The written testimonial

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Helpdesk Habits turns Acutec techies into customer service champions

Who are Acutec?

Acutec is an outsourced IT company, founded by Chris Roche in 1995. Chris started the company after his own exasperation with poor service from IT support companies, with the mission of “Delivering world class service, to enable you to achieve more, every day.” Today, the team remains small – just 26 staff, mostly technical – but serving global brands including Mercian Labels Ltd, Age UK Coventry, Warwickshire & Leicestershire and Heart of England Mencap.

The challenge – translating tech talk into great support

The team at Acutec is mainly composed of technical geniuses – but that focus on technology was having an impact on how customers perceived Acutec’s brand. Craig Langman, service delivery manager at Acutec, explains:

“I had a team of very experienced techies, but not a team of experienced customer service representatives,” he recalls. “When they were talking to customers, they struggled to talk in terms the customer could understand, in a professional manner, because it’s just not something they were trained to do.”

After hearing feedback from customers who weren’t thrilled with their experience dealing with Acutec, Chris knew he needed to take action. But Chris was aware that it had to be the right action to create lasting change in his team. Chris showed me what he had found and explained it to me “I really wanted to avoid another mundane customer service training programme like you see all over the internet – if it wasn’t something the team responded well to, it could well make things worse.”

The solution – Helpdesk Habits training for all

Chris came across the book Helpdesk Habits, and found out about the online video program behind it. He was immediately impressed with the content, and decided to implement Helpdesk habits at Acutec. Chris then showed it to me and I knew it was something we needed to do. In fact, he was so confident that Helpdesk Habits would be a success that the training was made mandatory for all Acutec staff.

“I think people came to the training with the expectation of ‘oh, here we go, another boring training session,’ but actually as soon as we started to get into it, people immediately became engaged and saw the value in what we were doing.”

Craig took the team through the training in segments, each time focusing on one of the 50 habits in the book. The team would watch the video, then go through the book together, and discuss what they’d learnt as a team.

“On reflection, I would say that most of the team found the videos enough for them to understand the points on their own,” Craig says, “though I also made sure to leave a copy of the book on the desk where anyone could have a look through if they wanted to quickly look something up.”

The results – gold stars and 99.2% customer happiness factor

Thanks to Helpdesk Habits, Craig and the team have quickly seen improvements in customer satisfaction. Because of the accessible and engaging nature of the course, the team has fully embraced Helpdesk Habits – and as a result, the team has seen an increase in the amount of gold stars (the top feedback rating in Customer Thermometer) they receive from customers who are asked to rate their experience with Acutec. Craig says:

“Before, our team were just techies sitting in the office, doing great work but not being great ambassadors for our brand. As a manager, that worried me – but Helpdesk Habits has turned everyone into a really effective brand ambassador.”

In fact, Craig has started creating word clouds  that get shared around at company meetings, showing the most popular compliments that get paid to Acutec in their feedback. It’s really helped boost the team’s enthusiasm for providing great customer service. And better still, the improved customer feedback is giving the team confidence that clients will stay with them for years to come.

“I’m even hearing customers say to our MD, Chris, that the best decision they ever made was to come to Acutec – and that’s all down to Helpdesk Habits. I would recommend Helpdesk Habits to anyone.”