Due to the increase in number of Information Technology (IT) users, there are a number of problems that have arisen from companies with IT users to different people. There are a number of ways to deal with IT problems. Many companies have set up their own help desks in order to deal with the IT problem. Help desks are services in which IT users have the ability to inquire about certain problems regarding the services or products a company provides. Sometimes IT user encounters problems that arise from the quality of services that are provided by the help desks (Kendall & Kendall2002).
This essay attempts to clarify some strategic ideas that companies need to employ in order to improve and handle help desks services to ensure efficient services to an IT user. Help desks are created by companies in order to reduce the operation costs. This is achieved use of business process outsourcing to minimize on costs. Most companies have hired call center agents and make them in their toll free lines or e-mail to provide efficient support to their customers. A help desk is an important part of a business and a properly functioning help desk will make customers to stick to your company and continue using a company’s product or services. This will also attract new customers the company if the company is performing well.
It is important to adopt policies and forma procedures that would review IT user requirements and the procedures of the business process before making significant changes in the IT. A better understanding of IT systems and the requirements of an organization is necessary to address the user support needs, in most cases many organizations have not adequately identified the requirements for IT user support programs. Formal methodologies are required to improve the user support programs (Gomolski, 2005)
Help desks being response centers for diagnosing technical problems are handled with employees who provide IT technical support within a company. Help desks are usually very busy because of the issues that arises from different varieties of equipment that they support, these include printers, phones, photocopiers and computers. IT users may experience problems ranging from minor problems, such as, inadequate employee training to major problems such as technical machine problems (Schrage, 2002).
The following are strategies of running a help desk to ensure efficient service delivery to IT users. Firs it is important to designate support levels. It is important to assign individuals who have less training to the lower positions and those with adequate training to higher positions. The employees selected for higher positions should pass through the lower level first and gets promotion if they are able to tackle the issues at the lower level. Job selection through the designation of support levels is important because it ensures efficiency enables the higher level employees to have a better focus on their job level (Schrage, 2002).
The next strategy is to decide on the flow, it is important to understand how an issue gets into the help desk. Many a time, most phone technicians will enter the data into the help desk software; this will make the lowest level employee to access the assignment. A better decision on flow will ensure that a suitable person is identified to solve the IT use’s problem to a satisfaction (Turban, et al1999). This is the most important aspect of on the decision of a better flow in an organization’s structure. Thirdly, is important to track all issues. All issues include those which can be fixed easily and quickly should be tracked by noting the duration including time and date of any newly emerging issue.
This will ensure clarity and make IT technicians to take care and handle the technical issues in a timely manner. There are various items to track such as the identification and number of machines, details regarding employee’s information. These entire information or data assists help desk program to easily identify machines that frequently have defaults. In addition it helps in the identification of employees who need further training to increase on their efficiency. Thus, it will assist the technicians who do not have adequate experience to get orientation from other technicians who are experienced in order to be productive.
Forth, it is very essential to provide constant training and support to the help desk personnel. This should involve giving help desk employees tips on the help desk software. Training of the help desk employees should include providing vital information that concerns the use of new machines, equipment and soft ware. Hence, the help desk employees will be able to deal with and fix all the issues clients may require. It is also important to hold regular meeting with the help desk staff to make sure that hey are informed and be on the same page to provide for an effective operation of the help desk. Next, it is important to define the help desk’s goals, this is important for a company to understand the number of clients it wants to handle, either through personal touch, to provide expert interaction, or to deal with agents. However, the goals of a help desk may have conflicting ideals, thus it is important to more skilled employees or agents, whereas the resource providers should e able to have access to different types of information.
Clear goal enables proper employee or agent training programs (Schrage, 2002).
Additionally, it is important to understand the clients. Help desk manager should be able to understand the clients and the environment I which they operate. Understanding the clients is important but it is necessary to understand or determine the help desk support knowledge workers or process workers. Due to different types of customers, knowledge worker should be determined based on call volume, response time, call closure, and resolution time. On the other hand knowledge workers who are skilled analysts should e measured on their contribution, how accurate they provide answers, and the root causes of their analysis. The help desk team manager should be equipped with tools manage the team performance.
Finally, it is important to encourage the right attitudes, this is important to ensure that clients obtain the right assistance from the help desk. When they get the appropriate assistance on a product or service they will be comfortable if served with employees who have a good attitude towards their jobs. Basically customers will be comfortable if they are attended by the right people who have the right attitudes of doing the job which are influenced expectations of the product or service levels (Turban, et al1999).
In conclusion, the effective use of IT within an organization is a critical factor to achieve success. Improvements in IT enables an organization to improve its products or services, however, the successful use of IT is the responsibility of the user. Inadequate support in IT for the users makes organizations to be unlikely to get to achieve good results or the benefits of the IT assets. Improvements in IT allows for the provision of tools for the users to achieve their goals. Many organizations have understood the importance of providing IT support to their clients since it is in the best interest of the organization to improve the user support it provides to its IT clients. This enables organizations to make use of IT effectively and efficiently.
