IssueTrak Awards Scholarship to Student With Innovative Suggestions for Improvements to Help Desk and Customer Support Solutions

VIRGINIA BEACH, VA--(Marketwired - Jun 23, 2014) - IssueTrak, a global leader in providing software for tracking issues and processes, today announces that Ingrid Lecot of Costa Mesa, Calif. received IssueTrak's Help Desk Software Scholarship. The $1000 scholarship essay contest asked students to provide their opinions on the future of help desk software.

The use of help desk software has evolved to include capabilities that track business processes. Organizations across a variety of industries now use issue-tracking software in innovative ways -- managing onboarding in human resources, tracking assets, and facilities management.

"We pride ourselves on developing solutions that meet the unique needs of businesses and are dedicated to providing the highest level of customer service," said Hank Luhring, CEO, IssueTrak. "Our customers have expanded the use of our software beyond traditional help desk and customer service to track processes related to critical business operations. It was interesting to see the vibrant, creative minds of the young adults bridge the value of tracking issues efficiently with an improved customer experience and enhanced brand loyalty."

Scholarship Particulars - Essay Questions and Innovative Thinking
In 600 words or less scholarship applicants provided input about the future use and potential application of help desk software with answers to the following questions:

• As a consumer yourself who has experienced the customer support process, what creative and innovative features could you imagine for the help desk or customer support software of the future?
• Social media is increasingly becoming an outlet for customers to voice complaints or issues with a company or product. Companies have taken note and are beginning to incorporate social media into their customer support. In what ways would you suggest help desk software incorporate social media to improve customer support?

IssueTrak's senior management team selected Lecot from 33 applicants that represented graduating high school seniors and current college students. She currently studies business administration at Baylor University, where she will be a sophomore in September 2014.

The selection committee felt Lecot's ideas were the most innovative, creative, and strategic to improving help desk and customer support services. She suggested two approaches that empowered the user to track and resolve issues while limiting the need for live interaction with a customer service representative. The first recommendation was the creation of intelligent software that could address questions with immediate access to resources for immediate issue resolution. She also suggested integrating self-help functions within social sites.

In general, the answers received were unique and most suggested the need for instantaneous support. Ideas included the extreme futuristic use of holographic technology, and simple methods for faster resolution of customer requests. Other ideas for customer service improvements and efficiencies included:

• The addition of video response solutions that accommodate all types of learning
• The use of social media where survey responses and customer comments can improve support and accountability of service personnel
• The development of a 'smartapp' that adapts to customer needs and simplifies user interactions with embedded support in social media applications (from answer-based content to integrated logins between social media sites and customer service support applications)
• The ability to select hold music and to convert conversations to written dialog
• The availability of multi-language chat features and social media customer support tweets with specific and pre-defined hashtags for support

About IssueTrak
Based in Virginia Beach, Va., IssueTrak is a leading provider of software and issue tracking systems for creating, updating, and resolving strategic business processes. First released in 2000, its signature software package has become a robust platform for internal and external customer service and support, IT help desk, workflow and process management, and issue tracking. The company has won numerous industry awards, including Small Business of the Year, multiple Inc. 500/5000 placements, and is three-time winner of the Inside Business 'Best Place to Work' awards. The company is a Microsoft Silver Partner. For more information, visit www.issuetrak.com.