Mojo Helpdesk Support Portal Design Contest: Winners Announced

Thank you to all who entered in our Support Portal Design Contest! We received entries from an awesome range of organizations from all across the country. Our users are taking advantage of our redesigned portal features such as a custom background and knowledge base.

Check out our winners below:

Grand Prize: MediaSpark




We loved the tagline "There is a 90% chance that your question is answered below…" and it had a strong theme. They also integrated the Knowledge Base, which was great. Mathew Georghiou received a full Das Keyboard Prize pack, include an awesome keyboard.

This theme has a good incorporation of their logo in the news column area, as well as a relaxing cloud theme. Michael San Filippo received a $50 Amazon gift card for this submission.

2nd Place: Essilor Lab Sales Operations




We liked that the Essilor Ops page incorporated a video and a knowledge base while also featuring one of our custom themes. Dennis Caunce won an office pizza party for sending this in.

3rd Place: Institute of International Education




Relaxing clouds and a incorporating a logo earned Institute of International Education 3rd place.

Thanks to all who submitted to our contest this time around! Want to customize your own portal? Follow these tips:

Login to Mojo Helpdesk , click manage >> 'support portal' >>'design'. From there, simply choose a theme, pick your colors, click save, and voila... your help center will look amazing.

There's no coding or HTML knowledge necessary, although HTML is supported if you want to get real fancy.

How can I try Mojo?

Get a free 30 day trial by signing up at the Mojo Helpdesk home page.

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Re-Tweet and Win a Chromebook from Mojo Helpdesk

We are having a contest to raise awareness of Mojo Helpdesk. Customers love how Mojo improves their productivity and internal task management. If you haven’t tried it yet, sign up for a 30-day free trial.

To enter:

• Follow @mojohelpdesk
• Tweet:  “I want to win a Chromebook. To enter, follow @mojohelpdesk, the helpdesk app, & RT this msg: http://bit.ly/M9dH9E”

Contest starts Tuesday, June 5th and ends promptly at Midnight (CST) on Friday, June 8th.

We'll post the winner Monday, June 11th on Twitter.

Recipients must live in the US.

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10 Ways to Build Customer Trust

The main factor that distinguishes a company that customers feel loyalty towards and those they just do business with is trust. The first step to gaining that trust is to consistently provide quality goods and services, but the factor that really seals it for most customers is the quality of the customer service. If customers feel confident that their questions and issues will be resolved quickly and satisfactorily by someone competent, it goes a long way towards encouraging repeat business. For any company looking to build customer trust, these 10 suggestions are good guidelines to follow.

1. Be Easy to Reach. Every customer should know how to get in touch with customer service. Don’t bury phone numbers and email addresses on a hard to find page on the website. Make sure all inquiries get directly to a human being, as it can be very frustrating to receive an automated response when facing a problem.
2. Keep it Personal. Each customer should be assigned to one representative. Contacting a company about a problem can be more daunting than contacting the individual who was helpful and knowledgeable last time that the customer now feels comfortable with. Mojo Helpdesk makes it easy to make sure customers are consistently assigned to the same representative.
3. Be Honest.  If there’s a problem, address it. Don’t try to dodge it or cover it up. When unsure of what’s causing the problem or how to fix it, it’s better to be honest and show a willingness to learn more than to risk offering inaccurate information.
4. Be Human. It’s easier to trust a human being than an entity.  Make sure customers know the name of the representative they work with and avoid keeping the language used overly formal and stiff.
5. Stay in Touch. Keep customers in the loop with emails about company and product updates and specials. Strive to keep the company top of mind though be careful not to overload inboxes.
6. Don’t be Afraid to Apologize. Dodging blame when the company or representative is at fault is a surefire way to lose trust. People appreciate when someone can admit an error.
7. Be Quick to Make Amends. Respond to any bad customer experience or company mistake with something to make up for it. Make returns easy and offer a future discount, a free item or something comparable that will show customers that concern for their satisfaction isn’t just talk.
8. Be informed. No one’s prepared for every possible issue, but customer service representatives should be trained well enough in the company’s products and services to ensure their responses are always well informed.
9. Be proactive. If there’s a problem with a product or a mistake that’s been made, contact customers before they have the chance to learn about it themselves the hard way.
10. Maintain positivity. Throughout every customer service correspondence, be reassuring and optimistic that a resolution will be realized.

By simply treating customers with respect and honesty, a company can rise above many competitors. By incorporating the rest of these tips, a company will benefit from a reputation of good customer service to the level of customer trust that inspires long-term loyalty. Between repeat business and word of mouth, loyal customers are the best resource a business can hope for.

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5 Tips for Providing Great Customer Service Via Email

Email has become the most ubiquitous and basic of business tools. Likely to be the first thing someone checks when starting the workday, email is now the primary method for business communication. As such, it’s imperative that a business think through the role email plays in customer service.

