When it comes to providing great customer support, there is a common misconception that it’s the simplest part of running a business. You get a few people to answer the phones and respond to emails and you are good to go, right? Wrong….. When you are dealing with tens of thousands of end users spread across the United States, Mexico, and Canada, from hourly restaurant employees to C-level executives your support process has to be just that, a process. If your support process is designed to be more convenient for you than your client, then you are doing something wrong. Or maybe it wasn’t intentionally designed to be that way, but in a world where product development and innovation are the driving forces behind technology companies, support can get lost in the background.
When courting clients that are in search of a back office restaurant solution, the first thing we mention is that Rosnet was built with support in the forefront. We even say that ROSnet stands for Restaurant Operations Support Network. And while it’s not very glamourous and the importance may not resonate at that very moment with potential clients, we make it known that providing first class support sets us apart from the competition.
So, what’s one thing that makes our restaurant managment software different (better 😉)? To get a good answer we are going to have to peel back a few layers and I’m going to need some help! Let me introduce you to our Manager of Client Services, Tracey Wharton.
Tracey has been with Rosnet 3 and a half years and it’s safe to say that things were not close to perfect when she arrived. I sat down with Tracey to get a clearer understanding of the evolution of our journey to achieving a near perfect client satisfaction score.
Q: How would you describe the state of the client support process when you joined the team?
A: It is fair to say that we were under staffed and overwhelmed. When resources are an issue, parts of the process suffer. We trained only the bare minimum and we were a bit short sighted in our planning. However, our biggest strength was and still is how much the team genuinely cares about the quality of service given.
Q: You mentioned training, what does that the training program look like now?
A: We train for four weeks in a classroom setting learning the ins and outs of the system, then progress to phone training for the next two weeks. All new hires remain on a training schedule for the next several months to ensure their success in assisting our clients. For support, training never stops. Our product is always improving and technology is always changing. We have weekly reviews where we focus our training on recent support requests and monthly training for new features and enhancements.
Q: What other tools are you using to aid in the support process?
A: We chose Zendesk, a market leading ticketing system known for its efficiency, analysis capability, and client facing features. It is a running joke in the office that I work for Zendesk since I am always singing its praises, but there are too many features to name that help our ticket handling run seamlessly.
Q: How has Zendesk enhanced support?
A: Thanks to all of the reporting available, we are able to identify opportunities of improvement with our ticket processes, system knowledge, and potential development changes. This system works well for us, but also our clients. It allows our clients access to all their support requests in a user-friendly site which also includes our Help Center documentation.
Q: It’s great that you have the training down and the tools in place to take care of our clients, but how are you actually measuring the effectiveness?
A: We measure our success with a few key metrics: reply times, resolution times, and one touch resolutions. These values allow us to see if we are responding to the client in a timely manner and solving their issues with the first try. We use these to measure our overall health. Somethings cannot be measured with metrics, so we value feedback from our clients. We run monthly survey campaigns to see how our clients think we are doing and we are very proud of our 97% satisfaction rating for 2017.
Q: This sounds a little too perfect if you ask me! What is something that you are continually working on and trying to improve?
A: Training. You can never know too much about a system and Rosnet’s systems are complex with lots of moving pieces. The more knowledgeable we are, the more efficient we can be.
Q: Ok, going off of that, what do you see going on in our market and how does that impact our internal process as well as our clients?
A: Market trend is tailored to self-help. Majority of users prefer to use a help forum for simple questions rather than calling a help desk. We are aligning with that trend with our expansion and dedication to our Help Center documentation. Improvements to our documentations is a huge win for our clients and support.
Q: Tracey, thank you for this glimpse into our support team. One last question for you! What do you think sets our support process apart from our competitors?
A: Everyone at Rosnet! We are a very support centric company, so every department plans with support in mind. We have a great team mentality which helps us provide great service. Every department has worked alongside support to assist in finding resolutions for our clients.
As you can see, we take support very seriously here at Rosnet. We know it’s not enough to have a world class product, you have to have the right tools and people in place to keep pushing forward. At the end of the day it’s the needs of our clients that drive us to develop a better product and deliver outstanding service. Even though we are in the ever-changing technology industry and our product will continue to evolve, our clients know that the level of service and support they receive will always remain consistent.
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