call transaction. The form of these messages will vary depending on the nature of the call.  

• • If a technical question was answered, you’ll receive an email/text detailing the question and solution provided with the callers’ contact information.

• • If a message was taken, you’ll receive a detailed email/text of the inquiry with the callers’ contact information.

• • If an emergency or VIP is involved, your on-call employee will receive a direct phone call from your representative to discuss the situation.

• • If an order was processed, you’ll receive a notification via your existing web-based system.

• • If an appointment was scheduled or canceled, you’ll receive an email/text notification along with a real-time update to your calendar.

• • If a complaint was taken, you’ll receive an incident report via email/text along with the caller’s contact information.

Troubleshooting Issues and Providing Solutions

Not all of your website visitors and existing customers are going to be technologically savvy. When you have a 24-hour technical support answering service, you’re able to give your callers the assistance they need to purchase and enjoy your product.

A professional and qualified team will be able to assist your callers with their immediate needs; increasing customer satisfaction. Each industry will be handled differently, but these main techniques will be utilized to troubleshoot all inquiries: 

• • Greet all callers with a friendly disposition to start the conversation on a positive note.
• • Actively listen to a caller’s issue or question to identify the specific problem.
• • Analyze the problem to search available resources for a systematic solution.
• • Use call control to assist the caller through the suggested resolution.
• • If the caller had a negative experience, offer a sincere apology on behalf of the company.

If you have a team of professional engineers, technicians or service professionals, an answering service will free up their time tremendously while decreasing your customer hold time.

Support Ticket Logging and Tracking

When your callers have a technical question that your support team can’t answer, we can create a support ticket that your in-house team of experts can tackle at their convenience. You give the answering service access to your web-based system and watch how all inquiries are automatically logged and organized for you. While self-solutions are in demand, you don’t want to offer just automated solutions. Sometimes, your customers want a real person to handle their issue. 

The process varies on your system and preferences, but all calls that can’t be resolved on the spot will be properly logged. A support ticket will be created; with a copy sent to your technical expert and a copy sent to the customer. You can even elect to have your tech support team follow up with your on-call engineers, programmers and experts to discuss the completed tickets.  

Don’t waste your valuable time completing a standard support ticket. Allow a virtual assistant to help your customer at a fraction of the cost it would take an in-house tech to complete.  

Give Our Technical Support Answering Service a Try! 

Here at A Courteous Communications, we have high standards when it comes to providing technical support. Our technical support answering service offers an elite group of helpdesk operators that bring the following to your business:

• • 24-Hour Professional Phone Coverage
• • Award Winning Customer Service
• • Customized Support and Direct Training on All Accounts
• • An In-House Tech and Programming Team
• • Bilingual and Multilingual Services Included in All Accounts

Call us today at 1-800-785-6161 to speak with an account specialist or shoot us an email to discuss your business’s specific needs.