Help Desk Layout

is that it be in a place where the callers can't hear the computers techs yelling and using 4 letters words about stupid users. It is hard enough to calm down someone that is freaking out because their "computer doesn't work" without having to hear screaming on BOTH sides of the conversation!

I currently work in a call center/helpdesk position. I would recommend housing (if possible)the helpdesk staff in a bull pen area, so they have the ability to hear what others are saying (this helps to get the word out of a network issue, plus give support to the other staff member). Keep the helpdesk housed in the same floor/building as IT staff, but away enough that the noise will not affect calls. It is good to feel part of IT as well as hear what is going on, it promotes team atmosphere with IT staff. I would recommend display phones. We have the ability to monitor how many calls we have taken, who is unavailable and various other status. Helps to keep us competive and honest.

I would go with a cubicle environment. Just make sure that you have a way for the helpdesk team to communicate, like instant messenger. This will ensure that your techs have privacy while dealing with angry users.

If you ask me, seperate your help desk from the rest of IT. They WILL clash, and your IT people will be caught up answering questions from the Help Desk people instead of doing thier jobs. (Knowledge by experience).

Most of your IT staff are going to want nothing to do with the Help Desk personell either. Especially your seasoned staff. So keep them apart.

As for putting them together... I'd put them into cubicles. Low walled, and yes, have a display for calls in the cue, but not make a big deal of it. The object here is customer service. Dont try to rush a caller through for numbers... make sure the customer is happy and the problem is fixed...

As for the other comments I read... There is nothing I hate more is a help desk that treats the caller like they are idiots. Yes, many are, but you don't have treat them that way...

ASK what the caller has tried so far... you might have someone who's an MCSE on the other end with 11 years in the business... who might even know more about things than your Help Desk guy.

People with IT problems are NOT idiots... the only ID-10-T errors are the IT guys who don't understand that not everyone is a computer geek or went to school to learn this trade.

Hope that helps....

The answers I have seen so far reveal (no surpise) a wide variance in what is expected of the Help Desk as well as in staffing it.

I am the Helpdesk Manager at my company, but this has evolved over the past five years and is somewhat misleading. At first, we had a team of administrators who took calls from the 500 employees of the company. Any person taking a call can and should resolve the problem; our "first call resolution rate" was about 100 percent and there was no distinction between helpdesk and I.T.

As to cubicles vs bullpen, it depends. IF the helpdesk team are experienced administrators, then immediate proximity is extremely useful, you can detect network emergencies far more quickly. It is also very good to have a manager, or more experienced tech, in proximity to apprentices.

The downside is well known and obvious -- NOISE. This can be minimized by padded furniture rather than the hardwood cubes we've turned to each other and actually focuses noise across the bullpen.

*IF* the helpdesk is corporate, then the helpdesk needs to be as tightly integrated as possible with I.T. I forward calls pertaining to SQL server problems directly to the SQL programmer for instance.

Also, *IF* your helpdesk is corporate, put REAL TALENT on the helpdesk -- my tier 1 guy is an MCSE and it is not very often we have to escalate.

ROTATE the jobs; don't allow a corporate culture to come into existence of "just" helpdesk. Make it so that Helpdesk is recognized for what it is -- once you've created a cow, just how do you think you are going to keep it contented? Don't let "creating the cow" earn more money and respect than "keeping the cow contented."

It's inevitable; but I counter it, pointing out to the self-important programmers that, hey, I get to talk to HUNDREDS of people, MY name is known, is YOURS?

But like I say, mix it up a bit; let every I.T. worker do a stint on the helpdesk, and conversely, every helpdesk worker is encouraged to program, write SQL queries, make web pages.

I think the best layout that I have ever done put managers, team leads, and Account Representatives within walking range. With this, it put the decision makers, the experienced and the Account Reps all in one area, quickening customer satisfaction.

With that, it would be a great idea to put the generalists on one side of the building and then put the folks who take the escalations on the other. This will allow the ones who do escalations some privacy, especially if it turns into a legal matter that needs to be taken care of in a more seperate setting.

The team leaders could also be the ones who are the Product Support Specialists, who would be considered second level, or just those who have had more than 1 year of experience.

And remember - NO CUSTOMER SHOULD EVER BE PLACED ON HOLD. So in this matter you can have Instant Messages going back and forth to the Product Specialists to assist the call taking employees, since placing a customer on hold makes the customer question the competence of the person who takes the call.

There are four of us that do all the tech support for a local school district. We have a room that we share that's away from all the other departments. Two reasons for this...one, we can talk on the phones and not disturb the other departments on the floor. Secondly, we have privacy from people just walking in for help. We all have corner desk uniths with ample shelves and counter space for many of the pieces of hardware that we support. In this setting we face away from each other to no interfere with a call. However, if we have a question, we can just turn around and ask or fellow support staff.

Hello, I managed a help desk for 275 employees
for nine years. It included providing help with telephones, voice mail, network, windows,
software applications, printer and faxes issues.
Below is what I would recommend.

- Low walled cubes? 5 - 6 ft recommended, as long as they are somewhat sound proof

- Bull pen instead of cubes?
Ideally, if you have the money, lol
Each help desk personnel should have there own
assigned work area, cubes do work well.
In addition, a bull pen or a shared area, similar to a library for the various shared software and hardware,also a round table for urgent,or weekly meetings would be super too.
sharing of information is critical to success

- Mixed in / separate from other IT groups?
they can certainly reside with other IT groups,
they should not be totally isolated from other IT groups

- Displays for calls waiting, network issues?
yes bulletin board and / or white board to post daily issues or changes and urgent news & updates

Good luck, I am sure you will arrange this super!
- ?? What would be great is an office that is rectangular, with the cubes on the sides of the square, then the shared area/library/bull pen and a round table in the center.

