Office Memo 16
Office Memo 16
8 February 2005
Who's gonna help the helpdesk?
Being a non-fee earning support service, the IT department suffers the usual restraints on budget and available resources. Support staff face constant interruptions from telephone calls, emails, pagers and staff coming to their desk with problems. They are often being stopped in the corridor on the way to solve another user's problem. This is not mention the interruptions during rest breaks, if they are lucky enough to get them! Then there are the constant requests for updates from users waiting for their jobs to be completed, or even started. Everybody they talk to seems to have a problem, which can get anybody down. This all contributes to making IT support one of the most stressful departments to work in.
Without a system to set service-level agreement priorities, support departments work to a principle of he who shouts loudest or he who ranks highest gets seen first. There may be no evidence that any work was actually done and the constant interruptions slow any attempt to complete projects. The engineer is exhausted, stressed and despondent.
Help desk software was originally designed to track all these requests and prioritise jobs but did little to reduce the workload. Most help desk systems just create more form filling for the overburdened IT support engineer and do nothing to lessen interruptions. Not renowned for their patience with paperwork, engineers soon find ways around the added tedium.
The only solution seems to be to take on extra staff and create a front-line tiered support service to take calls and assign work. Attempts to justify the costs involved and gain approval to recruit more staff are hindered without reliable statistics on call volumes and performance.
Using the ways of the World Wide Web helps. If you redesign the way the helpdesk functions. You can create a system that provides users with self-help and call tracking facilities. These reduce interruptions and increase the number of calls getting logged. It can be available 24 hours a day, even when the support desk is unstaffed, which improves service without cost.
Web systems needs little or no effort from the support engineer to maintain. They are fast and reliable even across wireless LANs or modem dial up, and can be simple to use as navigating a Web site. Most importantly, they are available any time, any place anywhere.
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Bryan Taylor, Commercial Director, Sitehelpdesk.com contributed this article. Our thanks go to him.
Sitehelpdesk.com is exhibiting at The Helpdesk & IT Support Show 2005. This features over 80 exhibitors and a programme of free seminars on a wide range of topics. The Helpdesk & IT Support Show runs from 26th to 28th April 2005, at the National Hall, Olympia, London.
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