There are many benefits to employing email as a customer service tool, but certain risks and weaknesses as well. Most people have experienced the embarrassment of a thoughtless typo or an email whose tone was misconstrued by the recipient. Create a set of rules for email conduct that all customer service representatives are expected to follow to avoid some of the most basic email errors. Include guidelines that may seem like common sense, such as never using profanity, along with less obvious suggestions like avoiding jokes, or anything at all political. Train employees in the company’s preferred tone for use in written correspondence.

Always proofread. No email should be sent without being read over first. Typos are embarrassing, unprofessional and, in especially egregious cases, can obscure meaning. Proofreading ensures each email possesses the clarity and professionalism that shows the company in the right light. If a customer service representative doesn’t take the time for such a basic task, it sends a message to customers that they and their concerns are unimportant to the company.

As people are busy and time is one of the most valuable commodities there is, make the point you need to in the fewest words possible. Needlessly lengthy emails are likely to be only partially read or skimmed, causing important information to be overlooked. If the issue being addressed is especially complicated, determine whether a phone call would be a better approach rather than a long email.  Then follow-up after the call with an email summary of the phone conversation (in case of complex instructions, etc).

While a reply doesn’t need to be immediate, the goal for every customer service email should be to respond within a business day. This shows that the customer service representative is attentive, and helps prevent letting an issue drop off the radar. For problems that take longer to resolve, requesting customers to create a ticket in Mojo Helpdesk is an easy way to ensure that the issue will stay visible to the assigned representative until it’s solved.

To make providing customer service with email easier on representatives, create template responses to the most common customer issues. Chances are, the company encounters certain questions or problems with more frequency than others. By working out the best response to each of these frequently asked questions, and offering them to representatives in an easy to access space, such as the Helpdesk, the company can be sure that representatives provide the preferred proof-read responses and cut down on the time required to respond to many customer service issues.

As with any customer service tool, email can be used effectively or detrimentally. By implementing the proper process to ensure tone and avoid typos, and with encouragement to have your customer service team take the time to mindfully and carefully review correspondences before sending, basic email blunders can be easily avoided.

Would you like to try our free, hosted ticket tracking/helpdesk application? No long-term contracts, signup fees, or termination fees. You can upgrade, downgrade, or cancel anytime. We offer a wide variety of plans to fit any budget.

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Tip of the Week: Sending Text Notifications of New or Newly Assigned Tickets

Did you know that it is possible to send someone a text message from an email? Basically, every cell phone number can be sent an email that will be converted to a text if you know the correct email address to send it to. If this is news to you, check out this list of email addresses that can be used to send text messages to phones. Just replace "number" with the 10 digit phone number you want to text.

Using this information, it is possible to create an automation that will send a text message when a new ticket is created or when a ticket is assigned to someone. Go to the Automations link from the manage menu at the top of the page and click the new button to create a new automation. Give your automation a title and description, then set the filters. If you want a text every time a new ticket is created, click the button next to selected statuses and choose new for the status. If you would rather, you can apply this to newly assigned tickets by choosing assigned from the selected statuses menu.

Go to the actions section and click the box next to Send an email. Enter the email address for the cell number you want to receive the text in the To blank of the email form. Enter a subject and text for the body of the email, but make sure you keep it as short as possible since most text messages are limited to no more than 160 characters.  Click create and activate and you are ready to start receiving text notifications of new or newly assigned tickets.

Would you like to try our free, hosted ticket tracking/helpdesk application? No long-term contracts, signup fees, or termination fees. You can upgrade, downgrade, or cancel anytime. We offer a wide variety of plans to fit any budget.

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Why Social Media Can’t Replace a Help Desk

With the endless proclamations of how crucial social media is to business, a discussion of its difficulties and limitations often gets lost in the hype. Use of socialmedia in customer service certainly has value and shouldn’t be neglected, but there’s a clear limit to what can be accomplished with it. Communication through social media is no substitute for the features and functionality available through a good help desk. To get the most out of both a social media presence and a help desk, it’s important to have a sense of the best uses for each and how to most effectively integrate them.

The way different people use their social media accounts varies considerably. Some spend large amounts of time each day checking in on Twitter and Facebook feeds to contribute their thoughts and ideas, while others let days or more pass in between visits. If the primary form of communication a business has with a customer is through social media, there’s the risk of long lags between each reply. This can extend the time it takes to resolve an issue that could have been handled quickly through a help desk. While it is possible to miss important feedback and questions through social media due to timing, all issues can be tracked with a Help desk to ensure nothing slips through the cracks.

Even for users who are likely to check their social media accounts frequently, using social media for extended communication has the clear downside of restrictive character limits. Most problems a customer’s likely to experience will require more explanation than can be expressed on Twitter in 140 characters or less. Understanding the particulars of a customer problem and its desired solution requires a back and forth likely to be slow and drawn out over social media, to the frustration of all involved. In contrast, a Help Desk makes it easy for customers and customer service representatives to provide as much information as needed at each step in the process and enables faster response times.

