The IT help desk is where your employees turn to get answers to their IT problems, but the help desk has problems of its own. It’s very common for employees to complain it takes too long to get good information and solve problems when they reach out to the help desk. There are many reasons for this, including:
- Help desks are understaffed. Because help desks don’t generate revenue, they often aren’t don’t have enough employees to answer inquiries rapidly. The employees they do have may not be IT specialists; they may be contractors who lack business-specific knowledge; and they may be very junior personnel without a strong foundation of experience to draw on.
- Help desks lack knowledge. Partly because of the revenue factor again, the people working on the help desk may not receive a lot of training to help them provide support. Given how rapidly technology changes, this lack of training is a big handicap when the team tries to provide support. Combine the limited training with frequent turnover and lack of documentation and it’s clear why the help desk has difficulty answering questions.
- Communication channels don’t work. Seeing a help desk team member in the hallway and mentioning a problem to them doesn’t put the problem on track to be solved, no matter how long and thorough the description was. Tickets need to be formally opened, which frustrates employees who just want to pick up the phone and get help now.
- The help desk doesn’t own problems. Corporate policies determine how the help desk handles problems. In most cases, if it’s too complex for the first line support team to solve, the problem is passed off to someone else, perhaps the vendor’s support. At that point, the help desk may close the ticket, as they’ve fulfilled their support responsibility. From the end user’s perspective, though, seeing the ticket marked closed at that point is frustrating or even infuriating, because the problem hasn’t been solved, at all, and they’ve got to get in touch with someone else to find out the status and when—or if—there will be a true resolution.
- Metrics aren’t relevant. Help desk employees are motivated to close tickets, as opposed to solving problems, because the metrics they’re measured again don’t tie to whether they provided an effective solution. Instead, they’re measured against factors like how quickly tickets are closed rather than the quality of the solution and if it’s perceived to be successful from the user’s perspective.
There’s a better way to provide help desk services that doesn’t have these problems. When you use Prescient Solutions to deliver help desk services, you get a team of trained help desk personnel dedicated to solving problems, not closing tickets. Learn more about how you can solve help desk services and optimize the way you solve employees’ technology problems in our guide to the help desk.
