The Power of Chat: 4 Reasons Your Help Desk Needs SMS

SMS is now a widely accepted form of communication as it is even used for sophisticated high end commercial messaging. Having a help desk SMS option available will benefit both users and help desk operators in myriad ways. Of these, the top four reasons for integrating SMS into help desk operations are:

• Accessibility & Convenience: With SMS being available on both mobile phones and laptops in addition to interconnectivity between GSM and CDMA systems, it has become an anytime/anywhere means of communication. With a highly mobile market and workforce, businesses need to make communications as easy as possible. A user who needs to contact the help desk on the go can send an SMS in a few minutes and relax with the knowledge that it will be received and processed. The help desk will receive the message describing the problem along with the user’s contact information. In case of any lack of clarity, a response quoting the unclear part of the message can be sent so that the user knows where more information or clarity is required. Compared to a phone call, this is both faster and less prone to misunderstandings. Additionally, both the user and help desk will have a clear record of all communication exchanged in regard to the problem.
• Cost Effectiveness: Help desk SMS services offer cost savings for both the user and help desk itself. In the case of users at distant locations, the cost of long distance calls can be avoided. For the help desk, being able to send an SMS will also help to reduce communications costs. Since sending, receiving and registering an SMS message is far quicker than that of a phone call, the savings in terms of time are also significant. Since SMS communications can be integrated into automated help desk operations, providing this service involves no additional costs or deployment of resources.
• Reliability: SMS is extremely reliable but if, for any reason, a message is not delivered, the sender will be sent a message to this effect so that action may be taken to either retry or communicate by other means. For technicians in the field, help desk SMS means that they will receive clear information of cases to be attended to. Since the message will stay in the phone’s memory, there will be no need to create case notes or a work order–the SMS response that is sent will cover all these issues automatically. Also since the SMS is a memory resident, it cannot be overlooked or forgotten so that reliability of service is increased.
• User Friendliness: A busy help desk will often require a caller to stay on hold for a long time before the service request is registered. With help desk SMS, the caller can send the message which will be automatically queued and attended to without the caller having to wait on line. Help desks often have to put one caller on hold while attending to a fresh incoming call. Not only is this irritating for the caller, it can lead to confusion and mistakes by the help desk. SMS eliminates both the irritation factor as well as the possibilities of any confusion. An automatically generated SMS confirmation of the service request also offers the user comfort in having a record of their service request being formally confirmed.