To get a job completed effectively (or at the very least extra simply), you want the proper device.
For instance, you might use a butter knife to tighten a screw. Whereas this would possibly work in a pinch, a screwdriver could be far more efficient and fewer prone to injury the screw, the knife, or the style of your PB&J sandwich when you’re completed constructing that cupboard.
As a member of the help staff right here at Assist Scout, I work with new and potential clients within the queue every day, and it’s taught me loads about who advantages essentially the most from a device like Assist Scout. When you’re the one one who can determine if Assist Scout is the proper device for you, right here’s the recommendation I might give somebody deciding if Assist Scout is an efficient match for his or her help staff.
Assist Scout works greatest when…
You help your clients utilizing a shared electronic mail.
Our shared inbox is supposed for use with a shared, customer-facing electronic mail handle. Consider assist@company-domain.com, data@company-domain.com, or help@company-domain.com addresses slightly than chrissy@company-domain.com.
In case you’re utilizing private electronic mail to speak together with your clients, you’re going to run into points at Assist Scout. Why? As a result of Assist Scout works by receiving help requests which might be routinely forwarded out of your electronic mail account, so electronic mail lands in your supplier inbox first (Gmail or Outlook, for instance) and is then despatched over to Assist Scout.
In case you join your private work electronic mail handle to Assist Scout, that implies that together with the client dealing with electronic mail that you just’d hope to deal with in Assist Scout, we’re additionally going to obtain all these inside emails between you and your teammates as properly. You don’t need these inside emails touchdown in a shared inbox the place any of your coworkers might learn or reply to them.
Your customer-facing staff is 2 or extra individuals.
In case you’re a solo-prenuer or a one particular person help staff, save your cash! A daily outdated Gmail inbox is probably going all you want for now. We’re right here for you once you’re able to scale issues up.
However for those who’ve acquired a staff with two or extra individuals supporting clients, there are a number of issues you’ll discover helpful in Assist Scout. Just a few options that our personal help staff leans on closely are:
Inner notes: We use notes to doc our troubleshooting course of, which is nice for future coaching and sharing data on a distant staff. We additionally use the @mentions characteristic, which lets you ping one other consumer or staff in a observe on a dialog and ship them a notification with out having to assign it to them. The @mentions are nice for asking a teammate a query or leaving suggestions!
Groups: We use Groups to carry different departments into our help queue. For instance, we’ve acquired a separate Workforce for our advertising and gross sales of us. We additionally use Groups to help characteristic releases or specialised areas of help the place a smaller subset of our help staff will work on specialised conversations collectively exterior of the on a regular basis “unassigned” queue.
Reporting: We have now seven various kinds of stories to observe in Assist Scout. These stories assist our management staff perceive our staff’s productiveness, and we take a look at these collectively every month. Personally, I additionally use the consumer report daily to maintain monitor of my very own productiveness and ensure I’m hitting all of my very own key efficiency indicators.
You need to centralize your help operate.
We regularly see clients scuffling with conditions like this: “Our help staff makes use of Gmail for electronic mail and a separate device for reside chat, our gross sales staff is utilizing HubSpot, our customer-facing documentation lives in one more device, there’s no reporting, and we don’t have any visibility into what the staff is engaged on everyday.”
We don’t need that disjointed expertise for anybody! Assist Scout may be your single supply of reality and convey your staff collectively to help clients in a single place. Just a few of my favourite options are:
Our Docs characteristic which lets you create customer-facing documentation and create inside docs to function your individual inside wiki.
Our embeddable widget referred to as Beacon which lets you provide reside chat, a contact type, proactive Messages, and entry self-serve choices like Docs.
For these occasions once you do want info that lives in an exterior device, you possibly can make the most of our 100+ seamless integrations with in style apps like HubSpot, Jira, and Shopify.
Assist Scout won’t be a match if…
You need to use Assist Scout for electronic mail internet hosting.
In case you’re simply getting what you are promoting began, you won’t have a customized electronic mail handle but. We aren’t in a position to host your electronic mail companies right here at Assist Scout, so that you’ll have to create your customized help@companydomain.com electronic mail handle in a conventional electronic mail supplier (like Gmail, Outlook, AWS, and so on.) earlier than you need to use a device like Assist Scout.
Assist Scout works by receiving help requests which might be routinely forwarded out of your electronic mail account. With a purpose to use an internet based mostly help device like ours, you’ll have to have your electronic mail hosted elsewhere as a primary step.
You’re in search of an inside communications device.
Assist Scout is supposed for use for buyer-facing communications. We’re the device you employ to help your clients, distributors, companions or different exterior stakeholders. In case you’re in search of inside electronic mail or inside on the spot messaging, a greater device could be one thing like Slack or Microsoft Groups. Whereas it might be attainable to make use of Assist Scout for inside communications, we wouldn’t suggest utilizing Assist Scout to resolve this drawback.
You aren’t already supporting clients.
We have now a tremendous startup plan, which lets you use our product free of charge for six full months! Nevertheless, one thing we see all too usually is that people will join the startup plan earlier than they’re prepared after which not use their free Assist Scout account till month 5 (or typically by no means!). In case your product is simply getting off the bottom, maybe wait a month or two with the intention to gauge what sort of quantity your staff might want to help.
We would like you to make use of Assist Scout to help your clients once you’re prepared, however there are a number of bells and whistles inside a device like Assist Scout (or any shared inbox) which might be in all probability overkill for decrease quantity setups. We need to offer you as a lot worth as we presumably can — don’t spend cash once you don’t have to!
In case you’re nonetheless feeling uncertain about if Assist Scout is the proper match, come be a part of us for a reside class! Members of our Assist Scout help staff (myself included) give reside courses thrice every week the place we stroll by means of the product collectively. Throughout these courses you possibly can ask questions and get an summary of Assist Scout’s options and performance.
There is no such thing as a absolute greatest product on the market, solely what’s greatest for you and your staff at this second. Our purpose is that will help you delight your clients, irrespective of which device you select.