While the public nature of social media can certainly be a benefit, sometimes providing customer service requires the exchange of sensitive information. In most cases, a customer will be less likely to offer up personal details over social media and a customer service representative should never ask for anything sensitive over a public forum. Further, often the nitty gritty details of a customer service complaint aren’t something a company wants broadcast to a wide audience. It’s good to be able to publicly show a quick response to any complaints a customer makes, but there’s a point where the discussion about a customer issue on social media becomes more of a liability than an opportunity to publicly demonstrate great customer service.

A company should make a point to be aware of and quickly respond to any complaints that appear on social media, but a presence on social media doesn’t mean a full customer service correspondence should play out within that space. When a customer with a complaint is identified, respond quickly and with a suggestion to move the correspondence off the social media channel, including an e- mail address, phone number or link to fill out a ticket request on your help desk. A quick response shows you’re attentive and proactive about solving the problem, without restricting both parties to an awkward, drawn out conversation over a medium not designed to host one. View social media as just one aspect of customer service, it can be the first step in a longer conversation that occurs primarily through tools better designed for that purpose.

Would you like to try our free, hosted ticket tracking/helpdesk application? No long-term contracts, signup fees, or termination fees. You can upgrade, downgrade, or cancel anytime. We offer a wide variety of plans to fit any budget.

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Tip of the Week: How to Multi-Select from the Automation Drop-Down Filters

This week's tip is a simple one, but can save time and frustration if you are unsure how to do this. Often, when creating an automation, there is a need to include more than one company, priority, status, or queue in the filters. There are a couple of ways to do this, depending on what type of computer you are on. No matter what type of computer you are using, if you want to select several files grouped together, click the first item you want included, and then hold down the shift key and click the the last item in the group. This will select all items in between.

If, however, you want to select random items in a list that are not grouped together and you are using a Windows machine, you will need to select the first item, hold down the ctrl key. While holding down the control key, select the other items you wish to include. On an Apple computer, you will need to hold down the command key while selecting non-consecutive items in the list.

It is also possible to use both of the techniques to select grouped and non-grouped items in the same list, which can make creating automations much easier.

Would you like to try our free, hosted ticket tracking/helpdesk application? No long-term contracts, signup fees, or termination fees. You can upgrade, downgrade, or cancel anytime. We offer a wide variety of plans to fit any budget.

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How to Take Control of a Customer Service Call

Every so often, the role of a customer service representative can veer uncomfortably towards that of a therapist. For some people, when upset, the knowledge of someone on the other end of a phone line that’s willing to listen is enough to provoke a prolonged lament about general problems. When a representative finds him or herself on the receiving end of such a call, finding a tactful way to resolve the situation and move on to other responsibilities can be a challenge. While it’s important to be sensitive to the needs of the customer, it’s equally important not to allow one customer to monopolize your time at the expense of other customers and general productivity.

Taking control of a customer service call while remaining polite is one of the trickier skills a good customer service representative should have in his or her arsenal. It requires finding the right balance between honoring time management concerns and making sure an upset, overly talkative customer feels taken care of. Keep these few tips in mind to help navigate difficult situations.

Start the Call Right

Make sure the customer’s problem and desired solution are stated as early in the call as possible. If a customer has a hard time explaining the problem or desired solution in specific terms, ask pointed questions to help clarify.

Take Every Opportunity to Keep the Conversation Focused on Finding and Implementing a Solution

Certain personality types just have a hard time staying on topic. When a customer continually shifts a phone conversation to topics unrelated to reaching the desired solution, treat every response as an opportunity to nudge the conversation back in the right direction. Consider lines like: ““I’m sorry to hear that. So, in order to fix this what we need to do today is…” as a lead in to suggesting a specific action item.

Make Sure To Keep Your End of the Conversation Brief and On Point

Set an example. Don’t let yourself get off topic or you’re setting a tone for the conversation that implies it doesn’t need to be all business. It’s the job of the customer service representative to help the customer solve a specific problem related to the product or service, not to become his or her close confidante.

Once the Problem, Solution, and Needed Actions are Determined, Wrap it Up

Use language that lets the customer know it’s time for the call to come to an end.
Some suggested lines to consider:

• “Sounds like we’ve covered everything…”
• “I’ll get started on this right away…”
• "I don't want to take up anymore of your time, so..."
• "I have everything I need on my end..."

With Overly Persistent Customers, Put Them On Hold to Work Out Strategy

If all the other tips have been unsuccessful, as a last resort, put the caller on hold. This provides a few moments to organize thoughts and figure out the best way to approach wrapping up the call effectively. It also provides a second opportunity to re-establish the tone of the call and assert greater control over the situation.

Time is valuable. As a customer service representative, it’s useful to approach most situations with an accommodating demeanor, but it’s just as important to have the capability to shift into a more take control attitude from time to time, steer the conversation in the right direction, and take control of the conversation to resolve issues efficiently.

