Outsourcing help desk support can add value to your organization’s implementation of customer-oriented policies and operations. For one, you could mobilize your internal team to higher level customer work and let your outsourcing service provider do routine projects. This frees up your existing help desk to focus on core customer support operations.

But for a help desk outsourcing to work successfully for your organization, it needs to fulfill the requirements pertaining to cultural match, the flexibility of solutions, standards of excellence, and the right set of skills and values.

You’ll know you’ve found the right outsourced help desk for your organization if the team displays the same qualifications and values your company stands for. These include:

1. Passion for helping people

True-blue help desk agents stand out because they take their job seriously. They go to work feeling happy about serving their customers and their needs. They have the best interests of their customers at heart and will never make the customer feel shortchanged.

If they feel that company rules are restricting them from helping customers, they will do everything possible so that customers get to keep the end of their bargain in one way or the other.

2. Problem solvers

When customers contact help desk support, it’s usually to ask how a product works, to follow up on a previously communicated issue, to send special instructions, and other related concerns.

There’s almost always a problem that customers hope to resolve with the help desk support in a fast, no-roundabout manner. Customer support agents who have the right product knowledge and problem-solving skills can be your organization’s best assets, as customers get peeved when the person supposed to be helping them appears to be lost, confused or rattled.

3. Works collaboratively with customers

Your help desk support team needs to be able to connect with how customers are feeling about a service interruption, a late delivery, or a faulty product by sincerely empathizing with them, putting themselves in the shoes of the customers.

Customers are appreciative of help desk agents who give them personalized and high-level customer service that anyone would expect. Therefore, you should encourage your support desk to treat customers as partners whose problems also become their own.

4. All-star communication skills

Help desk agents need to be great communicators. They should possess the competence to speak to customers with tact and clarity, and listen to them with patience. They need to approach different customers with the level and style of communication as called for.

Your help desk agents would also do well to teach your customers how to become self-reliant in solving common issues relating to your product or service without sending the wrong signals that they are being left to tend to their own problems.

5. Harnesses technical expertise with personal touch

A help desk role is a highly technical job, and it goes without saying that your agents need to have the necessary know-how to deliver the customer service they were hired to do.

What your agents need to understand, though, is that your customers come from a very different background or orientation. It may take them forever to figure out how to change the password on their email or website, and it’s all in the hands of your help desk to make the situation less frustrating and more manageable for the struggling customer.

6. Positive attitude

Irate customers are every agent’s nightmare. It’s a challenging situation that can cause more serious misunderstandings when not handled properly. But a good support agent knows that there’s more to the antagonistic front of the customer than a deliberate attempt to give customer service a tough time.

Rather than go head to head with the customer, the agent chooses to focus on the real issue at hand, dissipating the tension with the use of positive language, friendly behavior, and confident reasoning.

If you’re looking to outsource your help desk, make sure that parameters are properly set. Your outsourcing service partner should understand the specific needs of your organization. At the same time, you should be able to assess your target provider in terms of its capabilities and core values, as well as how an external help desk can enhance your relationship with your customers.