For ISPs, sending a technician is an inevitable part of the job. Subscribers will always run into issues with their service. And when they call in about it, it won’t always be easy for agents to figure out what the problem is.
So then, you end up having to send a tech to see what the agent couldn’t over the phone. It’s handy because it typically sorts the problem right out—but sending a tech has some pretty serious downsides.
- They’re expensive. Either you’re paying a premium for their time, travel, gas, truck maintenance, tools—or you’re charging the customer that premium.
- They’re inconvenient. If a customer loses internet, it’s not easy for them to wait a few days for the tech to get there—or longer, which happens a lot in rural areas.
- They’re unnecessary. We hear far, far too many horror stories from techs who got to a home to find out the only problem was that the cable wasn’t plugged in right.
On the other hand, if you could avoid sending techs unless absolutely necessary, that could help you reduce costs (either for your company or for your customers), keep customers happier, and avoid situations where they really weren’t needed in the first place.
How to reduce the number of trucks you send out
Help agents solve more types of problems.
When agents have the right information, they can solve the same issues as a technician over the phone. The key here is to focus on workflows, and ensure you have a process that helps them consider the issues a tech would see in-home.
For example, try asking techs about the common problems they’ve seen that they feel they shouldn’t have had to deal with. Maybe they shake their heads every time they have to plug something in, or when they have to move a router out from behind a water heater.
Chances are, you’ll get quite an array. Try to identify the ones that come up time and again, and build that into the questions agents ask on the phone.
Provide full visibility.
Even if agents ask, it won’t always be easy to tell if a customer has a wire plugged in weirdly. And they may not think to tell you if they have the router in a spot where something might be blocking it.
In those situations, rather than relying on the customer’s understanding, it can help to have ways for the agent to actually see what the customer sees. A picture is worth a thousand words, after all!
With RouteThis LiveView, agents can get a real-time look at what the customer sees through the same app they use for diagnostics and resolution steps.
Let customers help themselves.
Customers these days like to be able to solve issues on their own. In fact, over two-thirds of them will look up how to solve problems before they call!
Unfortunately, they don’t always find the best information in their forum of choice. You can make sure they do get the best information possible by providing it right from the source!
But effective self-service support isn’t just about providing standard information! For example, with RouteThis Self-Help, customers can run their own diagnostics scans when they’re having trouble. Then, they’ll get detailed information and specific solutions for the problems detected.