How to Measure the Effectiveness of Your Help Desk ROI?
Companies should invest in help desk tools that can assist them in taking care of customer concerns. After all, customers expect brands to increase their digitization efforts post pandemic.
Help desk tools are integral to any successful business, providing essential customer service. The help desk market size is projected to reach $11 billion by 2023.
Providing excellent customer support is as important as giving the best products or services. This was how the help desk tool came to be.
But it can be difficult to measure the Return on Investment (ROI) of a help desk operation. Knowing the ROI is critical because it allows companies to understand how their help desk is performing.
Measuring the effectiveness of a help desk requires careful consideration of key metrics, such as cost efficiency, customer satisfaction, and employee performance. The blog outlines a checklist of best practices for measuring your help desk ROI and includes tips for how to improve it.
Table of Content
- 1 What is Help Desk ROI?
- 2 How Does Help Desk ROI Work?
- 3 4 Tangible Benefits of Measuring Help Desk ROI
- 4 Examples of Effective Help Desk ROI
- 5 How to Measure Your Help Desk ROI: 5 Important Steps
- 6 Tips & Techniques to Improve Help Desk ROI
- 7 Scale Customer Support Standards by Measuring Help Desk ROI
- 8 FAQs on Help Desk Return on Investment (ROI)
What is Help Desk ROI?
Help Desk ROI, or Return on Investment, can be defined as the measurement of the cost-effectiveness of implementing a help desk system. It includes setting up and maintaining a help desk system as well as the benefits it provides in terms of organizational efficiency. By determining how much money is saved or earned through a help desk tool, businesses can determine whether it is a worthwhile investment for them.
When using Help Desk ROI, there are several metrics that must be taken into account to accurately measure the efficiency of your helpdesk services. These include: customer satisfaction ratings, response times, uptime/availability, number of resources needed to complete tasks, user experience ratings, incident resolution rates, and call handling times.
Key objective
- Cost optimization: Identifying opportunities to reduce operational costs while maintaining or improving service quality through efficient resource allocation and process improvements.
- Service quality enhancement: Measuring and improving the effectiveness of help desk solutions to minimize resolution times and maximize first-contact resolution rates.
- Business impact assessment: Quantifying the help desk’s contribution to business continuity by measuring reduced downtime and improved workforce productivity.
- Customer experience improvement: Evaluating and enhancing customer satisfaction levels through better service delivery and proactive support measures.
How Does Help Desk ROI Work?
Help Desk ROI tracks the value businesses gain from customer support investments, measuring improvements in efficiency, customer satisfaction, and cost savings.
- Increased Efficiency
A help desk system automates repetitive tasks, streamlining workflows and reducing response time. This allows support teams to focus on complex issues, resulting in higher productivity and faster resolutions, which boosts ROI. - Enhanced Customer Satisfaction
Quick, accurate resolutions through a help desk system improve customer satisfaction. Happier customers are more likely to remain loyal and recommend services, contributing to higher retention rates and repeat business, thus enhancing ROI. - Cost Reduction
Help desks optimize support by automating tasks, reducing the need for additional staff. With lower overhead costs and efficient service delivery, businesses experience significant savings that positively impact their overall ROI. - Data-Driven Insights
Help desk analytics provide valuable insights on customer issues and agent performance. These insights help identify trends, bottlenecks, and areas for improvement, enabling businesses to make data-driven decisions that increase efficiency and ROI. - Scalability for Growth
As businesses grow, a scalable help desk solution can handle an increasing volume of customer inquiries without proportional increases in cost. This scalability ensures continuous value generation, leading to long-term improvements in ROI.
4 Tangible Benefits of Measuring Help Desk ROI
The main goal of a Head of Support or CIO is to maximize ROI by leveraging a help desk tool. According to HubSpot, 86% of service teams note that having a help desk system increases their productivity.
Key benefits:
- Improved efficiency: Measuring Help Desk ROI, businesses can identify areas where their help desk system is inefficient or ineffective and make improvements accordingly. This can lead to better customer service and improved efficiency when addressing inquiries.
- Cost savings: Through measuring Help Desk ROI, businesses can also determine whether their current help desk system is cost-effective or not. If it is not, then this can lead to cost savings in the long term.
- Improved customer satisfaction: Tracking client satisfaction over time, businesses can determine how successful their help desk system is at meeting client needs and expectations. This can be used to improve the quality of service and increase customer satisfaction overall.
- Increased profitability: Measuring Help Desk ROI, businesses can also increase their profitability by ensuring that their help desk system is as cost-effective and efficient as possible. This can lead to improved customer service and higher levels of sales overall.
Examples of Effective Help Desk ROI
Customer satisfaction surveys show how well businesses meet expectations. They provide insights to improve products, services, and experiences.
- Increased First Contact Resolution Rate
When customers are able to get the answers they need right away with their first contact, you don’t need support staff engaging in multiple transactions with the customer. This saves your organization valuable time and resources which will result in higher productivity.
- Improved Quality Of Service
Quality is key when it comes to customer service – if you have a slow or unintuitive process for resolving issues, customers aren’t going to stick around for long. Help desk workflow makes sure customers have access to helpful information quickly and that their inquiries are addressed promptly for maximum success rate, as well as ROI improvement over time.
- Automated Ticket Routing System
Help desk software often comes with automated ticket routing systems that assign tickets to agents based on their particular expertise, leading to quicker problem resolution times and improved overall efficiency – another great way to measure ROI with these tools!
- Tracking Customer Feedback & Satisfaction Metrics
These metrics serve as excellent benchmarks when evaluating the effectiveness of your help desk software investment, since they show you how satisfied customers are with the level of quality your team delivers in both speed and accuracy of problem resolution.