I have managed a help desk for 275 employees.

It depends greatly on who and what your help desk services. I've read that mauve is a good color for the area, blue is not, and that it is best to have cubes with low walls as it is supposed to remind people to speak softly. I know I hate when I am on the phone with tech support and I can hear chaos in the background.
Someone suggested finding out the caller's qualifications in order to skip some of the steps. Many level 1 support people are not allowed to escalate a call unless they go through steps 1,2,3,4 first. When I started we were not allowed to create a ticket until the machine was rebooted. It cut escalation by a huge amount, but as you all know, it is not an easy task to get a person to save their work and close their apps.
Ask your people what they want. Each group interacts differently and has different needs.
Don't separate the techs and the help desk, the more knowledge the help desk staff has the better they will be able to create good tickets, rich in information and troubleshooting. In fact, I suggest assigning a tech to a help desk person to mentor them for 3-6 months. They go to the mentor with any questions, this gives them the correct info and they feel free to ask.

I worked in an environment where the walls of the workstations were superb. When seated at a screen, it was possible to feel secluded from the rest of the team and to put all your focus on the task at hand, but simply by lifting your head up, you could readily see who else was around and enabled easy conversation with another team member. This was an important contributor to productivity and yet provided that all important feeling of quiet and seclusion within your own workspace. Get this right and you'll have a happier team.

There is no simple answer. If your Helpdesk supports both walk-in and telephonic support you will have a mixture of open space and cubical. Cubical configuration will also be mixed based on either level of support or team management. Usually, in a team configuration you have low walls between team members and high walls seperating the teams - this allows for intercommunication and seperation. With the support level, Usually the lower the support the higher the walls due to the volume, presentation, and typical answers are scripted until escalated. As the level of support gets higher the lower the walls to allow for intercommunication, and due to the experience of the personnel they have a greater understanding of presenting a professional workplace. As for color - bright earthy colors - stay away from dark and drape - higher a decorator

Well how is the environment at the office that you are correctly in? If it is a tight group the low cubes or even a bullpen will be great for the moral of the group. Also if you have guys that have more knoweldge then some of the other guys that will help them improve their stills and knoweldge by hearing and also asking more questions to your more senior guys. I would recommend to display the calls that are waiting also for the simple fact that will remind the slackers that there is work to be done. And also see if you can keep the group close to the rest of IT. There might be a diamond in the rough in your group and it can help your group and help the rest of IT also. Because at the end of the day we are all on the same team. Plus if there is any question that need to be asnwered from another group your guys dont have to wonder away. Good Luck with you helpdesk and have a great day!

This question might be better answered based on the size of your staff. Low walled cubes can certainly help promote communication which is essential in IT. If it is a busy Help Desk, with a slightly larger staff (10+ employee's) than the bull pen's wld help reduce the noise.

I am all in favor of cross-training so if your help desk employee's can incease their knowledge from your networking dept., server dept., etc. That can only make your team more efficient by increasing customer service levels and minimize transferring calls, hold times, and call backs. The other IT dept's might appreciate help desk handling the generic calls too so they can focus on bigger issues. A well rounded Help Desk staff is very desireable and valued. Not to mention you are preparing your staff with the knowledge to move to other dept's if an opening comes available that they have expressed an interest in.

Displaying the calls waiting is good to have. Your staff will always know where they are at and so will you. As for displaying the type of issue that is incoming? Whether or not they know what the call is they are still answering it so I am not sure there is a real distinct advantage in that type of display. That cld go either way. That decision shld be made by you and your staff really b/c it is pure preference.

These are some of things I have had experience with that have been successful. The absolute best thing you can do when laying out a Help Desk is work on it with your team and get their thoughts. You want them to be as efficent as possible and they can contribute to making that happen. Plus it gets them involved which can be quite motivating if they know their voice can be heard in Dept. decisions.

Hope that helps! Good Luck

Chris Zalegowski
Desktop Support Manager / Network Administrator
DEKA R&D

I highly recommend working with a professional design firm. I happen to be the IT person for a professional design company and I see how they help companies everyday with these same questions. They do a lot of programming where they plan out traffic patterns, departmental relations and make sure to incorporate your business culture. Although they will always work to get a design contract, many times they will comp the design work if they are awarded the furniture order / labor order to peform the reconfiguration. I heard that is very common for furniture dealerships. If you have a facilities manager, they can connect you to the preferred vendor. Many dealerships have designers on staff to address these types of questions / concerns.
Hope this helps.

3/4 height walls
Display showing current outages

keep your help desk people far enough apart to be able to hear their callers but close enough to ask questions of their fellow help desk workers. " none of us is as smart as all of us"

I discovered, by accident, a open , bull pen style configuration helped improve productivity. My HD was transitioning from one work space to another. We were placed in a interim location while our cubicles were placed in storage awaiting the permanent home to be remodeled. We were forced to set up shop using desks with no walls. I was somewhat concerned about noise, outside distractions. The exact opposite occurred. The open concept allowed team sharing of information about problems, HD analysts sharing info via I-M regarding cases they are over hearing. We also had application analysts stop when they heard a application they supported having a issue. We found the App. Analysts providing coaching tips on the fly and also providing the HDA some impromptu training. Even the background noise helped with customer satisfaction. When a user heard the other HDa talking in the background, they made comments like, I hear you are busy, no wonder I was on hold for a little while.

The open concept also worked for team building, with senior HDA helping the less experienced.

We had some issues like messy work areas, and personal comfort issue to over come, but as a team we seemed to resolve them without further incidence.

In the time we were in the Temp location, our customer satisfaction scores increased and so did our resolution on first call.
So I am a major proponent of open HD work areas, so much so the statistics allowed me to configure our perm home as a open concept bull pen configuration.