Life on a help desk is all about managing one issue after another. When an issue becomes a crisis, preparedness is key. Critical issues are high profile, and your ability to manage them appropriately will be a reflection of you when you are a Help Desk Manager. It is up to you to either come out shining or with mud in your face. Subscribe today to follow up on my Crisis Management series. Don’t worry, we don’t believe in spam, and you can discontinue your subscription at any time.
A sharp increase in call volume is usually the first indication of an urgent situation. The most important step is to slow down the rate of incoming calls so that you don’t wear out your technicians who are trying their best to let customers know your staff is doing everything possible to handle the issue. As soon as you have some idea of what customers are calling about, you need to put up a Front End Message. I will talk a lot about Front End Messages in the future of my blog, but now I am just going to focus on the message that you need to record immediately to stop the repetitive reports from customers. Two other benefits of putting up a front end message: Customers calling for other issues will not normally need to hold as long, and you will be able to determine if there are any other problems related to the first by checking to see if the call volume goes down.
You should have a basic script ready for people who need to put up a front end message on the fly. Here is how it should look:
“Thank you for calling. The help desk is aware of problems (logging into, accessing) the _________ (system, website, internet, application) Technicians are working on the issue. If you would still like to speak to a help desk analyst please continue to hold. Thank you for your patience. Your call is important to us."
Here is an example in cases where the help desk is experiencing problems internally:
"Thank you for calling. The help desk is currently experiencing internal connectivity problems, and we are unable to perform password resets at this time. Technicians are working on the problem. Thank you for your patience."
See step Step Two and Step Three for handling critical matters effectively on a busy help desk.
» Storm Worm Virus – Crisis Management Part 2 from HelpDeskNotes
Probably the worst recent virus threat is the Storm Worm Virus. It has grown 10 times larger than any other email attack in the past two years. On average 1 million emails cross the internet in one day, but between... [Read More]
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