The key to Excellent Internal Help desk Management

In this article we are going to learn about how to run a help desk 

Managing the internal help desk can be one of the most difficult use cases for support software.

"Support services are not always well documented or communicated, so they can be unclear and / or undefined, even for those in them," said Paul Ille, director of technical services at Alloy Software, one from leading software management providers. asset management and services. and network technical support software solutions that help organizations of all sizes automate IT operations. “It makes it difficult to set goals and define success metrics because employees who receive internal customer support may have very different expectations. Ultimately, this can lead to frustration on both sides of the support ticket.

While the management of the help desk is ideally defined by an internal guide to handle the delivery procedures, there is not always a process for creating or respecting a single source of truth. Expectations are then left to guide the process. SaaS guru Matthew Monahan says expectations come from two sources: experiences and requirements.

"If the typical customer experience is that it takes two days to resolve a support problem, they expect the problems to take two days to resolve them," says Monahan. “Conflicts generally arise when a client has an urgent request, but he knows from experience that his needs will not be met during this period.

The path to improvement consists in synchronizing the clocks, in agreeing, as a team, service level agreements or SLAs, for the resolution time or the first response time. Here's how to start creating and deploying SLAs within the team:

1. Create a service catalog

Agreeing and defining your services internally and externally will improve customer service and will ultimately be a better way to manage expectations. Once you accept what you deliver to your customers as a team and organization, you can move forward with setting expectations, says Ille. Help desk software that includes an SLA solution allows you to easily join the workflow.

2. Develop a culture of help within the helpdesk

If help desk management is too focused on cutting costs, you end up providing poor support to your users, ”says Monahan. "However, if you focus on providing users with everything they need to get the job done, you win twice." Monahan says the first win is that your team will become more proactive, looking for opportunities to help users before waiting for them to report problems. The second win is that your user base will see Help Desk as a problem-solving partner, rather than screaming when things go wrong.

3. Hire good employees to keep good employees

When your business has excellent help desk management, it often means your best hires stay. The support organization wins with less turnover and agents can become more skilled over time, able and willing to solve more difficult problems.

4. Create a workflow that tracks problems from start to finish

The customer and help desk personnel should be able to identify the problem at a glance. This transparency reduces frustration and anxiety on all sides and, from a metric point of view, speeds up resolution. "Any staff member should be able to intervene at any time, knowing exactly where the previous person stayed, as well as the next step that needs to be completed," said Monahan. "The user must have regular updates, with the possibility of following their problem online or by e-mail."

5. Remember: helpdesk is a partner

The helpdesk is not only there to eliminate errors, a cultural message that must permeate the entire company. The help desk is indeed a valuable partner for each department. Think of it this way: where would the captain of Star Trek Kirk be without Scotty in the engine room? If Kirk needs a warp speed to get the job done, Scotty uses his technical prowess to find a way to give it to him and save the day. As a result, Scotty, our helpdesk, is cheered and not cursed by the rest of the crew. "Likewise, the help desk's mission is to make sure that each user is as successful as possible," says Monahan.

6. Provide a knowledge base or self-service portal

Help desk software should also be provided with an option for a knowledge base. Often, end users are simply looking for a quick solution to a simple problem. Rather than submitting another ticket, a knowledge base allows employees to research and resolve their own problems. This reduces the pressure on the ITSM team to solve more complex problems that require 1: 1 support.

It can be easy to feel overwhelmed by all aspects of help desk management: support software, knowledge management, ITIL; not to mention the ticket queues and the always active nature of customer service. But the right strategy, great talent, and the right help desk software can help you provide fast and efficient customer support to your employees.