Do you get emails from customers that you need to answer, but you have a million other things going on and you put it off for hours? Does this lead to customers being frustrated and unhappy? Is it time to hire someone to handle your help desk?

YES, it is!!!!

The key to success is being able to hand tasks off to a support staff, enabling you to better support a product. If this is done right, it will give you more time, resulting in more money, and you’ll have happier customers.

We recently hired an incredible help desk person in less than 30 days. I’m going to walk you through the 5 steps we took to make that happen, and how you can, too.

• The 3 Points of Customer Contact
• Writing the Job Description
• Where to Find the Perfect Employee
• How to Interview

In order to know why you need a help desk person, you need to understand how customers communicate with us. Let’s get started.

#1 Understanding Customer Communication

The first thing that we must acknowledge is that without our customers, we wouldn’t be here. Thus, we want to give our customers the best. This means that every possible communication should be our best. If you get it wrong, customers have no issues looking elsewhere to fill their needs.

For many of our customers, there are typically 3 occasions for interaction with us. This means we have three opportunities to build a lasting relationship with the customer.

The first communication happens when we sell our product or service to the customer. If they have purchased from us, it’s safe to say they are happy. So the first step is the easiest in customer happiness.

The second point of communication is at the point of delivery. This is either an opportunity to knock it out of the ballpark, or the point where things begin to go south. Did the product get delivered on time, in the condition it should have been, and did we give them what we promised? If you answered no to any of these questions, your help desk could come into play, in an effort to turn everything around. Most customers just want to be heard, acknowledged, and communicated with. Giving the customer that opportunity through a help desk can help keep that sale from being refunded.

Lastly, customers communicate when they have problems with what they purchased. You may see this as negative, but don’t! This is an opportunity to change the entire experience! If you are good, it is an opportunity for you to change the experience and get some great reviews. Additionally, these customers could be bringing you issues that you were unaware of. This will give you the opportunity to address the issue quickly.

Finding the perfect help desk employee will free up your time to work on the things that you WANT to work on, not the things that you have to work on. Customers will receive communication in a quicker time frame, leading to better customer satisfaction. Increased customer satisfaction is something we all want.

In this section, we talked about the 3 points of customer communication and why you need a help desk person. Now, how do you hire one? Well, you start with a job description.

#2 Writing the Job Description

Now that you know why you need someone dedicated to your help desk, it’s time to write what that person will do in a job description. You need to know what your dream employee looks and sounds like before you can find that person.

A job description provides clarity and communication between the potential employee and your company. Imagine applying for a job where they say, “We are awesome, work for us,” but they never tell you what they do, or why they are awesome. Additionally, they don’t explain what you will be doing for the company. So, you see why a job description is important?

The 3 Part Steps to Writing a Perfect Job Description

Part 1: About Your Company

The first step in writing the job description is to write a paragraph about your company. In the job description explain what your company does. And what makes you different from other companies as well as why you are looking to hire someone. This is the perfect opportunity to explain the company culture, vision, mission and strategic plans.

 Part 2: Job Responsibilities

Next you will want to write about the role of the help desk. Explain how customer service plays an important role within your company, and how seriously you take customer satisfaction. Explain what the person will be doing on a day to day basis and what exception you have of their performance. And then follow that up with qualifications. We ask that our people have specific personal qualities like integrity.

This is what our job description looks like for our help desk.

 

 

Part 3: Directions

Lastly, give directions on how to apply. Put a specific date and time in to weed out the people who do not pay attention to detail. Have them write a cover letter, and give some specific requests in there. After all their entire role will be to communicate so let’s see how well they do that in the letter.

Now that you know how to write a job description, put it to work and find those people.

#3 Where to Look for Great People

You know exactly what you are looking for in a help desk person, now how do you find them? Well, there are lots of places to search. I’m going to give you three great options here. Let’s start with the absolute best ones first.

Option 1: Ask People you Know

First ask your other employees, friends, and family for a referral. A majority of our hires have been from referrals, and we have been beyond pleased. Most people do not refer their crazy, lazy friends, because that is a reflection upon them. They only give referrals to those people who they know will be fantastic. They will not always have someone who will fit. You may need to take it a step further. Below is an example of how I would ask for a referral.

Option 2: Ask Your Current Customers

Your next options should be to ask your current customers. YES, you heard me right, and no, I am not crazy.

You have customers out there who are super fans. You know the ones, they buy everything you sell and love everything about you and your company. One of these people may be looking for an opportunity to join your team and further your vision. Who better than someone who already knows all about your products? Sometimes they will tell you they want to work with you.

By the way, this is exactly how we found our latest hire.

To attract the perfect hire, you will need more than a simple post saying you are looking for someone. You need to get creative. The best job opening ad I have ever seen was in a National Geographic Magazine. They were looking for photographers. What better place to put the ad then inside their magazine, where customers already love what they do? The ad had an image of a man with ice covering his face, and it said, “Frostbite, Snow Blindness, Hypothermia, Cracked Skin and Nerve Damage in Fingers. This is Your Shot to become a National Geographic photographer.” Do you see how this is better than just a post that says, “We are Hiring?”

Create an ad like this. Put it on your website and social media accounts, and send out the email to your client list. You will be surprised by the response.

Option 3: Online Job Boards

Another option for finding the perfect person is an online job board. Two great boards are talentzoo.com and authenticjobs.com.
When posting your open position on these job boards, use your job description for your content. If you took the time to write an amazing job description, that is all you will need.

Now that you know how to find the people, and they have expressed interest, it’s time to get to know them. It’s time to interview.

#4 The Interview Process

You have a pool of potential new employees. How do you narrow it down to that perfect employee? With an interview, and interview questions.

The key to great interview questions is to make sure they are all open-ended questions, enabling the candidate to talk freely and openly. ‘Yes or no’ questions will not help you get to know your candidate.

In our interview, we ask these questions among others:

If we are stuck on a few people and can’t decide on one candidate, we try to ask them one simple question. We ask them to teach us something simple, like how to tie your shoes. With this question, we are looking for things like:

•  Do they put themselves in my shoes and empathize with my situation?
• Do they find out what I already know about tying shoes, so that they know where to begin?
• Are they able to explain what I need to do simply?

 

Albert Einstein said it best, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t know it well enough.” If they can explain to me how to do something like tying my shoe, then they will be excellent at explaining things to our customers as well. And that is just what we want!

Once you have narrowed it down to that one perfect person, you hire them!

#5 Hire Them!

You found the perfect person, and you want them on your team, like yesterday! So, you hire them and you onboard them. I’m sure you are asking yourself, “What the heck is onboarding?” Onboarding is the process of introducing the new employee to your culture, brand, and business objectives. For a full guide on how we hire and onboard our employees, check out my upcoming blog post.

Congratulations!!!!

You have gone through all of the steps we took to hire our new help desk team member.

We have covered why having a help desk is important, how to write the job description, and where to look for good people. From there, we covered how to interview them and select the perfect person. By now, you should have a detailed knowledge of how to hire the perfect help desk employee in 30 days.

The only thing left to do is take action on what you just learned. With everything we just covered, you should be able to start your search tomorrow, and have your next help desk employee starting within 30 days.

If you want to learn how to hire any employee, check out our Build a Dream Team program.

I’ve armed you with everything you need, but I can’t do the work for you. The rest is up to you.