Would you like to try our free, hosted ticket tracking/helpdesk application? No long-term contracts, signup fees, or termination fees. You can upgrade, downgrade, or cancel anytime. We offer a wide variety of plans to fit any budget.

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Tip of the Week - Limit Ticket Submitters' Queue Access Rights

Did you know that you can control what queues ticket submitters can view? This can be very important when providing service internally as not all departments should have access to other departments' ticket queues. It can also be used to set up internal queues that need to remain invisible to individual customers and other companies.

To set this up, you'll need to first create companies for each department/company you service and edit users so they are associated with the company. Most companies will already have set this up when configuring their helpdesk space. In addition, Mojo Helpdesk comes with a company already created called Individuals that any individual ticket submitters are filtered into automatically.

Once you have your companies set up, go to the all settings link and select Queue Access Rights from the Managers column. You'll see a list of the companies you have set up with the queues they have access to. To set the queues available to each company, click the change link and check the boxes next to the queues you want them to be able to view. Click save and you are done.

Now users will only be able to submit tickets to the queues they have access to.

Would you like to try our free, hosted ticket tracking/helpdesk application? No long-term contracts, signup fees, or termination fees. You can upgrade, downgrade, or cancel anytime. We offer a wide variety of plans to fit any budget.

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Turn Negative Social Media Feedback into a Customer Service Opportunity

By now, few companies haven’t been inundated with articles, anecdotes and myriad information resources insisting on the undeniable importance of social media to doing business. Not all businesses have been quick to buy into the hype. It can be difficult to embrace a whole new world of digital interactions with customers after years of cultivating best practices with more traditional methods. There are ample benefits to developing and maintaining a social media presence, but perhaps more importantly, there can be serious consequences to ignoring social media.

Word of mouth has long been one of the most trusted methods for customers deciding which businesses to seek out and which to avoid. Twitter, Facebook, Yelp and the various other social media outlets have changed the meaning of "word of mouth" by vastly increasing the audience that any one person has influence over. An unhappy customer no longer just complains to friends and family members – they have the power to broadcast their discontent to a large group of distant acquaintances and strangers. If these very public complaints are ignored, people will notice. Worse, if competitors are doing a better job of responding on social media, a company will fall even further in customers’ estimation by comparison.

This may all sound intimidating, but there is a silver lining. The flip side of the public nature of customer complaints in social media is that the company’s response is also public. Every time a representative responds quickly and helpfully to a disgruntled customer on social media, others see it.

How can a company turn a potentially negative social media experience into an opportunity to demonstrate exceptional customer service?


Have a Strategy – Have a plan in place to monitor mentions of the company in social media and respond in a timely manner.


Respond Quickly, but not Carelessly – The lifecycle of social media is fast, but not so fast that responses should be rushed. Take the time to craft the right response, keeping in mind the best tone to take to avoid escalating the issue.


Be Active Daily – Keep interest in the account fresh with regular updates. Whenever company feedback appears, aim to respond within an hour and definitely respond within a day.


Create Official Social Media Guidelines – Make sure employees know that use of profanity and sexist or racist language is forbidden and talk of religion or politics should generally be avoided. Be aware of competitors to avoid re-tweeting or linking to.


Put Someone Trustworthy and Experienced in Charge – It can be tempting to hand the company’s social media account over to an intern, but the risk in doing so is high. Any misstep in social media will be very public and especially controversial mistakes will likely spread further faster than attempts to correct them.


Do Not Try to Silence People – Probably the best way to make an issue worse is to pretend it’s not happening by deleting messages. Angry customers won’t just go away, they’ll get louder and have even more to complain about.


Enjoy the Free Feedback – Complaints might look bad, but as often as not, they offer suggestions for ways the company can improve.

One of the main reasons to take a professional interest in social media is to avoid the consequences of ignoring unhappy customers, but there’s no reason not to take advantage of the benefits as well. Just as social media amplifies the voices of the unsatisfied, it also gives a bigger platform to the happy customers eager to share their good experiences. It makes it easy to identify regular, loyal customers and express gratitude or reward them with special deals. If a customer service strategy neglects social media, it means many missed opportunities.

Would you like to try our free, hosted ticket tracking/helpdesk application? No long-term contracts, signup fees, or termination fees. You can upgrade, downgrade, or cancel anytime. We offer a wide variety of plans to fit any budget.

