Help Desk News and Information

Welcome to the Helpdesk Portal.

This website will discuss all aspects of running, working for, or managing a high volume helpdesk in virtually any country on the globe. Many of the ideas that will be presented here are derived from a book I written several years ago, but never quite finished. Instead of finishing the book, I decided to present my ideas and thoughts on the Internet to reach a wider audience and ensure helpdesks around the world benefit from my 25 years of experience.

The vast majority of my experience is with IT helpdesks, but I have worked on some other types as well. The main focus of this site will be information technology, but you can take the principles you learn here and apply them to nearly any type of support organization or helpdesk.

Helpdesk Best Practices

As you look around the site, you will notice large sections being devoted to helpdesk best practices. Having a set of standards for everything related to your helpdesk helps you better manage staff, better service customers, and people have a good idea of the type of service they’re going to receive when they contact your helpdesk. Many may think it is overkill to go into such a level of detail, but if you ever experienced a perfectly running call center you will quickly realize that it is not possible to overdo it.

We will discuss things like how your helpdesk should answer the phone, how calls should be transferred between technicians, even how technicians should format their email signature. Items like this may seem trivial, but it shows your customers that you run a tight ship and communication is always somewhat standard.

Helpdesk Software Packages

Having worked with nearly every helpdesk package on the market today, I have a unique insight into the pros and cons of each. Many packages are simply excellent and have nearly everything I could ever hope for. While others had to be removed from production immediately after I arrive.

We will review and comment about commercial and open source packages. Nothing will be left out, including price, vendor support, updates, and the way customers rate the application. These reviews should give you an excellent foundation to choose the helpdesk package that is best for your particular needs. Many applications are not one size fits all and my recommendations could vary greatly from one organization to the next.

Managing Helpdesk Employees

Sections are going to be devoted to how to best manage helpdesk employees and supervisors. These sections will be written for managers, but employees should also get quite a bit out of each section. If you’re planning to move into management at some point, these are must read articles.

Managing helpdesk employees is a little different than most any other profession. You have the pitfalls of managing complex schedules to ensure coverage and the challenges of managing people that are clearly only there until they find something better. Nearly 90% of employees working on a helpdesk have other aspirations, mostly within IT. Some will be waiting to complete a certification or degree, while others feel they already have the necessary experience to move their career to the next level.

Starting your career on the helpdesk

This information will be geared towards IT people in the beginning of their career. We will discuss everything from how to build your resume to acing your face to face interview. We will also have a full section on how to stand out from your fellow employees and move up the IT chain faster.

Technical knowledge is only one piece of the puzzle that makes a helpdesk agent exceed expectations or fail. Other mandatory attributes are outstanding customer service skills, honesty, dependability, and of course the willingness to help others can’t hurt.

Outsourcing your Helpdesk

This will cover the good and the bad about outsourcing your helpdesk to a third party company. We will give full reviews of some of the popular services; discuss the financial incentives, how to write the contracts, and what you should expect from your outsourcing agreement.

Often outsourcing seems like slam dunk, but there are pitfalls that need to be avoided and other considerations besides the bottom line that need to be studied. I’ve been to many organizations where everyone knows the helpdesk is not performing properly except the group of managers that are responsible for renewing the contract.

Helpdesk Metrics

Nearly all helpdesk tools ship with built in metrics so management can evaluate the effectiveness of their helpdesk. These metrics are often worthless and are designed to put a positive spin on a poor performing helpdesk. I will show you how to get the most out of the helpdesk data and provide reports of the strengths and weaknesses of your entire IT organization.

In addition, we will go over some effective strategies to find out exactly how your customers view the helpdesk and what can be done to improve your image. This includes surveys, personal phone calls, and face to face interviews with random customers and managers. Your helpdesk is only as good as the people you service think it is.

Far too often, especially with outsourced helpdesks, management is only concerned with the strengths and it is easy to massage the data to shine a spot light on what is being done well. However, more important than strengths are weaknesses. When you’re able to find your shortcomings, your helpdesk will perform leaps and bounds better in no time. Believe me; this will be more impressive to your management than the same old dull report about how you closed 90% of your calls.

Taking a balanced view of helpdesk data is a sign of professionalism and good character. These are both attributes that stick out in the workplace today. Would you rather be the helpdesk manager that closes calls 90% of the time, or the absolute animal in IT that searches for and fixes every possible shortcoming?

Future of IT Support

Finally we will discuss the future of support organizations and how you can jump on the bandwagon today. Ten years from now things will be as different as they were 10 years ago. With the addition of self-service portals and the relative knowledge a lot of end-users have today – The helpdesk of the future will play a much different role than we do today.