Taking an exam is a high-pressure, high-stakes, stressful situation. In the world of online testing, the moment a test-taker needs to contact customer support is critical. If a test-taker needs help, customer support must be there for them.
The marks of excellent customer service for an online proctoring service are speed, flexibility, and empathy.
Speed: The need for test-takers to be able to instantly connect with customer support and get their issue resolved fast cannot be overstated. In an online proctoring environment, most customer support instances occur during the exam or in the moments leading up to it. Test-takers must be able to get connected with someone who can resolve whatever issue is keeping them from taking the exam.
Flexibility: The days of a phone call, email, or web form being the only way to get in touch are long gone. A good customer support operation for an online proctoring technology provider should be modern and convenient. Today's test-takers want the flexibility to send a message and have a response almost instantly, no matter what time or day of the week it is. Language barriers should be broken down with the best available translation technology. Support should be considered essential and readily available.
Empathy: For every person that uses a computer every single day, there’s another who spends no time on the computer and may be using one for the first time in ages on test day. This could be anyone from the younger generation who does everything on mobile, to an older individual or frontline worker. Being empathic to whatever set of circumstances a test taker finds themself in should be a core tenant of all customer support teams in the online proctoring space.
Who Needs Support? Customer Service Use Cases for Online Proctoring
Not everyone needs the same sort of support when they contact the customer service center of their online proctoring provider. The best providers are prepared to field any query from any kind of user.
Student and Test Takers
Available data from ProctorFree reveals that most customer support queries come from students and test takers who need help getting started.
It’s important that customer support teams maintain a positive and helpful attitude when fielding inquiries. From test takers about to start an exam from first time users with how-to requests, to users with more bespoke circumstances, understanding that the user may be under a lot of pressure or stress, and conveying that help is here will go a long way toward getting them feeling better about the exam they’re about to begin.
Instructors and Exam Administrators
Be wary of any online proctoring provider that is not willing to act as the public-facing tech support for your online exams. Top online proctoring providers like ProctorFree remove the burden of technical support from instructors and exam administrators. Moreover, if students are reaching out to instructors for support and general questions, that traffic can all be pointed to the proctoring provider.
Putting on the White Gloves: Best Practices for Customer Support
When your customer support team is the primary point of contact for anyone using the online proctoring technology, everything runs so much better.
The difference-maker is a change of mindset: tech support versus customer support. One is technical and transactional. The other is personal and trusted. By offering a white-glove approach to customer support, ProctorFree stands out as different. Our approach works; month-over-month more than 80 percent of inquiries to our customer support team are from new users, this low occurrence of repeat users signals that our team is effective at delivering effective support that makes an impact.
- Getting in contact with ProctorFree is seamless. We don’t make you jump through hoops or navigate a labyrinth of webpages to find out how to connect with us. Our team makes itself available to our online proctoring customers nearly 24 hours a day through our web client. With just a handful of very off-peak hours where our support team is offline (we need to sleep occasionally, too), ProctorFree is readily available to respond.
- We offer unbiased support. When we take customer support chats, we understand that not every user is the same. This means that whether someone's technical knowledge is limited or advanced, we meet them where they are.
- Communication is key for success. While our team is based in the Carolinas and is native English speaking, we understand that our customers may be coming from a different place. Our online customer support includes a chat technology that automatically translates both sides of the conversation into the user’s language of preference.
- ProctorFree learns from data. We use it to make decisions and provide the best possible support. If a customer has an issue during an exam, we have streams of data covering the issue from multiple angles. Having such a comprehensive view of the situation means we can resolve issues quickly and also continuously improve our product and customer experience.
- We empower our users with knowledge. Our customer support teams provide training and knowledge-sharing opportunities for our users, both test takers and instructors/administrators.
Want to hear from our clients about how responsive and helpful our support is? Check out our review and testimonials to see recent client feedback.
