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Ever found yourself torn between helpdesk software that either breaks the bank or baffles with complexity?
Striking the perfect balance—discovering a tool that's both budget-friendly and user-friendly—is critical for smooth sailing in your operations.
In this guide, we'll dive deep into the unique hurdles small businesses face in customer support, pinpoint what to look for in a ticketing system, and introduce you to Thena—an intelligent customer management solution that effortlessly syncs with your current business tools.
Here’s a breakdown of what you’re going to learn:
In recent years, for small businesses, the only constant has been change. When the pandemic started, many businesses were forced to change how they worked and find new ways to talk to their customers.
Digital tools, like social media and chatbots, are becoming a big deal in customer service. More businesses are using them to help customers 24/7.
But it's not just about being available all the time. It's also about giving customers the power to help themselves. That's why we see more companies adding things like knowledge bases and FAQ features on their websites. This makes it easier for customers to get answers without waiting in line or on hold.
That said, 36% of customers still want to talk to real humans, whether it's through email, phone calls, chats, or even social media. And businesses know this. That's why they're using instant messaging tools to understand their customers better and give them a personal experience that feels just right.
In short, small businesses are adopting digital tools for customer service, yet many customers still prefer human interactions, leading to a blend of automation and personalized communication.
When your business is small and you work with a handful of clients, you might have no intention of getting a special tool to provide support. And while email is fine in the interim, as you start scaling your business, it’ll no longer suffice.
Here are three advantages why it pays off to have a helpdesk ticketing system:
In smaller businesses, staff members, no matter their role, often communicate directly with customers. Take a marketing agency as an example: an account manager, a copywriter, and a designer might all interact directly with a client.
This close interaction fosters a stronger bond and trust between you and your customers, leading to more personalized support. Thus, the perfect ticketing system shouldn't compromise the unique relationship you have with your clients.
Here are some other features you should pay attention to:
The adage "time is money" rings true, especially for small businesses. With fewer resources, teams can't afford to spend hours learning complicated systems.
Complex ticketing solutions often mean a steep learning curve. You want to be looking for a user-friendly, intuitive interface to get your team up to speed in no time. Plus, you must think about the nature of your business and what your clients are used to when contacting you for support. Getting a super complicated helpdesk system can discourage clients from communicating their issues with you.
A robust helpdesk prioritizes effortless ticket creation through a user-friendly interface. Once your customer communicates the issue, you want your system to automatically create a ticket while also sending an acknowledgment to the customer.
In addition, look for a solution that provides full visibility to both your customers and agents. For small businesses, such transparency isn't just a feature—it's essential for building lasting trust and customer relationships.
Small businesses often utilize a variety of tools for different functions. Helpdesk software for small businesses should easily integrate with these existing tools to provide a seamless experience.
Purchasing an out-of-the-box ticketing solution might seem like an easy step. But you need to think whether it’ll work with your current tech stack. Whether it's syncing with a marketing tool for email campaigns or integrating with Salesforce for sales tracking, the right helpdesk platform should enhance, not hinder, your current systems. Plus, it means your agents can have a 360-degree view of customers.
When you work with, let’s say, 20 clients, customer service data isn’t your primary concern. But as your business and customer demands grow, looking at numbers becomes pivotal.
Search for small business helpdesk software that provides detailed analytics on team performance, customer satisfaction scores, and even chat histories. This data will be invaluable later down the line.
Active listening is the bedrock of continuous improvement. Your small business helpdesk software should have features that allow for easy feedback collection from customers post-interaction. Whether it's through simple star ratings, feedback forms, or surveys, these insights can guide your service improvements and highlight areas where your team excels.
Thena is a Slack-based customer service ticketing system designed for businesses of all sizes. Fitting perfectly in your Slack workspace, Thena manages customer inquiries from various channels, including email, web forms, and Slack messages.
The main Thena’s features include:
Being in touch with your customers on Slack means support questions can arise at any time.
Instead of manually assigning customer issues to agents, Thena automatically detects these queries in Slack chats and converts them into support tickets. Agents can then sort, prioritize, escalate, or wrap up these tickets once they're addressed.
Additionally, Thena’s intuitive dashboard and tagging system allow you to arrange tickets by importance, category, and the nature of the customer's profile.
In smaller businesses, team members often juggle multiple roles. Product and account managers, for instance, might handle customer support tasks in addition to their main duties. If they're given complex ticketing software, they can easily become overwhelmed.
Thena provides a solution. It offers automated Slack workflows that streamline customer support operations. Moreover, it automates repetitive, low-value activities. For instance, with Thena, you can use emojis to indicate a ticket's status, whether it's under review or already resolved.
Such automation not only expedites response time but also ensures that tickets are directed to the right personnel from the beginning.
Do you ever feel like you’re always responding to the same queries from your customers? With Thena, you no longer have to do it manually thanks to its cutting-edge AI technologies.
This shines through in its knowledge base integration, where AI utilizes stored data to formulate instant responses for your customers. You can even edit responses as you see fit directly in Slack.
Small businesses, often operating with tighter margins and closer customer relationships, stand to gain immensely from customer service data as it offers direct insights into client pain points and desires.
Thena’s analytics dashboard makes it easy to track customer service metrics, identify risks, and spot opportunities for upselling or cross-selling.
You can monitor the total number of customer requests created, as well as escalated requests, one-touch resolutions, median first response times, CSAT responses over time, and more.
Apart from its features mentioned above, Thena excels in the following areas:
There comes a time in your business when investing in customer support automation becomes the next essential step for growth.
With Thena, you can progress faster than with any other tool on the market. Integrate Thena into your Slack workspace and begin managing your customers more intelligently.
