With the newest coronavirus COVID-19 taking the world by storm at the moment, tons of employers have faced a new challenge – organizing a smooth and efficient workflow of their teams remotely. This process is quite tricky and is not as widely spread. So, it is bound to create some difficulties for some managers.
SupportYourApp was not an exception in the present situation. Good thing we have always had a plan for a situation like we are facing right now.
Our consultants are our most valuable assets, so we simply couldn’t risk their health and well-being in a dire situation. And with the world facing a crisis at the moment, we think it is important to share our answers to the following questions:
- How can we be sure that our clients’ data is secure without our constant on-sight supervision?
- Do our tracking systems work well-enough to ensure efficient and smooth workflow of our consultants?
- Can we still provide professional customer service when almost all the teams are working remotely and members of the teams are separated?
- How can we deescalate the situation when everyone is nervous and surrounded by bad news?
Yes, these are the questions, we are sure, all the customer service managers think about. And we are here to tell you how SupportYourApp is dealing with these issues in tough times like we are facing right now.
Customers come first
Being customer centric and providing professional customer experience means that no matter what changes in your workflow, your clients are not supposed to feel these changes.
For this purpose SupportYourApp has a set of rules for our consultants. They must have:
- All the necessary equipment in working conditions
- Stable internet connection
- No background noises
Only if these conditions are met, can we be sure that our consultants can provide excellent office grade assistance to our end-users.
What about tracking?
It is no secret that some managers think that the key to success and efficiency is tracking every minute of the consultants’ working time. But at SupportYourApp service for each of our clients is special. We’re setting a set of KPIs for each individual project and at the end of the shift everyone reports their results. They are then randomly checked by a responsible manager to make sure that everyone is being honest. This covers quantity and our QA department covers quality by paying special attention to those who work remotely.
Surely we also rely on tracking tools in order to make sure that our processes are smooth and seamless. We use ZoomShift’s clock-in and clock-out system to be sure that none of our consultants are late for their shifts. When it comes to time tracking, we prefer using the systems that can be integrated into the helpdesk. Toggl and Hubstaff are providing us with all the necessary information and make time tracking (when we need it) much easier.
But this is just one difficulty that we are facing when setting up remote teams all across our company. Those who have been quarantined and are now working remotely must also worry about the safety of data and the threats of leaks.
What about data safety?
Users’ data is a very sensitive subject. Breaches and leaks are plaguing the modern storage and safety systems. And times when managers and security departments are known to be working remotely is one of the most active for hackers. SentryBay’s CEO Dave Waterson predicts that during this time endpoint cyberattacks number is going to grow by 30-40 percent.
How can you be sure that your data is safe when you are away?
We’re using a security monitoring solution for threat detection, integrity monitoring, incident response and compliance. Sensitive data can only be accessed via standard VPN tools integrated into our system or into the system of our customers. Each computer is set to lock once the user is away. If you approach your data storage the same way, you can be sure you are safe, after all, our system has been serving us perfectly as there has never been a leak in all of SUP history.
Keeping everyone safe and calm
As we have already said, our consultants are our most valuable assets. Sending everyone to work from home might be difficult in terms of setting up and getting adjusted to the change. But desperate times call for desperate measures.
We are very lucky to have a team consisting of modern forward-thinking individuals that value facts and science over tabloid-like sensationalism. So we don’t need to do much but remind about simple everyday hygiene, set some new office rules and best recommendations. We’re all human, so a dash of optimistic humor in our communication certainly helps to ease the stress.
We try to forward this kind of thinking to our clients as well, so that their communication with us can become one of the highlights of their day, no matter what they have contacted us about. Keeping our clients calm is one of our priorities at all times, but especially when the level of stress is overwhelming, and we get bad news almost non-stop.
In general, keep calm, wash your hands frequently and stay home for as long as needed. Visit a doctor if you start developing flu-like symptoms and try to be positive at all times. In the meantime we are here to support you.
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Anna started out in financial markets, diving into daily research on bonds and stocks. A passionate reader with a love for historical literature and international cuisine, she’s now all about mastering customer communication. She writes in-depth about customer support, backed by extensive research, and has become an expert on the topic.
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