Calling it Quits: How to Break Up with Tiered Support

Efficiency is always at the top of the list when it comes to company improvement. Driving sales and marketing tactics are important components to running a successful business, but the bottom line is that incoming clients aren’t the main source of revenue. A more effective strategy for increasing company profitability is to focus on changing the way your resources are spent and improving the processes from the inside out.

There are many approaches to this kind of improvement. Making sure that your employees are well trained, well equipped, and happy in their stations can make quite a difference in your day-to-day. The staffing of your company is the backbone of how it runs, and the mentality that your employees have is often reflected in your company’s image. What is, potentially, the most affecting method of streamlining your business is to eliminate the use of a tiered support method.

In a tiered support solution, there is a bottom level of support, in which the most basic support questions are addressed. If the customer contacts with a more complex concern, the ticket would be placed into a higher tier. Usually there are only two to three tiers in a system, depending on the level of complexity that your company regularly faces. This method developed naturally, but it has its issues. Your agents working the bottom support level, for one, will be under stimulated and overworked at the same time. Another issue is that customers with a complex ticket will be required to go through the first tier before they can be moved to the higher level, which creates unnecessary work for your employees and slows the process for a solution, often frustrating and displeasing the customer at the same time. Truly, the tiered method is in everyone’s worst interest.

The better, more logical solution for ticket organization is to form a collaborative workforce solution. In this model, tickets are assigned a certain priority level from the start, and separated into categories to be addressed by your customer service representatives (CSR’s) as a team. Tickets are assigned to agents as they come in, and resolved as quickly as possible by the assigned CSR. In this scenario, if an issue isn’t able to be immediately resolved, the CSR in question would rely on support from his or her teammates to find a solution together.

Not only does the collaborative workforce solution provide a more stimulating and diverse environment for employees to invest themselves in, it also gives the customers a better, more cohesive experience, and quicker resolution times.
In the long run, breaking up with your tiered support system will benefit everyone involved, even if the transition takes time.

Make your first move today. PhaseWare’s customer service software is ready and waiting to help improve and streamline your customer support system, whenever you are! Start a Free Trial today (no credit card required) and test drive our solution. Feel free to contact us with any questions. 

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