Tipping for tech support

Why are tips paid to taxi drivers and waiters, but not to technical support specialists? The work is nervous – they can undeservedly shout or insult. Therefore, support staff do not want to do anything outside of their script.

But it also happens the other way around – a polite and understanding client comes across, the employee enters into his position and does even more than he is obliged to. In return, he can only receive verbal gratitude and appreciation of his work from the client.

Why not give the user the opportunity to vote in rubles? We will tell you how we were able to implement such a function in the service desk.

How the function works

Since we cannot do financial transactions, we have found a partner with the necessary license to deal with online tips. Together with him, we discussed the issue, exchanged APIs and launched the integration. How it works:

1. When registering at the service desk, company management must select the option to receive tips for employees and pass verification on the online tip platform.

2. Next, the company adds employees who will work in technical support and will be able to receive tips.

3. After closing the application, the client will receive a standard form like “Rate an employee” and a button with the ability to leave a tip.

So far, we have not been able to fully automate the function, as our partner has to manually process applications. After registration, the client will have to wait for a call to verify the account. And after verification, the employees of the tip service will have to manually link the account to their system. The client will have to wait again. Do you think it is possible to automate these processes as well?

What does it look like

After the employee closes the ticket, the client, in addition to the offer to rate the support worker, will also receive an offer to leave a thank you in the form of a tip.

Here’s what it looks like:

The employee closes the application.

The client confirms the execution.

The client receives an email with a tip button.

By the way, the client can leave tips not only through the service desk, but also through other integrations.

This is what it looks like in VK:

And like this in Telegram:

And yes, we still remember the existence of Odnoklassniki:

When a customer clicks the “Tip” button, they are redirected to the tip site form.

Future plans

We can’t talk about the results of the integration, since it’s only been a month since it was launched, but we hope that the practice of tipping for technical support will take root.

In the near future we are going to add analytics. The manager will be able to check to whom, how much and for what they pay. This will help him further motivate and encourage employees.

Do you think such integration will be in demand? Do you have any tips? Looking forward to your extended comments.