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How to Improve Your Company’s IT Support with an IT Help Desk
From a business perspective, there are plenty of reasons to use an IT help desk.
15:15 13 September 2022
Your company’s IT support plays a direct role in generating customer experience and customer satisfaction. So it follows that your revenue and retention rate are highly dependent on how well you execute in this area, too.
What is an IT Help Desk?
An IT help desk is a sophisticated software platform that enables users to solve problems and/or get support from a single hub or portal. Depending on the software, this tool makes it easier for both customers and employees to address pressing issues and needs as they relate to products and services.
IT team members oversee the help desk and can provide additional service and assistance when the self-service options are inadequate. Most modern IT help desk solutions are delivered in a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) format.
The help desk operates in the cloud and provides accessible support regardless of location. Companies can customize their help desk to provide the services and features that matter most to their end users.
How to Use an IT Help Desk in Your Business
From a business perspective, there are plenty of reasons to use an IT help desk. But in the end, the benefit comes down to how effectively it assists your customers and IT support team.
Here are some ways you can use an IT help desk in your business to enjoy the maximum benefit:
- Feel the need for speed. Speed and efficiency are super important in an IT help desk setting. If you’ve ever doubted this, try thinking about a time when you had an IT issue when you were the customer and the level of urgency and frustration it fostered inside of you. This is what your end user may be feeling. All they care about is that their issue gets solved as quickly as possible. Make this your priority, as well.
- Support your team, too. An IT help desk is also designed to help your team. It’s intended to relieve some of the pressure your support staff feels so they can focus on the problems and challenges that are most urgent. Try to remain in steady communication with your team, and learn about which features they like in the help desk and which features or processes may create unnecessary friction. You can optimize your setup based on their feedback.
- Provide self-service options. One of the most powerful benefits of an IT help desk is its ability to furnish self-service support options to your customers. Find a way to provide as much DIY support as you can through intelligent FAQs, video guides, and chatbot assistance. That will alleviate some of the pressure your team is likely to experience, and ensure they don’t get bogged down in the mundane, less important issues.
- Don’t ignore the human touch. Though you definitely want to automate as much as you can, don’t make all support that way, to the point where you lose all personal touch with customers. It’s essential that you continue to prioritize human support and involvement; otherwise, you’ll run the risk of creating a sterile customer relationship that lacks emotional investment. At this point, you could become prone to losing customers to competitors who can offer a more compelling message.
- Forward information to the source. You may think of your IT help desk as an auto mechanic. It can help diagnose and fix problems, but the problems will continue to occur unless their underlying source gets addressed. In other words, the “factory” that makes the cars has to fix the issue so people don’t have to continue bringing their “cars” to the “mechanic.” In this illustration, the factory is your software engineering team.
Make sure your help desk software is gathering information and sending reports directly to your engineering team. By forwarding the feedback directly to the source, you can resolve issues once and for all (which alleviates pressure on your IT support team and creates breathing room for the help desk).
Adding it All Up
There’s no one-size-fits-all solution for all companies. Though IT help desk software offers a number of distinct advantages, it’s up to you to determine whether it would be the right solution to move your business forward.
If it is, you’ll have to perform your due diligence on the various platforms available in the marketplace so you can integrate the appropriate system for your support needs.