The power of Chat in IT Support
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We love it. We have it via Screen Connect and our customers use it a lot. The phones ring so much less now.
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@Minion-Queen said in The power of Chat in IT Support:
We love it. We have it via Screen Connect and our customers use it a lot. The phones ring so much less now.
And while it's not 'bad' to talk on the phone,.. it's much easier to manage two or three support chats than someone (client) getting the busy tone or voice mail on the phone.
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@Minion-Queen Thanks! Interesting... I see they also have a free tier to give it a try...
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@Carnival-Boy said in The power of Chat in IT Support:
Do you use Freshdesk for that Breffni? I've been considering it.
Nope. Enchant. Half the price of FreshDesk.
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Oh. You used to you Freshdesk though, right? What made you switch, apart from price?
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@Carnival-Boy said in The power of Chat in IT Support:
Oh. You used to you Freshdesk though, right? What made you switch, apart from price?
Switched ages ago, I even posted about it on here.
Freshdesk does too much and of the bits I want it to do its a little clunky.
Enchant is an incredibly clean UI and the features that exist are implemented really nicely.
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Oh, ok, I'll check it out. Agree that Freshdesk is a bit clunky.
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If I could get our users to submit a ticket instead of pounding on my door, I could get so much more done everyday.
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@NerdyDad said in The power of Chat in IT Support:
If I could get our users to submit a ticket instead of pounding on my door, I could get so much more done everyday.
Stupid Glue a R-Pi to a monitor, then add Keyboard & mouse to it... Set it up to always display your Helpdesk Portal... put it outside your office door, and then close the office door?
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Most of my users have learnt that tickets they raise themselves via e-mail tend to get resolved quicker than ones they submit verbally. Also, I often tell them to submit a ticket even when they're in my office, and explain that I might forget to resolve the problem otherwise with my terrible memory.
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@Carnival-Boy educating customers pays dividends on the long term, right?
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@Carnival-Boy said in The power of Chat in IT Support:
Most of my users have learnt that tickets they raise themselves via e-mail tend to get resolved quicker than ones they submit verbally. Also, I often tell them to submit a ticket even when they're in my office, and explain that I might forget to resolve the problem otherwise with my terrible memory.
It's the interruptions though... If I'm in the middle of something and get interrupted by phone call or somebody stopping by, it will take me 5 to 10 minutes at minimum to get back into what I was working on.
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I am a one-man shop and I would not be able to utilize this because it would be inefficient. I could see where this would be great for larger help desks.
I personally love to use live chat (as an end user) to get certain areas of support for things like billing issues or ask some basic questions because I can also be on the phone or do other things while I chat.
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@Carnival-Boy said in The power of Chat in IT Support:
Most of my users have learnt that tickets they raise themselves via e-mail tend to get resolved quicker than ones they submit verbally. Also, I often tell them to submit a ticket even when they're in my office, and explain that I might forget to resolve the problem otherwise with my terrible memory.
I'm a big advocate of this approach.
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@Breffni-Potter said in The power of Chat in IT Support:
Live chat is on a best effort basis but quite a few end users love it.
What do you use for you knowledge base backend?
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Ticketing systems seem to work best for everyone in a high-user SMB with a small IT department... everyone wins. Issues get seen by the entire IT department, can be distributed appropriately, and users can track them.
A stop in the hallway only results in one IT tech being exposed to the issue, most likely interrupting them on their way to do something else, and most likely being forgotten.
I can see that chat could get just as distracting as door-knocks, walk-ins, and phone-calls.
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@Tim_G said in The power of Chat in IT Support:
Ticketing systems seem to work best for everyone in a high-user SMB with a small IT department... everyone wins. Issues get seen by the entire IT department, can be distributed appropriately, and users can track them.
A stop in the hallway only results in one IT tech being exposed to the issue, most likely interrupting them on their way to do something else, and most likely being forgotten.
I can see that chat could get just as distracting as door-knocks, walk-ins, and phone-calls.
At my last job, we used Chat mainly for internal communication between folks in the department.
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@Tim_G OK, got your point and see its validity. But what about when you are servicing multiple, remote SMB customers with a team of 3+ support guys?
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@bogdan.moldovan said in The power of Chat in IT Support:
@Tim_G OK, got your point and see its validity. But what about when you are servicing multiple, remote SMB customers with a team of 3+ support guys?
If it's your job to take chat support requests, then great. That's probably better than tickets if it's not too busy, or if people aren't waiting too long for chat support. Chat would be good for resolving issues right away in real-time on a one-on-one basis.
But if you need to do other things, or actively focus on other tasks without a lot of distraction, then at least to me, tickets make the most sense.
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@bogdan.moldovan said in The power of Chat in IT Support:
@Tim_G OK, got your point and see its validity. But what about when you are servicing multiple, remote SMB customers with a team of 3+ support guys?
We use Rocket.Chat. It's awesome.
