Have you ever had a great idea that’s been dragged in multiple different directions? Well that’s been our story. For us, it all started with our new product Unlimited IT Support back in 2016. We recognised a need in the IT Support industry, we have been a part of it with more than 15 years each running IT support services. We have always known there was always a struggle to maintain amazing customer service from the typical “IT guy” and getting these smart tech guys to troubleshoot basic level 1 support request, well was, and always has been like pulling teeth.
As we have been running CROFTI Innovation Consulting for some time now, we knew there was a better way, and so as we started to solve our own issues hence we ended up discovering we could also help solve the same issues other MSP’S were experiencing, and so this is how TRIBU was born.
We initially started out with solving the level 1 IT support issues, Kevin was our first bot, but as we have determined solving the IT Support issue was only one half of the solution. The name Kevin isn’t particularly innovative. More of an inside joke – the default name given to answer any question that should result in a ‘human’ doing it. But we rolled with it, because it’s relatable and flexible.
Kevin is automated Level 1 IT support built from Artificial Intelligence. We knew that AI was coming to a point where we could make real world use of it. Taking the last 15 years of our experience and the last 4 years of our current helpdesk requests and resolutions we had a great base point to start from. We would pump this info into Kevin so it could learn how to identify issues, categorise them and ultimately solve them quickly and easily. All the while communicating, with natural language, to the end user to bridge the gap between technical talk and great customer service.
What is Level 1
Remember, the original product was focused on Level 1 support – what is that though? Generally speaking, anything that has some fairly straight forward, procedural approach to completing.
Level 1 IT Support requests are typically low end support issues the client or end user has. These requests are your typical requests that most people know about and get frustrated the most at. These requests are responded to by the Level 1 IT support person (answering the client’s call or being the first to respond to their issues), hence the opportunity to add value to this current issue. If the Level 1 support person cannot solve the issue quickly, the request is then passed to the next person in line, we call this a Level 2 support person.
After surveying 1000’s of MSP’s and sifting through 100,000’s of tickets we had determined that 70% of all IT Support requests are Level 1 and these level 1 requests can be categorised into 12 categories;
- Email / Outlook issues
- Printing & Scanning issues
- Setup of a new staff member
- Workstation setup
- Virus checks
- Applications not responding or opening
- Slow PC or Mac
- Resetting user password’s
- Email Signatures setup and configuration
- Adjusting current staff roles
- File permissions and Shares
With this information we now knew we needed to focus on customer communication. Talos, our customer communication bot, only role is to transfer data between the customer and engineer.
As we progress, it opens us up to a whole new set of opportunities. AI is big, very big. Now it will be a matter of focusing and letting the customers pull us in the directions they need. Having your idea drag in different directions isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But it needs to be managed and we need to make sure the goal posts at least remain on the same field, and that’s where Talos was born.
If you want to know more about TRIBU, see if it can help you and your help desk, or just want to stay up to date follow this link and let us know.
