The Benefits of Offloading IoT Customer Care Responsibilities

It may seem that with the Internet of Things (IoT), everything is smart. Smart televisions, smartphones, smart refrigerators – you name it – appliances and equipment of all sorts are “smart.” So, with all of this smartness going around, who answers your questions about the Internet of Things devices, apps and software?

IoT companies start to answer these questions with in-house engineers who are subject matter experts (SMEs). The problem is the engineers become overwhelmed with the volume of calls coming in and never have time to do their real work, like implementing your new ERP system or making strategic, long-term plans.

Once this point is reached, growing IoT companies look to help desk support from high-level technical companies like Protocol Networks. Protocol Networks takes over the more routine calls, returning your IT team members to their real desks to move your organization through its growth, new product launch, or next big contract.

Internet of Things Needs a Help Desk Too

Whether your company is pushed over the limit by good news – finally rolling out a new product or landing a big contract – or just by the sheer number of calls overwhelming your call center personnel, it’s time to call in a devoted entity to be your help desk call center. Productivity suffers and key initiatives stall when your vital personnel are busy fielding rudimentary calls about your smart products.

3 Help Desk Issues Protocol Networks Solves

We call this The Big 3: the main help desk issues are staffing, toolsets, and the ability to provide data that’s useful.

Staffing

Think about staffing a call center – 24/7/365, finding subject matter experts – at times 10-15 people. The bottom line is that you want help desk staffing to be somebody else’s problem. It’s only a matter of acknowledging that the help desk has become larger than you want to handle.

Many problems can be solved remotely by the members of our support staff who answer the phone. If that person can’t help, they’ll quickly triage the situation and escalate it to a senior engineer. This reduces the amount of downtime your senior engineers suffer due to the help desk.

Toolsets

Once you scale out of a 1–3 person call center operation, toolsets are crucial to gaining help desk success. Our help desk toolset staples include:

Scaling your phone system
Staffing expertise in recruiting, training and retaining subject matter experts
Voice actors integrated with brand image

We serve as an extension of your help desk – especially if you have proprietary software and products. We field calls and work through remediations – you tell us at what point we need to bring in your product subject matter experts. You leverage our existing support infrastructure while providing high-level support to your clients.

Useful Data

From the beginning, we collect recordings of calls so you can make an educated choice on staffing and servicing your clients. With this recorded data, we’re able to identify where there are potential problems with your products or services. Based on this client base information, you’ll know how pleased your client base is.

The body of knowledge that is developed from these recorded calls also helps identify areas for training for our help desk team members. Thus, keeping your help desk’s knowledge base current and up to the highest standards so you don’t have to worry about level 1 calls. Your team of experts can focus on their work at hand instead of answering the phone!

White-Glove Support for IoT Companies

Together, we come up with a plan to support you for calls to be a seamless pass-through from you to us. Our white-glove support cuts down on the number of times calls need to be escalated to your tier 2 experts.

In help desk situations, 80% of your calls are about 20% of your callers’ problems; therefore, our help desk team becomes even more proficient regarding your callers specifically. This reduces the amount of time your engineers are spending on the phone.

Protocol Networks’ on-shore New England call centers give you and your employees your lives back to focus on your strategic business goals instead of what the next caller needs.

Contact Protocol Networks now to get your call center on track to being a No. 1 help desk.

Recruiting and finding IT professionals for your team can be frustrating. With IT unemployment lower than ever and employee turnover costs soaring, finding the right people is imperative – and difficult.

Hiring more employees takes time, and qualified candidates are challenging to hire especially in the field of technology. With technology unemployment dipping to 1.9 percent in 2018, employers have had a particularly tough time finding and hiring IT professionals.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have your own personal technology recruiting partner to assess possible candidates and ensure they will be a good fit for your organization? And, this recruiting partner also understands the ins and outs of your IT systems. Sound too good to be true? Well, you’re in luck.

Leading IT Managed Services Provider (MSP), Protocol Networks focuses on solutions for clients that not only encompass your network, hardware and software but also on recruiting highly qualified IT professionals for your business.

Often, a business’s current staff members can’t take on even one more project as they are already at capacity with day-to-day functions. This makes it difficult to take advantage of growth opportunities or even take care of immediate needs that may arise. Whether you need temporary employees to cover while your regular staff is on leave, short-term IT staff for special projects, or permanent, full-time IT professionals, Protocol can help.

As an IT consulting firm, Protocol only staffs technology candidates. From systems and networking to the help desk, Protocol places IT staff in companies of all sizes giving you the flexibility to scale up or down with operations as needed. Plus, all the headaches that come along with recruiting, interviewing and hiring go away.

Protocol’s recruiting process sets a high bar for IT candidates with most being referred by IT engineers and other colleagues. Candidates are vetted based on your company’s cultural, business and IT needs so you can trust you are getting only the best employees.

Protocol’s Process

Ongoing recruitment

Internal candidate pools dry up as soon as you’ve hired one person and thanked everyone else for their time. Protocol’s ongoing recruiting process ensures there are always candidates in the pipeline.

Interviews

Initially, candidates are interviewed by the staffing team who primarily focus on soft and people skills to ensure candidates can have a conversation without using too many technical terms. This is also where candidates are reviewed for cultural fit, so they can be placed within a company where they can be successful – and so the business gets someone who can be effective in their company’s environment.

Candidates must be able to represent Protocol and themselves professionally and personally.

IT Assessment

Protocol engineers do technical screens to ensure prospective employees have the experience and knowledge needed to perform required job duties. Your systems will be handled by people who meet Protocol’s own stringent set of criteria for IT expertise.

Internal screening

A Protocol principal tests candidates’ ability to handle things under pressure, troubleshoot and think on their feet, and think ahead. Characteristics specific to IT positions also are evaluated. A help desk person needs to be not only technically astute but also able to treat users with respect. An engineer has to have the experience and knowledge required to complete IT responsibilities but also be able to plan and communicate well.

If a candidate fails even one of these steps, they are not considered for placement. Protocol only places candidates they would hire themselves.

Placement Success

Employee turnover costs companies an average of 6 to 9 months’ salary every time a salaried employee is replaced, according to the Society for Human Resource Management. So, if you’re paying $40,000 a year, recruiting and training expenses can be as much as $30,000. If you’re lucky, your first hire works out. If you’re not, it’s back to recruiting.

For permanent IT positions, Protocol Networks places candidates with a company on a temporary basis for 6 months. At the end of this trial period, the candidate can be hired by the host company as a regular employee. To date, Protocol has a 100 percent conversion rate.

If a Protocol staffing candidate doesn’t work out, Protocol replaces them with another IT professional immediately, leaving little to no downtime for you.

If you’re taking on new ventures, expanding your facilities or simply covering IT while regular employees are on leave, Protocol Networks has vetted, experienced IT professionals ready to join your team. Contact us online or at 877-676-0146 for IT recruiting.