How to Measure Your Help Desk ROI: 5 Important Steps
When it comes to managing a help desk, measuring Return on Investment (ROI) can be incredibly valuable as it helps you understand how effective efforts allow you to make adjustments where needed.
1. Track Response Times
Measurement of your help desk’s response time will give the team an idea of how quickly they’re able to reach customers or clients after their query is put in. This helps identify any bottlenecks in the workflow or other areas that could use improvement for greater efficiency.
2. Record Requests and Feedback
Keeping track of all incoming requests as well as customer feedback is also important so that you can better understand where there might be more demand or areas for improvement in service planning and execution.
3. Monitor Ticket Resolution Rate
Keeping track of how many requests actually get resolved successfully through the help desk will provide insight into operational effectiveness and any potential challenges related to answering those queries on time.
4. Analyze Customer Sentiment
Survey customer sentiment regarding their satisfaction with the help desk’s performance in responding to queries, so that you can gain a deeper understanding of user experience when interacting with it.
5. Determine Overall Success Rate
The ultimate metric for determining ROI is calculating the overall success rate, which is done by tracking tickets that were closed without issue or had some form of complaint attached to them (such as technical difficulties). This helps assess whether the help desk system is meeting its goals due diligence in addressing issues, or if further improvements need to be made in certain areas or channels of operation
Tips & Techniques to Improve Help Desk ROI
A help desk is vital for delivering strong customer support and boosting satisfaction. However, maximizing its ROI requires following key tips and best practices.
1. Invest in quality tools: Investing in high-quality tools & software for your help desk system can increase efficiency and reduce the amount of time spent on customer queries. This can result in improved customer service and higher levels of ROI.
2. Utilize automation tools: Automation tools such as chatbots can help to reduce the amount of time spent on customer queries. This can result in higher levels of efficiency and cost savings, ultimately leading to improved ROI.
3. Provide adequate training: Providing adequate training for staff members can help them become more efficient and knowledgeable when addressing customer problems. This can lead to better customer service and improved ROI overall.
4. Streamline processes: By streamlining processes and procedures, businesses can reduce the amount of time spent on customer issues. This can lead to improved efficiency, cost savings, and higher ROI over time.
5. Analyze customer data: Analyzing customer data such as purchase history or support tickets, businesses can gain insight into how customers are using their help desk system and what areas need improvement. This can help businesses make informed decisions to improve ROI.
6. Monitor performance: Monitoring the performance of your help desk system can help you identify areas for improvement and make adjustments as necessary. This can lead to improved customer service and higher ROI over time.
7. Utilize self-service options: Utilizing self-service options such as FAQs or knowledge bases can help to reduce the amount of time spent on customer concerns. It can lead to cost savings and higher ROI overall.
8. Monitor and adjust: Regularly monitoring and adjusting your help desk system can help to ensure that it is performing at its best. This could involve making changes to hardware or software, providing additional training for staff, or any other adjustments that could help to improve customer satisfaction and reduce costs.
Scale Customer Support Standards by Measuring Help Desk ROI
Measuring help desk RoI is an important part of scaling up a customer service team, as it helps inform decisions about resource investments and performance metrics within various business initiatives undertaken by companies these days (as said above!).
If done correctly – i.e, measuring KPIs accordingly, being aware of the budget allocated both internally & externally circumspectly! outside regular tasks along with leveraging automation tools at peer levels appropriately – success should hit milestones like clockwork, properly scrutinize all angles, remember goals were set initially, and take note of firsthand among peers.
Tushar Joshi is a passionate content writer at Omni24, where he transforms complex concepts into clear, engaging and actionable content. With a keen eye for detail and a love for technology, Tushar Joshi crafts blog posts, guides and articles that help readers navigate the fast-evolving world of software solutions.
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FAQs on Help Desk Return on Investment (ROI)
What is ROI in the help desk?
Return on investment (ROI) in help desk is a metric that compares how much a team earns to how much it costs. It’s calculated using a simple formula: ((money gained – money spent) / money spent) x 100 = ROI.
How can businesses use help desk analytics to improve their ROI?
Businesses can use a live chat plugin of a help desk system that can help in providing real-time analytics to capture reliable leads on your website. So instead of people visiting your website once and leaving, you can get hold of their crucial information. For example, you can share pre-chat forms with visitors to capture their basic details such as name, mobile number, email address, gender, age, etc. All this data can be directly synced with your CRM tool so that you can conduct successful marketing campaigns in the future.
What role does employee training play in improving help desk RoI?
Employee training plays a vital role in boosting help desk return on investment.
- Employee training helps individuals develop new skills and acquire updated knowledge relevant to their roles .
- Training programs provide employees with the chance to develop their skills, opening doors for career growth and advancement within the organization.
- Training helps employees stay updated with industry trends and technological advancements, enabling them to adapt to changes more effectively.
- Training programs encourage employees to think creatively and find innovative solutions to problems, fostering a culture of innovation within the organization.
- Well-trained employees are better equipped to meet customer needs, resulting in improved customer satisfaction and loyalty.
What are some common challenges businesses face when trying to improve help desk ROI?
Help desk faces several challenges in enforcing service levels, providing adequate coverage, managing staff turnover and scaling to meet demand.
- Customer satisfaction: You receive too many complaints about availability and resolution.
- Coverage: You’d like to expand coverage hours but can’t justify the cost of increasing your headcount.
- Service levels: You don’t have documented service levels. Or, if you do, you don’t enforce them.
- Best practices & expert tools: You don’t have critical tools, processes and practices in place to inspect what you expect.
- Scalability: You have trouble scaling up and scaling down to meet fluctuations in demand.
