Helpdesks in the Modern Corporate World - Essay Example

Help desks play an increasingly important role in the modern corporate world. As a corporation grows, so does its customer base. An increasing number of customers will, by extension, lead to an increase in post-sales service needs. This is where the help desk becomes important. Issues handled include enquiries on products, instruction manuals, complains regarding expiries or manufacture faults just to name a few. As the old adage goes, the customer is king, and ignoring his needs is detrimental to any business. Operators have now been replaced with professional staff who understand the business and can serve not only internal organizational functions like redirecting calls, but can also assist customers by making them get better service. The type and set-up of a helpdesk will largely depend on the structure of the organization, type of business and number of clients served. A huge telecommunications company will typically have a call center with tens (maybe even hundreds) of customer care assistants who will receive calls and attend to the needs of the subscriber. In the event that the first responder cannot assist then he passes it on to someone else who can. This chain ensures that the customer gets better service and his inquiry is answered. If the query requires more time then the customer is such informed and will get a reply as and when it will be ready. On the other hand, a small sized company dealing in duplicate paper sales would rarely have more than one person at the help desk, who would quite often double up as the company secretary or receptionist. Or both. Helpdesks are not only limited to telephone based helpdesks. Another common use is the e-mails. Typically these would take a lot longer to get a reply, simply for the reason that listening is a lot faster than reading, and speaking than typing. Speed of service is not the only edge that telephone helpdesks enjoy over e-mail. During a telephone conversation one can easily clarify information that is not clear to him. An e-mail, on the other hand, would require a back-and-forth exchange which may last hours and even days. To solve this problem, most organizations have introduced the online chat assistant, where the operator and customer exchange instant messages online. In many ways this system has been revolutionary and many customers have expressed their satisfaction with it. However, it isn’t without fault. Albeit more reliable than e-mails, it still has the handicap of overdependence on internet connectivity speed. A slow connection would typically lead to a break in the chat. The help desk I chose to call is for the United States Internal Revenue Service (+1-866-704-73-88). Just like all organizations of its caliber, the IRS has several helpdesks, ranging from those for general inquiries, vacancy applications and internal switchboards to lines specially dedicated to report fraud cases. This specific one I called is used for filling electronic tax returns. As required by law every American citizen of working age must submit his or her tax returns at the end of each financial year. The same applies to businesses: they have to submit complete records of income earned and respective taxes paid to the IRS at the end of each financial year. To file these returns electronically one would require an electronic filing PIN, which this helpdesk would help generate. As a rule of the thumb, individuals are by far more than corporate entities. The IRS thus came up with an electronic filing system for tax returns for individuals. It is a logical step to go digital given that almost all Americans have access to the internet. The old system was tedious, time consuming and would require one o be present physically in order to hand in his returns. Those living and working outside the country had to find a way to come back stateside to hand in their returns. This system has two main advantages: It reduces use of paper, thus being in-line with the government’s eco-friendly policy. The second advantage is that it makes the work of both the customers and the service clerks easy. At the start a female voice welcomes you to the system and you are prompted to select the language of use, English or Spanish, by pressing either 1 or 2 respectively. To me, this shows that the service recognizes the diversity of people living in the modern American population and speaks volume about how sensitive it is to society. According to the American Community Survey of 2011,just under 40 million people in USA speak Spanish, making America the 5th largest Spanish speaking nation in the world. Thus it is a logical step for the IRS to take up the use of Spanish as one of is interface languages. After selecting the language, the voice proceeds to explain to you what information one needs to file their electronic tax returns i.e prior year PIN, the Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) or your electronic filing PIN. This particular helpdesk is to assist you retrieve you electronic filing PIN. All these instructions are explained clearly, step by step and are easy for anyone to understand. At the next stage the system will verify your identity by checking your social security number, date of birth and ZIP code. All these are to prevent cases of fraud, especially identity theft, which were quite common with the old manual system. Here I was prompted to key in these details, and was instructed in which order to do so. For example the date is entered in the American format of month first, then the date, then the year. One is also given sufficient time to enter these details. After entering the details, he system repeats them to you as entered and asks you to confirm if they are correct or re-enter if there is an error. You cannot proceed to the next sage without confirming that the data entered in the previous step was correct. Once all this information has been verified then the voice says out your electronic filing PIN to you, one number at a time. Slowly but clearly. There is also the option to hear the PIN one more time in case you missed it the first time. After that the voice thanks you for using this system and bids you goodbye. The system has been set up in a way that makes it completely autonomous. If one follows the instructions, which are simple enough and very clear, then there is no need to speak to the operator. It automatically checks all the details entered against a database. All the data i.e social security number, date of birth and zip code must match. If they don’t then it is likely a case of fraud and this is directed to the operator. However, not all times does this point to fraud. The operator shall be able to verify your identity by asking you farther questions. Waiting for the operator to respond takes considerably longer, up to fifteen minutes in some cases. As you wait you will be informed of how much longer you need to wait in line. This is important too as waiting while you don’t know how much longer you need to wait can be very frustrating. The whole experience left me impressed with how I had been setup. First of all, the call went through directly, at the first attempt. Usually either the line is busy and just won’t go through at all, or the line is busy and you have to wait in queue, listening to some music tune or advertisement. The option of a second language was an impressive feature as well. It sends out the right message regarding the respect to diversity in population and also expands largely the base of clients that can use the system without needing a translator. All instructions are clear, the voice speaks slowly and in simple English. The entire duration of the call averages just over 3 minutes, which is acceptable for me. On the other side, I feel that slight adjustments to the system could make it a bit better. At the very beginning, one should be asked to keep the information he needs close by. Also, after entering data, the system should immediately inform the user whether it is correct or not. As it stands now, you are only informed the information is no correct at the end of the interactive. Thus you would not know which of the three was entered incorrectly. The system is highly efficient and user friendly. The extra built-in security features protect users from potential fraudsters. The voice is also loud enough and one does not need to strain to hear the voice. There is also no waiting time and the call goes through immediately. The language is simple, instructions entered are confirmed a each stage and this eliminates redundancy. On a scale of one to ten, I rate it as a solid 9.5. NO YES NO YES Read More