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A Valentine's Gift from Mojo Helpdesk

We love our customers and as a thanks for your support, we'd like to present you with a special gift. Use the promo code below when you upgrade your account to the Enterprise Plan or higher and receive half off the first month. This offer is also good for new customers signing up for the Enterprise Plan or higher. Act now as the code expires Feb 22, 2012. Promo code: VAL2012 You account will be credited the discount after upgrade or signup. Happy Valentine's Day! The Mojo Helpdesk Team

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How to Make Sure Employees Use a New Helpdesk

To get the best possible return on investment with a new helpdesk, it’s important to be proactive in encouraging employees to use it. A little effort in the early days of implementation can make all the difference in whether employees reap the benefits of the helpdesk or fail to embrace it. It’s human nature to resist change. People develop their own methods of doing things and often prefer sticking with what’s comfortable. If a new helpdesk goes unused, it can result in wasted money, squandered good intentions, and most importantly, a lack of progress. To encourage use and avoid wasted potential, consider these 5 tips for getting the most out of a new helpdesk:

1. Emphasize the Benefits
Mojo Helpdesk is designed to make work easier and more rewarding for representatives. Showcase how a simplified process for documenting each customer correspondence helps to track individual responsibilities, identify and handle issues as they occur. Mojo Helpdesk encourages customers to rate their experiences, so great work is noticed and rewarded. Managers don't always know when customers are receiving exceptional service; Mojo Helpdesk makes sure they hear about it.

2. Give Tutorials
Learning a daunting new software is the last thing most employees want to add to their lengthy to do list. A simple 15-25 minute tutorial both makes what was daunting seem simple and makes employees aware of time-saving, helpful features they might have missed otherwise. As an extra touch, include refreshments. People are more eager to participate in training if pizza, sodas, or cookies are provided.

3. Discuss Possible Concerns 
Talk to employees about any doubts they have and point out specific features to alleviate concerns. If they’re worried using the helpdesk will make interactions less personal, show how it allows for direct communication between customers and representatives and makes sure customers work with the same contact until their issue is resolved. If they’re worried it will slow them down, demonstrate how automations and ticket centralization can save time. Allot time after training to allow for a Q&A session. This encourages employees to better understand the software and lose their hesitations.

4. Find Ways to Incorporate Familiar Methods
People will more readily accept a productive shift in the way things are done than a complete transformation. Find out the practices employees have found the most beneficial and determine how best to incorporate those into use of the helpdesk. The helpdesk doesn’t require you to reinvent the wheel, it merely provides the tools to make a better version of it.

5. Track and Publicize Success Stories
After efforts focused on the above points, there may still be some resistant employees unwilling to switch to a new help desk system. Track the progress of those using it and share their success stories with the company. A monthly e-mail that highlights some of the successful experiences with the helpdesk can help illustrate the many benefits

Just as resistance to change is predictable, so is the likelihood that in time people become used to new methods and begin to prefer them to the old. Once employees begin using Mojo Helpdesk, they’ll quickly become comfortable in the newer, better work processes it enables.

Would you like to try our free, hosted ticket tracking/helpdesk application? No long-term contracts, signup fees, or termination fees. You can upgrade, downgrade, or cancel anytime. We offer a wide variety of plans to fit any budget.

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Tip of the Week: Creating Custom Fields for Your Ticket Form

If you haven’t done so already, creating custom fields for your ticket form in Mojo Helpdesk is a simple and effective way to improve efficiency by requesting exactly the information needed when a customer contacts you about an issue. It can also be used to make your help desk work for your specific needs if you are using your helpdesk for less traditional uses, like tracking internal projects and project requirements.

To edit your ticket form, go to manage and select Ticket Form from the drop-down menu.

When you reach the Ticket Form page, you will see a list of fields already created. Several of these are marked as ‘system’ in the type column, meaning they are required and cannot be deleted. You can edit the label that submitters see if you would prefer something different. Simply click the edit link in the Actions column and you can edit the label, whether the end-user can see it and/or edit it, if the field is required for submission, a default value for the field, and a help message if you need to explain what is needed in the field.

To create a new field for your form, click the new ticket field button.
The first value to set is the type of field you want. There are six options to choose from:

• One line text
• Multi-line text
• Drop-down list
• Numeric
• Decimal
• Checkbox

Depending on the kind of response you expect from customers, pick the proper field type for your form. Click the next button to create the name and options for the custom field. One setting to be careful with is the system name, which is used in the data tables for pulling data or generating reports. If you aren’t certain on what system name to use, click generate to have Mojo create one for you. When you are finished, click the create custom field button to save your field and add it to the list of ticket fields.

You’ll return to the list of ticket fields where you can reorder the form fields if you want from the reorder form fields link above the chart. You can also disable any fields you don’t want by clicking the disable link in the Actions column.

Simple as that, you’ve improved your ticket form so customers will provide exactly the information you need to help them fast.

Would you like to try our free, hosted ticket tracking/helpdesk application? No long-term contracts, signup fees, or termination fees. You can upgrade, downgrade, or cancel anytime. We offer a wide variety of plans to fit any budget.

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Help Desks: Not Just for IT Anymore

New businesses are emerging all the time and struggling to stay ahead in competitive industries. It will come as no surprise to regular readers that it’s our conviction that one of the primary components in determining which of those businesses will succeed is the quality of customer service they provide. Regardless of the industry, organized and personal customer service is the key to getting and keeping customers.

