Imagine the following customer support conversation:

Customer: “I expected delivery of our purchase number X140B on Monday, but have yet to receive it.”

Company: “We are sorry to hear about the interruption in your service. We are looking into this problem and will get back with you in a short time.”

[Five days pass.]

Customer: “Hi. I never heard back about the status of our purchase. Can you please provide an update?”

Company: “We are sorry to hear about the interruption in your service. Can you please provide us with your purchase number and when you made your purchase?”

We cannot quote the rest of this conversation—just know that it goes downhill from there—but this scenario highlights the shortcomings of a company using a shared inbox message system. Shared inboxes can lead to serious customer frustration.

What are shared inboxes?

At times, multiple team members within your company may share one inbox. You might use a shared email addresses such as help@[company].com or info@[company].net.

Or, emails may arrive through one shared inbox and then get dispersed to the inboxes of individual employees.

Unless you plan on keeping your company at small size with just a couple employees, you’re generally not doing yourself any favors with shared inboxes. They can even be problematic. Here are the main reasons:

Difficulty Tracking Messages

When messages stream into a shared inbox, the recipients cannot easily identify who has taken ownership of a task. You may also find it challenging to track any progress on said task.

BE THE CUSTOMER: Imagine you never get a reply to your message and have to send another. Or what if you got a second reply to a message you thought was already being handled? How much confidence would you put in that company’s ability to track and resolve your inquiry?

Distraction and Confusion

As users reply to, forward, and carbon-copy messages, other employees who share the account will likely receive notifications that do not pertain to their active correspondence. Employees could find themselves five minutes into digesting a message before they realize that the task is being handled by another team member. Now multiply that time over every employee and every message coming into the shared inbox. Ouch.

BE THE CUSTOMER:
Imagine you’re neck-deep into correspondence with a company, and you get a reply much later than expected. What if you get a message that seems to be asking a question you’ve already answered, or it gives an answer you’ve already received. Eyebrows raised, right?

Lost Customer Background

With shared inboxes, customer history may be difficult to retrieve. Suppose a customer comes back with a question that pertains to a discussion six months ago. A lot of unnecessary back and forth may occur just to get the employee up to speed on the customer’s situation.

BE THE CUSTOMER:
Imagine you spend a lot of time just reminding the company who you are and your situation. You expect that they already have a record of previous interaction. Are you excited to give them more information they’re going to forget?

Should I migrate to a help desk tool?

Are you a growing business? Do you see your business with more than a couple of employees? Is it possible that you’re going to need a help desk to handle incoming communication? If your answer is yes to any of these questions, you should seriously consider migrating to a help desk tool.

Help desk tools can allow you to seamlessly accomplish what you’re trying to with shared inboxes.

How do I migrate to a help desk tool?

A good help desk tool will walk you through the process and make the transition as painless as possible. But, overall, migration from a shared inbox system to a help desk tool is not a conversion to take lightly.

Some help desk tools ease the transition more than others. For example, Zendesk works with the email addresses you’ve already established and promises “email functionality from day one.” Their cloud-based help desk tool offers a bevy of features that you can set preferences to match your company and customer needs. So, the transition time will depend much on how many features you want out of the gate.

Which help desk tool is right for me?

Be sure to think about what communication functions you need to make your customers happy. Then read up on each help desk tool, comparing your customer needs with the available features. Many services exist out there to help you manage your inbox, so it’s important that you do your homework before you make a purchase. Below are a few help desk services that can help spark your research.

Zendesk

PC Magazine gave their service 4 (out of 5) and added an editor’s rating of “excellent.” Their summary: “A competent ticket management app, Zendesk deserves its popularity. Just watch out for price and make sure you’re getting the features you need.”

Freshdesk

PC Magazine gave Freshdesk 3.5 (out of 5) and added an editor’s rating of “good.” Their summary: “Freshdesk is simple to use and even contains a few advanced features not found in more expensive help desk solutions. It’s not the best choice for ITIL users, but for straight ticket management it’s a fine choice.”

Help Scout

G2Crowd.com awarded their service 4.8 (out of 5). One reviewer said, “We were looking for a system for managing customer requests and needs, and being able to collaborate effectively on requests that required interactions with more than one team member. Help Scout helps us do that, and with workflows it allows us to identify ways to automate processes so that it requires less interaction from us in cases where it isn’t necessary. We all love this tool and definitely feel it helps us to support our customers more effectively.”

Groove

Grasshopper.com did a comparison among Groove, Zendesk, and Help Scout that should prove helpful in your research. Their summary of Groove: “Fully customizable and scalable help desk program, provides reports and metrics, open API, free 14-day trial offered but no free package available.”

Don’t wait to start exploring your options. If you’re ready for your business to grow, or simply to amaze your customers with quick, efficient responses, consider a switch. You may find out just how much shared inboxes are holding back your success.

—

PHOTO: Jason Rogers / CC 2.0