What is Help Desk?
Use Help Desk, the Right Way
The hyper-connected millennial workforce has a strong knowledge base thanks to mobile tech. Now, with cloud technologies, they are working seamlessly from anywhere without compromising on productivity. Working from home is a growing trend, while working during travel is expected just the same. The common point of contact is the IT help desk which supports them with a diverse range of technologies and platforms. But before we look into what is a help desk, let’s first try and understand what role a help desk plays.
Help Desk Definition
The broader understanding of a help desk is that it is a one-stop solution for all user issues. Users can get any kind of customer support and assistance as per company norms. But, in the IT sector, the role it plays varies. In many companies IT help desk is an in-built service desk that caters to the technical needs of its users. The main purpose of setting up a help desk is to respond to the employee’s hardware issues. Usually, help desks work at different levels. The first level is usually set up to answer questions that are part of the knowledge base or FAQ. The second level has trained staff to provide a single solution for their complex queries. The third level deals with specific software requirements, such as bug fixes and other updates that impact companies.
Millennials and IT Help Desk
Millennials have a different approach to work. Being born in the internet age, they are used to flexibility and openness and are always connected with people through various platforms. With the growth of the IT sector and the rising employment of the young in this industry, the help desk has moved beyond regular day-to-day customer service. It is playing a critical role in many companies’ technology operations. The millennials expect the IT help desk to work hand-in-hand with users. The desk functions are as follows:
- End-user-centric
In many companies, the IT help desk plays a prominent role. It should provide all the support related to customer support. It gives a personalized experience and works towards solving all user issues.
- Reactive to proactive
The IT help desk must proactively use the cloud and mobile technologies to make work easy and simple. It should help in identifying the issues before the users flag them.
- Identify new ways
The main aim should be to increase customer service. It should also focus on boosting innovation and knowledge base to strengthen the business. It is should enable people to approach desk support for any user issue.
Help Desk Support
A help desk should always be able to manage multiple support queries. It becomes very difficult to serve the internal or external staff with limited resources. But, there are always solutions to minimize the workload of the service desk and help them to improve and provide high quality of personalization support. Here are some ways that can help:
- Go for automation
Every help desk should focus on increasing productivity and customer service. The best thing to do is to automate the key procedures. This way, the help desk can focus on other desk functions and can add more value to the customers.
- Implement best practices
The help desk best practices must emphasize finding the problems that can come in the way of work. They should test different approaches and processes to find solutions for user issues. It is always good to experiment because that will help us to provide a single solution.
- Focus on internal communication
Be it a small or large firm, internal communication is crucial. The help desk must be able to prevent any kind of confusion and should work in accordance with all the departments. It has to act as the bridging platform in many companies.
Different Help/Service Desk Software & Uses
Help desk software will come in handy to quickly resolve user issues. It also helps ticket management and will be the point of contact for support-related queries. The new help desk software makes work easier for desk agents by providing a wide range of support and collaborative tools. According to the stats, about 42 percent of customers expect a quick reply from the desk agents. This is where help desk software comes into the picture to ease out the pressure and provide good customer support.
The help desk software works towards the specific process of dealing with customer issues. In many companies, IT help desk provides all the necessary support for internal and external audiences. This way, the help desk will be able to address all the user issues. The help desk solutions mainly cater to three things such as contact channel, ticket management and analytics. Here are some important ways help desk software can provide a consistent user experience.
- Point of contact
Customers should be able to reach out help desk for anything through the help desk software. This should be the common point of contact for users. Usually, customers should be able to contact the help desk via phone, email, email, social or chat.
- Ticket management
This forms the core of any help desk. It helps to keep track of user issues and will come in handy to solve the matter quickly. Help desk software gives the customers a clear ticket status and helps avoid duplicating. It also converts emails into tickets.
- Knowledge base
This is another crucial element of help desk software. It helps in giving a proper structure to the customer queries to provide the necessary customer support. It will help to sort out the repetitive queries that come to the help desk, releasing the burden from desk agents.
- Escalation
Some advanced help desk software provides the escalation feature. This will allow the desk agents to route specific tickets to the right people. A multi-level escalation can come in handy in ticket management and quickly resolve issues. This will make work easier and simple.
Outsourcing IT Help Desk
This is a new trend that seems to be catching up. Outsourcing IT help desk will relieve the in-house IT help desk to concentrate on other important issues. The customer issues will be handled by experts and the latest technologies who are always ready for all the support related to the queries. This is how organizations benefit from help desk outsourcing services.
Increase Support Availability
Many companies prefer to work from 9 to 5. But, some issues need to be tackled outside of normal work hours. It is during this time that outsourcing the help desk comes in handy. For example, some transaction needs to be taken care of after work hours, which the outsourced help desk can handle. Not having a help desk after work hours can lead to several user issues.
Quick Response
Not all the in-house representatives will be able to handle the user issues. It is always beneficial to have knowledgeable and experienced help desk professionals who can provide good customer service. In many companies across the globe, an in-house help desk works in coordination with an outsourced IT support help desk to get issues resolved.
Conclusion:
ExterNetworks provides you with all the necessary managed IT support services to tackle IT-related issues with our multi-lingual support and IT help desk services. Our professionals will always provide support related to customer queries and deal with user issues. This will also help you increase productivity. We promise to bring in new technology to provide the best customer service.