Imagine a young professional, straight out of school, starting a new graphic design business. Employing the winning combination of talent, hard work and attention to friendly, personal customer service has helped the business to grow, in spite of these hard times. With the excitement of watching business take off, the graphic designer has come to the difficult realization that it’s becoming harder and harder to maintain the level of attentive, organized customer support that helped the company find success to begin with. In order to preserve their business’s hard earned reputation, the graphic designer must figure out a way to continue providing quality service to a higher volume of customers.

The above hypothetical could apply to businesses in any number of industries. With greater success comes greater difficulty in keeping up with the expectations of a growing customer base without letting any of the customer service touches that set a company apart begin to slip. How does a busy company maintain its positive relationships and keep up its brand? Whether offering goods and services in graphic design, accounting, marketing, retail or any other industry that involves customers, the same answer applies: Mojo Helpdesk.

Until recently, online help desks were largely associated with providing IT support. Increasingly, other industries are realizing how useful of a tool an online help desk can be for customer support in any number of industries. The hypothetical graphic designer can use the tickets in Mojo Helpdesk to track a multitude of design requests without losing sight of the needs of any one customer, stay in frequent communication with each client and solicit feedback once a project is complete. The whole process is documented and can be easily consulted when relevant to future customer interactions, saving time and improving service in the long term.

A marketing firm can use it to document the history of ideas and conversations that have transpired with each customer, making it easy to return to old ideas for inspiration, revisit client responses and track the general success of each campaign. A payroll department can utilize it to handle all payroll queries and help keep careful records of all issues that arise and the solutions used to resolve them within a secure environment. A retail business can keep up with a high volume of customer requests and easily pull up the history of repeat customers to check on their personal preferences and past experiences.

It would be impossible to cover the many, myriad ways Mojo Helpdesk could be put to use here; the possibilities are endless. Any business that works with customers, feels a need for greater organization or desires a better way to document interactions can quickly see an improvement in business operations with the use of a help desk. While IT businesses were the first to embrace the increased simplicity and efficiency of implementing help desks into their operations, other companies and departments would be remiss not to consider how they can contribute to making the lives of employees easier, while improving the relationships the company has with its customers.

Would you like to try our free, hosted ticket tracking/helpdesk application? No long-term contracts, signup fees, or termination fees. You can upgrade, downgrade, or cancel anytime. We offer a wide variety of plans to fit any budget.

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In Written Communication, Tone Is Everything

One of the greatest skills in life, as well as in customer service, is the ability to communicate effectively. For most businesses, the majority of correspondence is now in the form of written communication. The many conveniences of written communication are at times offset by the loss of clarity in tone and intention. Sometimes an e-mail meant to be helpful can be critically misconstrued by the recipient. This makes it imperative that customer service representatives weigh the language and tone used in each correspondence carefully to avoid unnecessary discord with customers.

There are several factors to keep in mind when crafting the tone of written customer service correspondence. To begin with, each company has a preferred way of communicating with customers. Those representing a Fortune 500 company often choose a professional tone, while small businesses a more comfortable, laid back tone. If unsure what type of language is most appropriate for your company, read marketing material from other companies within your industry, and decide which voice suits your company best.

Customer service representatives doing their job well will quickly become relative experts in the industry they represent. Be aware that the kinds of questions and language that increasingly seem basic and easy to you will not be as obvious to customers. Don’t assume they know industry specific terms or information, but at the same time take care not to talk down to them. Make “respectful clarity” the goal of each written interaction you have with a customer. Before crafting a response to a customer’s inquiry, identify what it is they need. It could be an explanation, a desired action, additional information or recompense. Don’t send a response until confident that it will satisfy their specific inquiry.

Follow these steps to avoid misinterpretation within written correspondence:

Read Your Response Out Loud Before Sending
Reading something out loud, a tip regularly employed by professional writers of all types, can help create some distance between the writer and the words, making it easier to identify spots where the tone is off or the wording is awkward.

Choose Your Words Carefully
Avoid words that are ambiguous or overly complex; simplicity and clarity are the goals in customer service. This might seem an overly obvious piece of advice, but paying extra careful attention to word choices can make a world of difference.

Proofread Everything
Enough awkward business encounters have been caused by typos or lazy writing. Don’t ever send anything out that has not been read over first. Avoid the kinds of embarrassing and preventable mistakes that signal a lack of concern to the customer.

When In Doubt, Run it by a Co-worker
A successful customer service team is quick to work together. Co-workers are a valuable resource for a second opinion on the wording of an email. If the issue is particularly complex, bringing a supervisor, or manager into the discussion can also be a great way to ensure the customer's issue is handled with care and sensitivity to their needs.

While all of this can help to ensure positive experiences in written communication, when it comes down to it, there will be times when the best method to help a customer is simply to pick up the phone. When an e-mail exchange isn’t accomplishing the level of communication you seek, a phone call can often go a long way towards clearing up any confusion and make it easier to establish a light, positive tone.

