5 IT Service Desk Clichés You Should Avoid

Some clichés have lost all meaning in the domain of customer service and support. Resorting to any one of these could result in a customer immediately losing trust in a company or organization. What is important though is the intention behind the cliché - not the actual phrasing. If these clichés are a part of your strategy or tactics for providing better customer service and support, it might be time to make sure they are implemented correctly and are carrying the right message or signal to your customers. If not, they could backfire badly for your organization. 

In this article we discuss 5 clichés about the IT Service desk that you should try and avoid at all cost: 

1. The Phone Transfer Cliché

While most customers might expect that their call will be transferred to the right person or department for resolution, this is still a serious cliché to be aware of. Whilst it may be unavoidable in some cases,  efforts should be made to empower your agents to resolve queries at the first point of contact. When this is not possible, make sure that the customer doesn’t have to repeat their query from beginning to the end when they speak to each new agent. This can become really frustrating and irritating for the customer.

2. The “We’re Busier than Expected” Cliché

This is the kind of cliché that you may encounter while waiting in a phone queue, sitting in restaurants or possibly in any brick-and-mortar store. The company or the store will explain that they are generally used to the volume of traffic inflow, and request that it would be very kind of the customers to wait a bit longer before they get served. Now, this is a cliché to avoid because the customer always expects ready and prompt service. Saving their time is your duty. Customer loyalty cannot be guaranteed in today's 'always on' world. The customer will have a bad impression of your service, and the likelihood is they will not return to you. There may be occasions when this response is unavoidable (for example, at the government's tax department during financial year end), but make sure this isn't the norm for your customers.

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3. The “I Will Inform Management” Cliché

This cliché too is one to avoid. Whenever a customer is highly upset with something, a common reply from the customer support team is that they will communicate the issue to a higher level of management. But what it really conveys to the customer is that nothing in reality is going to be done. Most people are smart enough to realize that it is no more than a false promise. If the matter is truly beyond the scope of the service of a front line agent, the best way to deal with it is by following up an appointment with the concerned customer. This creates time to improve the customer experience and address the customer’s issue.

4. The cliché of not updating your customers at regular intervals

There is nothing more frustrating than never receiving an update or response from customer service after submitting a ticket. As days pass by, it adds to the frustration factor for customers. However, if there is a system or process that allows customers to see or track that their ticket is received and its current status, this is far better. Your customers can see that they are not being let down,and even if it is a delayed response, they are more likely to be patient. Avoid keeping your customer in the dark - this is another cliché that can have a detrimental effect on customer satisfaction.

5. The cliché of scattered information

Keeping the right information stored in the right place so  it is very easy to find and locate for your customers when they get stuck with something is a sign of dedicated customer service. Otherwise, even if you have the very best of resources for addressing customer queries and problems, they are of literally no use if customers have to spend hours to try and find them. If a ticketing system has a powerful search engine, it becomes an easy task for customers to find what they need. Thus, the cliché of having your knowledge base scattered, making it difficult for customers to find information and use it is our final cliché to avoid.

By following these points a business can provide better customer service and support which leads to happy customers and strong relationships.

Today's blog is courtesy of our guest author Vaishali Gopi, an enthusiastic digital marketer and content writer at Freshservice by Freshworks. Vaishali is a frequent blogger with a keen interest in ITSM and ITIL.