Hi! A friend and I have a small tech startup that we've been working on for three years now. We both graduated as engineers, but over time we've learned to wear many hats. We feel we have grown to the point where we really should be automating our phone calls. I'd say at leat 60% of our callers have routine questions that could be answered by some sort of VoIP or Interactive Voice Response system.

I'm curious if anyone has any experience with automated systems at the small business level. As far as cost saving, we're not as concerned about cutting phone call durations as we are about freeing ourselves up to do other work.

Any information about experience with particular solutions, including the ups and downs, would really help us out.

Hi Jason,

Congratulations and continued success in your startup!

I have a different suggestion to make. How about you hire someone to be your help desk?

Our economy sucks. Great and greatly qualified people are everywhere, needing work. Most people (and study after study after study proves this) prefer a real live human being to any kind of automation. This could easily be a telecommuting role, so you could even go indie contractor and save yourself office space and employee overhead.

I encourage you and your partner to really think strategically about your organization, then make a decision.

If you were your customer, how would you want to receive answers to questions? I urge you to really scenario plan this one. For example, I'm using your product. Suddenly, I have a question. Now, using your product is probably just one of the piles of work I am facing today. The boss is wanting information, my phone is ringing, my email inbox is full, people keep interrupting me. In other words, it's a normal day. How happy will I be having to work my way through an automated system to find what I need? How much time and effort can I afford to put into it, given the rest of my workload? How likely will I be to find what I need in an acceptable period of time, so that I don't get frustrated?

So, now you know my bias in reference to your situation! :-) I hate automated systems. I don't think they have a place in our world. I believe they promote frustration, rudeness, ill-will and job loss.

Perhaps I've just experienced too many voice response systems that fail. And I don't always have a digital phone...yep, a real old old-timer here...I've got to actually dial a phone at times!!! Right there, I'm hosed. Actually, the business I'm contacting is hosed.

I also have other suggestions:

Could you publish a FAQ for those routine questions?

Could you sponsor a forum for your product, publish FAQs, offer Q&A, but mostly push user interaction?

Could you encourage, sponsor and help develop user groups?

What does your training module look like? I'm assuming since you are a tech company that you have a tech product, and that since there is currently a help desk operated by you two, the founders, there must be some level of training involved. Is it the right training? It is not unusual to need additional support beyond training, but if the questions coming in are at the, as you described, routine level, surely something is being missed in training.

Just a very basic example: for every technical training class I have ever led, I've begun the actual training in the same way every time. I ask the students to open their manuals (every training has manuals, even if just a powerpoint printout) and write the following information on the very first sheet of paper: The phone number and email address of the help desk.

It doesn't matter that this information is readily published throughout the documentation. Now I am assured that my students know where to go to reach out for help. For me, that's #1 when the class is over...how to get the answers they need to keep doing their jobs using "my" product.

I hope that at least some of this helps you figure out what best comes next for you and for your organization! Good luck!

KSB