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Tip of the Week: The Mojo Number

Mojo Helpdesk makes it easy to keep track of customer satisfaction by collecting satisfaction ratings based on a 5-star system called the Mojo Number.  When a user closes a ticket, they have the opportunity to provide feedback on the service they received. The feedback options range from "unsatisfied" to "great job."






Mojo assigns a rating of 1 to 5 stars based upon the feedback.  Each star counts for 20 points, meaning feedback of "great job" would result in 100 points, whereas feedback of "unsatisfied" would equal 20 points. The Mojo Number takes an average of your last 30 tickets to calculate a staff member's or a queue's user satisfaction rating. This rating is displayed on your helpdesk as My Mojo.

Both customer service representatives and helpdesk owners will find the Mojo Number helpful in improving customer satisfaction. Representatives can use the number to keep an eye on their customer feedback and work to increase it. Owners can keep an eye on their staff's ratings and determine which queues or team members need some help to improve ratings and which are going above and beyond for the customers. Managers can use the number to set goals for staff and even competitions to see who can rank the highest.

The Mojo Number helps ensure every customer leaves satisfied and happy with the support your company provides.

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Tip of the Week: Auto-Assigning Tickets

This week we want to show you how to create an automation that will automatically route new tickets to specific agents. This is perfect if you have specific customer service representatives that handle tickets submitted by particular companies.  It takes a step out of manually assigning tickets to the correct person, resulting in a faster response from the right person, something everyone appreciates.

You can find the Automations link in the drop-down manage menu at the top of the helpdesk.

Click the ‘new’ button next to the Automations header to begin creating your custom automation.

You’ll need to title the automation and add a description. This will be useful if you ever need to return to the automation to make changes.

In the Filters section, choose the ‘selected companies’ button next to the ‘Company’ filter.  Then select the company who’s tickets you want to auto-assign. To select multiple companies, hold ctrl or command and select each company with your mouse.

In the Actions section, choose the representative all tickets will be auto-assigned to. One of the nice benefits of creating this automation is if you ever need to change who the tickets are routed to, you just make the change here and it is done.

Make sure to check the box to run the automation only once per ticket and if you want it to only apply to new tickets, check the box below.

Click Create and Activate and your automation is done. In less than 5 minutes you’ve created an automation that will save time and ensure your customers are being helped by the appropriate staff.

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The Top 5 Customer Service Trends of 2012

The way we do business is changing faster every year as new products and technological breakthroughs influence the expectations and practices of companies of all types.  Awareness of the current and coming customer service trends enables a company to meet customer expectations and leverage the resources available to improve operations from year to year.

With that in mind, we’ve compiled 5 of the top customer service trends of 2012.

1. Proactive Social Media Use

People were using social media to vent concerns and complaints about their consumer experiences before businesses really had the wherewithal to develop a presence there themselves; but, more and more, savvy businesses have learned to use social media as a platform to publicly demonstrate personal concern for customer needs and fast response times. In 2012, expect to see more companies treat social media as a two-way communications system offering new, creative opportunities for marketing and customer relationships.

2. Customer Service in the Cloud

SaaS (software as a service) products are an increasing presence in the business landscape. Using a customer service software hosted in the cloud lowers costs by moving responsibility for hosting and support out of the company’s hands. It also increases efficiency by bringing all of your customer service needs into one place and speeding up the process of finding relevant data.

3. Increase in Smartphone Optimized Websites

As the world gets ever bigger through international internet connections and globalization, the devices we use to view it continue to shrink. With the market for smartphones growing every day, having a mobile optimized version of your website is a must. Businesses should strive to ensure it’s as easy for someone to find the information they need wherever they are with their smartphone as it is for someone sitting in an office.

4. Self-service Customer Support Gives Way to Faster, Personal Service

The concept of self-service customer support took off in 2011, with the websites and phone menus of many large companies designed to offer answers to customers without ever connecting them to a representative. While this may save costs by keeping employee numbers down, it also slows down the process of the customer reaching the answer needed and makes the experience less personal. In 2012, companies that prioritize exceptional service are likely to utilize the tools available, such as instant chat functions and centralized online support desks to help customers faster and with the irreplaceable experience of human care.

5. Increased Telecommuting

The availability of easy, affordable technology like Skype, online conferencing products and web-based tools like Mojo Helpdesk makes it possible for more customer service representatives to work from home. The increased flexibility is nice for employees and businesses both and telecommuting allows companies to hire and maintain employment for the highest quality employees in spite of geographical differences.

Each year always has a few surprises when it comes to customer service trends. One company with a solid customer service reputation can do something so amazing it changes our perspectives on good service. In the meantime, we have the means and knowledge to prepare ourselves for those changes that have already begun to take effect and make strides towards ensuring customer satisfaction in new and exciting ways.

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Tip of the Week - Advanced Search Tips

Searching for tickets can be tricky if you don’t have much information on the specific ticket and hundreds of tickets to dig through. There are some search tricks that can help you refine your search, making it easier to find exactly what you need. While it’s simple to suggest you use the Advanced Search option on your help desk, by knowing exactly what to type in the search field, you can save yourself a little time.

