Jeremy Wanamaker | Sep 04, 2020
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The IT help desk is most business’s first line of defense against technology pain. An IT company with a quality help desk staff will help you navigate the day-to-day IT issues that can become serious problems, helping your team avoid costly network downtime and keep morale high.
Did you know that routine technology issues cost the average business two weeks of productivity per employee, every year?
Because the help desk plays such an important role in ensuring smooth, day-to-day operations, companies should be cautious about vetting a prospective provider. There are many inexperienced and low-value managed IT service providers (MSPs) on the market who claim to be help desk experts, but fail to deliver on their promises after a service contract has been signed.
What standards can a business use to tell one help desk team from another?
This article will walk you through some of the ways to evaluate an IT help desk service, teach you to look past the marketing hype, and ensure that you choose a provider who can help you achieve the stability you need to thrive.
It’s not as simple as answering the phone and looking up the problem in a database – at least, not when you’re doing it right.
A great IT help desk team combines technical know-how, customer service skills, and empathy into a reliable solution that gives their client’s maximum confidence in their network technology. They’ll take responsibility for tracking IT issues as they move through the support process, involve experts from across the MSP to solve complex issues, provide stop-gap solutions when necessary, and much more.
The Importance of a Documented Process
The complexity of running a quality help desk requires clear, documented processes. Without them, a help desk provider is likely going to offer uneven communication and inefficient support, especially as they try to customize their help desk to meet your evolving needs and goals.
Below is an example of an optimal IT help desk process.
Having thorough, documented processes for the support of your technology systems is a good indication that an MSP is taking its help desk service seriously. But what separates a decent help desk service from a great one?
Complete Network prides itself on providing high-quality IT support service to clients in a range of industries. We achieve that by exceeding the standard help desk service offering in several important dimensions.
Technicians that Possess Strong Technical and Interpersonal Skills
Good help desk service starts with a team of great technicians. All Complete Network help desk staff hold certifications from leading accrediting bodies, such as CompTIAA and ITIL. In addition, many also have certifications from Complete Network’s technology partners, like Microsoft, CISCO, and others.
But a reputable help desk team will have much more than just technical qualifications – they’ll have an established track-record of helping clients maximize the reliability and efficiency of their technology. That includes a culture of helpfulness that makes them feel more like a part of your team than just an outsourced support provider.
A great IT help desk team has a culture of customer service excellence.
A Clear, Efficient Path for Ticket Escalation
While there’s a good chance our help desk team will be able to resolve your support issue on the first call, some problems need to be escalated to what’s known as a Level-2 technician, or even further on to Level-3 support.
Efficient escalation isn’t as simple as it sounds, and many new or inexperienced IT help desks will not have a clearly defined path for ticket escalation. Without one, your most pressing IT problems could get lost in time-wasting back and forth exchanges between junior and senior support engineers.
Here’s how to ensure each ticket escalation is handled properly.
Another often overlooked help desk process is predictable and consistent follow-up. IT help desk support is only useful if it truly fixes the underlying IT problem. The Complete Network help desk team does follow up on all completed support requests to make sure the solution meets the clients needs.
Rigorous Gathering and Optimization of Help Desk KPIs
Help desk managers have the benefit of good data. With great accuracy, they see when a ticket is created, how soon after it was received the help desk team responded, what type of support was offered, how effective that support was, and much more.
For help desks at IT companies like Complete Network that strive for continuous improvement, this data is extremely valuable, because it offers a clear method of measuring the impact of our service and making targeted improvements.
Here are just some of the help desk metrics that we use to ensure consistent help desk quality
During the help desk vetting process, don’t be afraid to ask a prospective vendor about their metrics and KPIs. If they’re not forthcoming with solid data about their help desk performance, then that’s a strong indicator that either they’re not collecting this data – which is a major red flag – or that they’re not satisfied with their numbers, which is equally concerning.
Many businesses worry that outsourcing their IT support to an MSP will result in an inefficient, one-size-fits all approach that doesn’t truly address their unique needs. This is unfortunately the case with many new or inexperienced MSPs, who simply don’t have the resources and experience to manage a quality IT help desk.
Complete Network is a different kind of IT company. For over 20 years, we’ve been working with clients in Albany, New York, Charlotte, North Carolina, and Bluffton, South Carolina to ensure that their technology and staff are fully supported – no matter how complex their needs.
If you’d like to learn about Complete Network, or how our help desk consistently earns glowing praise from clients, we’d be happy to answer your questions any time. Call us at 1-877-877-1840 or email us at [email protected].
In an ideal world, technology would be a consistent source of competitive advantage and benefit for small and midsized businesses. The reality is that many fail to realize that confidence.
Without the right resources and support, even a highly skilled technology team can become overwhelmed by the growing list of technology management duties. When important tasks get neglected, it creates ripple effects throughout an organization that damage productivity and efficiency.
The co-managed IT services model solves these problems by providing your existing IT team with all the support and resources they need to successfully plan, manage, and defend your network technology.
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