There’s a growing gap between Cutting Edge Help Desks and the Helpless Desks. Which side of the gap is your help desk on? Does your help desk use all the tools that equal success?
Knowledge Base
The Cutting Edge Help Desk has a search engine based knowledge base. Depending on the number of needs and calls, you have at least one person writing and updating documents. An advanced help desk has a Knowledge Base where customers can type in their questions and get their own answers – cutting back on their need to contact the help desk directly. Check out Right Answers for an example.
The Helpless Desk has a share folder with any number of documents that are rarely, if ever, updated. The procedures skip steps and lack accuracy. Poorly organization of documents are difficult to navigate. The only person who seems to think there is any useful information in this type of “Knowledge Base” is the person to stored those documents there.
Remote Desktop Tools:
The Cutting Edge Help Desk techs are ready to use their remote tools as soon as they say hello to callers. The application is open, and ready for use. Accompanied with a good Knowledge Base, techs can use the tool for any number of things like installing software over the phone with users when needed.
The Helpless Desk either doesn’t have remote desktop tools, or they don’t use them. They may lack the training, or perhaps, the discipline to remember to use the tool.
Password Reset Tools:
The Cutting Edge Help Desk can reset nearly any password users have a need for. There are only a few exceptions, such as administrator passwords, that need to be escaladed. The more advanced Help Desks have tools that can reset a number of passwords at once. AdventNet has created a Robo Technician that can reset Active Directory passwords from the ticketing system. Web based applications at the organization have an automated "forgot password" feature.
The Helpless Desk is limited in their ability to reset many passwords. They need to send tickets or emails to other groups or individuals to get the majority of passwords reset.
Ticketing System:
The Cutting Edge Help Desk has a ticketing system with all the bells and whistles, and they are required to open a ticket with every call. (Quick tickets are available when there is no need to forward the ticket.) I am more and more impressed with all the modules available these days. I just wrote an article about one tool that runs diagnostics on the user's computer and puts the data in the Remedy ticket. With a good developer on staff, you can build almost anything into Remedy. (Does it sound like I might have a favorite?)
The Helpless Desk isn't required to open a ticket for every call. They have no idea when the customer called last. The ticketing system is pretty useless for a number of reasons. You cannot escalate tickets, because other support groups within the organization do not have access to the ticketing system. You cannot easily search tickets or run reports. Few support groups in the organization use the ticketing system anyway.
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Another good post that touched a nerve with me - especially with the Password Reset Tool and comment about having a good developer on staff to update/maintain/customize the call tracking system. 2 very important things that were missing in my last position and virtually ignored.
With password resets being about 25% on average of a service desk's duties, you can compute a simple ROI for a tool by taking an average (say 3 minutes) per Password Reset call and doing the math. A complex environment might have say 1300 reset requests per month which is 65 man hours spent resetting passwords. Even handling 1/2 of those resets with a self-help tool can free up almost one man-week per month that can be used to do something more productive and meaningful like composing/maintaining a knowledge base.
Posted by: John Alfonso | September 13, 2007 1:51 PM | Permalink to Comment