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Inbox Zero 7 hacks to achieve Zero support requests

What is Inbox Zero

Merlin Mann Definition

A rigorous approach towards keeping the inbox empty, or nearly empty at all times.

Impact

Frees up the time of support staff to focus on other issues and improve productivity

Why have Inbox Zero

What Inbox Zero signifies

Your product/service is awesome and your customers have no complaints

You have a robust self-help portal that empowers customers to help themselves

Chapter 1How to achieve Inbox Zero

The need for a feature rich help desk

To achieve Inbox Zero, one needs the services of a robust feature rich help desk, so that you can execute the five commandments of Inbox Zero, according to Merlin Mann

Five Commandments of Inbox Zero

DELETE

DELEGATE

RESPOND

DEFER

DO

The big 5 tasks behind Inbox Zero

Commandment 1

DELETEWeed out the unnecessary

If the ticket is spam or unnecessary information, immediately get rid of it.

Commandment 2

DELEGATECategorize and sort

If the ticket has to be addressed by staff from another team like sales or development, transfer it across to the appropriate team and notify them of the same

Commandment 3

RESPONDAttack the simple ones

If the ticket is just a clarification/request, respond and close it right away

Commandment 4

DEFERSet a timeline

If it is not of priority, defer it to a specified date and move it to a different folder

Commandment 5

DOGet things done

If it requires a task to be completed, ensure it gets completed immediately

Chapter 2How HappyFox can help you achieve Inbox Zero

1. Categorization and Prioritization

• Categorize, prioritize and move ticketsto folders depend-ing on priority and address them periodically.

• Respond to tickets that require one line answers, move urgent tickets to a separate categories and speed up sup-port.

Chapter 2How HappyFox can help you achieve Inbox Zero

2. Smart Notifications

• Immediately respond to the ticket or categorize it de-pending on the ticket and priority.

• Always be on top of all ticket activity.

Chapter 2How HappyFox can help you achieve Inbox Zero

3. Self-service, Knowledge base and Forums

• Stabilize the support process with a clear, concise and easily accessible set of knowledge base articles that con-tain quick and effective solutions to commonly asked ques-tions.

• With forums, cultivate cross-customer interaction, allow customers to help one another and thereby reduce chances of incoming tickets.

Chapter 2How HappyFox can help you achieve Inbox Zero

4. Well-trained, motivated and equipped support agents

• Impart the right kind of training imparted to your support agents and enable them to handle issues without accumu-lating your inbox with tickets.

Chapter 2How HappyFox can help you achieve Inbox Zero

5. HappyFox Mobile for support on the move

• With the help of HappyFox Mobile, support staff can check tickets and reply to them from wherever they are using nothing but their phones.

• Update staff on changes in tickets, replies etc, so that they can do the necessary actions right from their mobile phone.

Chapter 2How HappyFox can help you achieve Inbox Zero

6. Smart Rules and Automation

• Create Smart Rules to configure a set of predefined in-structions on how tickets should be categorized, prioritized and escalated.

• Escalate tickets nearing SLAs so that there are no pend-ing or unanswered tickets ever in your email inbox.

Chapter 2How HappyFox can help you achieve Inbox Zero

7. Reporting, Analytics and feedback

• Identify and pick key performance metrics that need to attention for improving your support process.

• Encourage support agents to take feedback from cus-tomers both via phone and email.

• Review them regularly to understand what your custom-ers feel are lacking in your support.