How client support could be hurting your business

If you work in the IT space, deal with tickets, or work on projects that provide ample customer support you’ll want to keep reading. When it comes to client support - whether it's about brand identity, improving customer loyalty, or if customer support is the cornerstone of how you deliver value, research shows that it can often hurt your bottom line in the most inconspicuous ways. The major culprit? Employees not using time-tracking tools to accurately account for the work they’re doing or customer support they’re providing. Tracking the time you spend responding to clients’ requests, especially through email, need to be logged - because the data shows that a minute here and two minutes quickly add up (to a lot of leaked revenue). Ideally, you want to track the time you spend automatically so that you don’t have to add another thing to your to-do list. If not, you could end up costing your business hundreds of dollars in billable hours every month.

Here’s a rundown of how this might be affecting your business without you even knowing it.

Feeling overwhelmed?

If you and your team are struggling to keep your heads above water with work, it may not be an issue of headcount or expanding your team, but rather, an issue of efficiency - let me explain. First off, it’s not to say your team on their own isn’t productive - it’s more so an issue of operations, workflows, and processes that need to be optimized. Like any successful business, you’re always working to bring in more revenue and grow , but you might be experiencing growing pains as a consequence (which are often magnified when your operations aren’t streamlined). As you take on more business, the importance of streamlining your processes to save time (and money) is critical. As Stuart Watson, CEO of LeapIT stated, “when your business is growing, it grows more complex, and that’s precisely when you need something that will help you simplify your workflows”. So, before you think of making another hire and adding another expense to your business, investigate some smart technology platforms that’ll take most of the busywork off of your plate.

Time-tracking is critical.

As it so happens, Stuart from LeapIT was actually able to increase his net profit by 14% by simply tracking the time he and his staff spent supporting clients, usually through things like email. Not only that - after implementing smart technology to run his business more successfully, he was able to see how everyone at LeapIT collectively had been offering five to six hours of free services every month! This study found that on average, a professional leaks over $50,000 per year in revenue due to insufficient time tracking on emails with clients.

Work on the business (not in the business).

To run a more successful business and grow your revenue, you need to be able to take a step back and work on the business - on the strategy - and not be bogged down by all the everyday busywork. Without smart technology to give you actionable insights into where you can make better business decisions, you’ll get stuck trying to keep up with the everyday work - like a person running on a treadmill going nowhere fast. As Harvard Business Review put it, “you want the right information to help you allocate the organization’s time, without the daily psychological burden of gathering it.”

If you’re struggling with any of the growing pains mentioned above, or you’re feeling like you’re carrying the weight of the entire business on your shoulders, have a look at how someone just like you overcame similar difficulties and created a thriving business.