Building a Help Desk

The first thing I want to talk about is managing a help desk, I think that managing a help desk can be like running an emergency medical center, in a rough neighborhood, with no supplies, during an epidemic. I believe for some time now, help desk workers and their bosses have been surviving under these conditions, performing triage for some internal users, answering basic computing questions for others. But as in health care, practicing preventive care is more efficient and effective than rushing from crisis to crisis. I think that much of the knowledge and many of the skills for managing a help desk are the same as those needed for managing any organization. The same guidelines that apply to developing, managing, and refining any department, often also apply to the help desk. But be for you try to define your leadership style it is very important to develop a strong foundation, I will do this by defining the help desk mission, establishing clear service policies, and positioning the help desk correctly within the organization. From this foundation, I will be able to make all other decisions regarding help desk structure and activities that may be derived.

I know that it is extremely important that I clearly define the purpose of the help desk at the outset with a mission statement. My mission statement will be a broad description of the goals of the help desk that will help to define expectations. With clearly defined goals, everyone within my organization will be more likely to be working toward the same end, and, with clearly defined expectations, it will be easier to evaluate whether the help desk has met its goals.

One mission statement I might use is "to increase the company's productivity by providing a single point of contact and responsibility for rapid closure of our users' technology problems."

My help desk will be a leading edge one that will leverage consolidation, and automation. I want my help desk to bring value to the software life cycle and all of IS's interactions with users. I believe that the role of the help desk is no longer just fixing problems; the best ones act as emergency hotlines and strategic tools. My help desks will guide their IT departments in monitoring where and when glitches happen and how to fix them, and they will coach the company on how to keep those problems from happening in the first place.

One idea I have is that self-service is Better Customer Service, most customers will want fast response whether my customers are having trouble using internal or external products or just have a general questions. I will implement products to let my customers themselves speed up the process of getting help, while freeing reps to handle problems requiring more attention. The way I will do this is by having my help desk use only state of the art technology. My analysts and end users will have many tools to use to solve the issues that come up.

Chances are that most of my customers who call for support/help desk are not technical wizards. (Otherwise they probably wouldn't need assistance.) It can be hard for them to describe to a tech what's wrong. I know this is a common situation that other techs and I face on an every day base. I think it will pay to consider a system that lets my techs take over the customer's desktop remotely. Surely it will save time and money (less time on the phone and less chance that we will have to send someone to the customer site). My techs can see why the customer's printer won't print, or why they can't access the database, while sitting at their desks. There is software out there that lets you talk to a customer and exchange data over a single phone line. While on the phone, you can get files from the customer's computer and display them on your PC or send the customer files to his PC. You don't need an external modem or Bulletin Board Service. This is the type of state of art software we will use at my help desk.

Practically speaking, I want my help desk reps to be experts who customers typically call only when they need help, but I will require them to provide essential customer service to all the users. I think that the web has created a proliferation of sources, including help info that was formerly only available in print. I understand that our customers can often search the Internet, unwieldy as it is, to get the same answers they would receive by calling a rep. I want self-help to only be the beginning.

Problem resolution software now lets me treat the Web, in combination with my knowledge base, as your source of solutions to problems. We will do this at my help desk. Trouble ticketing will no longer be the sole job of my reps. My customers can create them, too, and speed up the time it takes for a rep to help them. That's good news for me because I believe with help desks, faster service is better service. I think that letting customers solve their own problems is one way to prevent your help desk from becoming overwhelmed.

I want my help desk to be self-empowering, I also believe in a single point of access for the help desk. What I mean by that is that the help desk system should be used as an enterprise-wide tool. A big problem is that too many help desks keep tech support and order entry information separate and get multiple customer databases, The support rep should be able to log a problem and order a replacement disk for example, while in the same system. This is one reason I will use enterprise wide solutions with my help desk

Support Online will be a facet of my help desk. Everyone is trying to figure out how to use the Internet to provide support. I will use remote access within a call tracking system, letting customers dial in and take control over the phone line and use our knowledge base to solve their problem. We will use a piece of software that will let my customers log problems over the World Wide Web Our help desk 'home page' will contains customizable incident logging forms. I want the web page to establish a direct link between the page and my help desk center. Customers get the forms through the Web and log incidents directly. We will lets customers use the product's to reach my help desk's knowledge base and troubleshoot their own problems. They can also describe their problems to open a new case that will be transmitted to the appropriate support rep. Customers can later check the Web site to view the status of their problem or add notes. We will let our customers connect to the help desk through the network, modem or the Internet.

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