These low-cost strategies will help IT managers at small- to medium-sized businesses track recurring support problems to save time and increase employee morale.
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Most IT pros in small- to
medium-sized businesses find themselves struggling with how to meet day-to-day
support needs while remaining focused on the seemingly limitless IT projects
that flow from the business. Here are five strategies you can use to get a
handle on your support requirements and free up time for other projects in your
shop.
Large organizations typically
use help desk tracking systems with sophisticated reports which identify the
categories of causes for support requests. Those reports track users who are
most frequently calling in for support, the average time to resolve a ticket,
and a myriad of other bits of information. However, small- to mid-sized
organizations struggle with simple, often home grown, help desk solutions which
lack high-end reporting functions. However, working in a mid-sized organization
means you may actually have an advantage because your techs will be working
more directly with your users. You can use that direct contact with a smaller
group of users to your advantage by performing a support time study involving
each user.
A time
study should be conducted over a relatively short period of time, usually a day
or a week. During that time, everyone is asked to keep detailed records on what
they work on and for whom. The process of capturing the records is generally
considered a great burden until it is really understood that the purpose is to
identify those things which are consuming time and frustrating everyone. Capturing
minute details isn’t necessary; just record those things which take a
non-trivial amount of time to resolve or issues that happen frequently.
The time study records
are reviewed to identify patterns or opportunities for improvement. Consider
setting up a training plan if there are several calls on the same issue. Frequency
is one of the first clues that it’s possible to improve and streamline the
process. If you receive a dozen calls a week to reset a password, then reducing
that to six calls a week will substantially reduce the amount of time spent on
those calls.
Tasks that take a long
time to complete should also be reviewed. If troubleshooting a printer problem
took three hours then perhaps it’s time to replace the printer. These types of
time wasters can also severely hurt morale as team members become frustrated
when work begins backing up in the queue.
Even without a time study,
some IT managers can see the patterns in the support requests that they’re
getting. They know that there are problems which occur over and over again and
suck the energy out of the team.
Although each
organization is different there are some common trouble makers when it comes to
time wasters in an organization. Here are five areas to address when setting
your support strategy:
Identifying and
addressing key processes that eat up valuable time resources should free up
more time for other projects in your shop. Eliminating these time wasters will
also help improve morale for your users and your IT staff.
Robert Bogue, MS MVP Commerce Server, MCSE, MCS: Security, has
contributed to more than 100 book projects and numerous other publishing
projects. He is a strategic consultant for Crowe Chizek
in Indianapolis. You can reach him at Robert.Bogue@CroweChizek.com.
