Retail businesses are always busy – especially in the run up to holidays – and with Christmas around the corner, it’s time to think about how you can make your retail business run smoother during your busiest times. A great way to do this is by outsourcing your help desk. Whilst you might think that this might not make a big difference, you’d be surprised.

Outsourcing your help desk can help your retail business like this:

Increases productivity

Having staff manning your help desk means that they’re not busy doing other vital work throughout your store. Your employees should be out on the floor, making you money. Instead they’re taking calls that a third party vendor could easily field for you. No worker really likes taking help desk calls – the customers are rarely polite, always blame the person they’re speaking to and make your staff hate their job! Not only would they be more productive elsewhere, they’d be a lot happier – and happier staff work harder and are more loyal.

Saves you money

Outsourcing your retail help desk to a third party vendor can cut your costs significantly. Having an in-house service desk means that you are responsible for the hardware – telephones, computers and support equipment – as well as all software. All of this has to be bought, maintained and updated, not to mention repaired when it breaks down. None of this is cheap, especially if you need an emergency repair.

Training staff to work on the help desk is also an expense – as is keeping IT professionals on the payroll just in case. Having a third party manage all of this means you don’t have to. All of the equipment and service comes in a fixed rate low cost monthly package.

Makes you money

If your retail business has an over-worked help desk, it takes a long time to answer calls and help customers. Whether this is because there aren’t enough people manning the lines or there’s not enough equipment, it creates customer dissatisfaction. Having an outsourced help desk means that there will always be enough staff and hardware to answer customers faster – and a happy customer is more likely to stay with your firm – making you money.

More flexibility

One of the major complaints that customers have about help desks is the inconvenient times they are open. Most people work from 9-5, and most help desks are open from 9-5. Not great if you have an issue to resolve. Calling on weekends means your customers spend hours on hold which does nothing for mood or satisfaction rates.

Outsourcing your help desk gives you much more flexibility. You can be available 24/7. This is great for those 9 -5 customers, and even better for those customers across the country and abroad. Even when your physical location is closed, you can have customer support services spread across time zones ensuring your customers get the service they need when they need it.

Less stress

Outsourcing your retail help desk means that someone else has the headache of making everything run smoothly. Someone else keeps equipment up to date, finds replacements for broken and outdated equipment, and keeps a track of performance issues and any other problems. It’s a no brainer.

There are a variety of reasons to enlist the help of a third party when your help desk responsibilities become too great, and at Stratosphere Networks, we understand.  We can help create a managed system that helps your staff and your business. Call us at (877)599-3999 or fill out our contact form to see how your company specifically can benefit from an outsourced help desk.