Wild Card Search

Example of Wild Card Search

Using * at the end of a word is very useful if you are unsure of exactly how it is used in the ticket. For example, help* would result in matches like helps, helped, helping as it tells the search to look for any word that begins with help. This is perfect when you remember the submitter’s first name only. A simple search for Erin* will pull up all customers whose names begin with Erin. This can also be used with ticket numbers if you don’t remember the full number. Type the first few numbers and enter * to find the correct ticket with ease.

If you can’t remember whether that submitter is Tony or Toni, simply search for Ton?. The question mark indicates the character is a wild card. It will bring back Tony, Toni, and any other word that begins with Ton.

Avoid using a wild character at the beginning of the query will result in the search having to look through every term in that field, which can be very time-consuming.

Phrase Queries
If you have a string of words, put quotes around them to find only tickets with that exact phrase. Entering "service emergency" into the search field will pull up only tickets with those words in that order.

Field Queries
If you are looking for any reference to emergency in the title field, you’d enter title: emergency. This is a powerful way to refine your search as there are several fields you can specify. You can also search for a phrase in a specific field by combining a field query with a phrase query, the resulting search would look like this: title:”service emergency”. If you are ever curious about what a specific field would be, check the Mojo wiki for a list of field queries. If you use this to search for a custom field, you’ll need to know the custom field value. For instance, location: Boston or searching for just Boston will bring up custom field results.

Saving Searches

If you find that you are searching for the same things over and over, simply use the advance search filter to create and save the search. You will then be able to access your saved searches from the drop down list on every page.

Saved searches can be found in the Saved searches menu

The possibilities are practically endless in how you can refine your search using these suggestions. Try a few out and see how they make it easier and quicker to find the exact ticket you are looking for.

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5 Ways to Keep Customer Service Representatives Motivated

Employee motivation and loyalty is important in any position, but for those tasked with representing a company to its customers, it takes on extra significance. Customer service representatives who feel invested in the company they work for and the products they represent will inevitably provide superior service than those unhappy in their position. As individuals commit themselves to resolutions for the coming year, take the opportunity to encourage improvements in your customer service department. Consider these 5 ways to keep customer service representatives motivated.

1. Hold Weekly Staff Meetings for Feedback
Effective communication is one of the most important facets of running any successful business. Weekly meetings afford both representatives and managers the opportunity to address any concerns that arise week to week and provide relevant feedback. As the main point of contact for customers, the customer service department is the first to hear about any problems or suggestions for products. By making sure this feedback is heard and passed on to the product development staff, these meetings can serve to improve products, keep customers happy and make the job of your customer service reps that much easier. It also lets staff know their contribution to the company is valued.

2. Encourage a Positive Work Environment
A pleasant workplace means less risk of dissatisfaction and high turnover. When the customer service staff is happy in their work, this lends itself to how they interact with customers. Give positive feedback whenever it’s earned and make sure any negative feedback is carefully worded to be constructive rather than disparaging. Pay attention to conflicts amongst the staff and step in before they have the chance to influence the larger environment, setting up a meeting with HR or a sit down with the staff members to encourage communication. Find little ways to reward the staff, such as donuts in the office once a week, or monthly company lunches or happy hours.

3. Set Goals and Recognize the Staff Members Who Accomplish Them
Mojo Helpdesk makes it easy to track the time it takes to resolve customer inquiries and lets customers provide ratings to representatives for how an issue is handled. Find a way to honor or reward those with the best results or greatest improvement over time. Having something tangible to work towards, such as a bonus, gift card, or displayed list of top rated employees each month, can be a powerful motivator.

4. Offer Upward Mobility
There’s little incentive for employees to work hard and stay with a company long term if they don’t expect opportunities for upward mobility. The best customer service representatives know the company’s products well and care about the larger success of the business; a state that is best achieved by ensuring that employees see their own success as aligned with that of the company. Showing long-term loyalty and providing a consistently good performance should lead to promotions and raises—skimping on this will lead to the loss of your best staff members to competitors.

5. Give Representatives Freedom to Make Decisions
Encouraging consistency in business can be valuable, but becomes constraining when taken too far. Don’t micromanage. Allow for some flexibility and creativity in how representatives handle customer service inquires, as long as they stick to general guidelines and trust their instincts. Something as simple as staff upgrading shipping for free due to an order error can enable your staff to quickly solve a customer’s issue and shorten call times, saving money in the long run. There also might be some truly great ideas to come out of giving staff the room to make their own decisions.

A company that makes a priority of providing a positive work environment and motivation to its employees will quickly gain a reputation as such. This can positively impact the company from an internal perspective, but also in regards to the company’s customers. People like to do business with companies who have a good reputation for taking care of their staff. In addition to improving conditions for your current customer service representatives, these tips can help your business to attract and keep high quality employees moving forward.

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