Should Help Desk Provide Cust. Service?

Well, here's how it plays out where I was working, this summer. I came onboard the Information Resources Management team at a large Health Care Center. Now, although certain or your peers may not want to hear this, most of the other workers in IRMhere would go that extra mile and in the process build good relations between IRM and other divisions.
Before I came to work there, in the 70's and 80's, IRM was apparently run by "ticket takers" type IS people, who would handlewhat they could and pass on what they couldn't (without telling the users). But now, every delay is explained to the users, and as a consequence, we're finally starting to live that bad reputation down.

So, yes, I feel that help desks generally should provide extra service to the users. Also, if you explain what you're doing and what it took to correct the problem to the user, then you're less likely to get another call like that again, or at least you'll get less calls like that in the future.

Nothing tarnishes the reputation of the help desk faster than lack of information and follow up.

It is a common complaint that the help desk serves as a big black hole for problem reports. A second complaint is corrections that don't solve the problem. Be sure to let users know when someone is likely to address their problems and be sure to follow up to make sure their problems were resolved.

There are two possible approaches. The help desk can take the initiative and keep users informed or the help desk can expect users to periodically call back to find out what's going on. I don't think anyone favors the latter approach.

It's a really intersting question, and something that we struggled with at my former employer. My former company was based in Chicago, but had offices scattered all over the country. Therefore, most support done was over the phone. Obviously, some fixes took 30 minutes, while others could takes days, or sometimes weeks. It just depended on the situation. However, the biggest complaint that I heard when I came onboard as Help Desk Manager was that there was little-to-no followup on the current status of the issue. The end-users had no idea where their issue stood, and/or what was being done to remedy it.

I took a look at what some of the big computer companies do, and chose Gateway as a good example. Every time I deal with Gateway, they DO provide that "extra touch" that you mention in your message. They are professional, courteous, and their follow-up is excellent. That's the way I tried to model our local help desk.

In other words, yes, I believe that the help desk does have the obligation to followup, touch base, etc... There is a lot more to that job than just being a ticket taker. Good question!

JPA

*Maybe your company needs me to come manage your help desk?????? :)

When an end user calls about a problem, and that call needs to be referred to someone else. Even then, do you think the user is thinking about that next level when they're in the dark?

Nope. They think "Help Desk." Others have already spoken about efficiency and the need for centralized management of users' calls. I'm thinking a little bit differently here. The Help Desk is the primary point of contact. It is "The Place" to which users turn when something goes awry.

I've had upset users when the Help Desk could not answer their question. But I've had BALLISTIC users when that Help Desk could not inform them of call status. And it's almost never the other way around. In fact, my own experience has been that users that go ballistic right away are almost always ones that have run into this failing of the Help Desk before.

Who is on their mind when they think about the problems they face? That is almost always the Help Desk. Doesn't it make sense to meet that expectation?

R?? Vargas

Help Desk Professionals should be required to provide Customer Service to the users. Assuming that the user is an irate individual and your help desk support does not follow-up with the "extra touch" then your department's reputation won't be a very good one. It was a pre-requisite for A+ Certification until recently, so it should be required....and that's what I think

Look at it from this perspective: your job is to make PEOPLE happy (productive, etc.), not merely to keep the machines running. By this, I mean the person who calls for support is having trouble doing his job. He doesn't know or care why the computer isn't working, he just knows he can't be productive. If you can help that PERSON, you've done your job properly. If not, then you haven't. Follow-up is part and parcel of that task.

The company I work for has named our "help desk" the service desk instead, and I think that has alot to do with the attitude of the techs there. It should also be noted that not doing those small things like following up on tickets, resolved ones especialy,reflects badly on the IT feild in general. It seems to keep the sterotypical "computer geek" image flourishing.

My help desk is flooded with calls and you can only have a certain number of help desk representatives to stay in business.

If you combine that with customer service, the customer will have a longer wait time for the answer to their problem.

Customer service follow up should be done by the sales representative, who sold the computer system to the customer, and to keep the customer happy.

Don Thibodaux, Don's Computer Systems.

To briefly clarify what I posted, I am primarily talking about an internal help desk providing support to fellow employees who are also users. The topic could apply elsewhere, of course, but not in my case! I apologize for not being more specific earlier.

Coming from a very good customer service organization, I would say yes...help desk staff should provide the best customer service they can. In our organization, everyone of us may be a support staff, in that a "human" must answer the phone in less than 3 rings and that person "owns" that call. Yes, we have call monitoring and logging, but that person who picked up the phone is ultimately responsible for resolving that issue, regardless of position or title. First and last impressions is what the customer remembers, and if the help desk is involved, then they should provide this service, whatever the cost.

I agree that the help desk should take the 360 approach to the job. They enter the tickets via a phone call or email, validate all information, if they can't resolve it, pass it on to tier 2 and contiuously follow that ticket until completion. After tier 2 has resolved, it's the Help Desk Analysts responsibility to follow up with the end user. Someone has to make sure that the job was done correctly and the user was satisfied. Who else but the initial contact person the user spoke with whenreporting the problem. That's the way I run my Support Center/Help Desk.

Really I think it is a 2 way street. I currently work for a software developer who has international resellers spread around the world. A lot of the time, a problem will come to us from a reseller, a response will go back with a request for feedbackon the result of the fix. 9 out of 10 times this feedback does not occur and we then have to chase the reseller for the information.
I have also been on the other end of the stick, working for an international reseller who sent problems to the developers for resolutions and bug fixes. In this case, 9 out of 10 times we had to chase these developers for the status of a request. In both cases I have implemented a weekly reporting schedule that outlined the status of currently open tickets. This has helped to clear up a lot of confussion and also get a more accurate picture of the current open ticket situation. It has also served to open up a clearer line of communication between all parties involved. Everyone now knows what is expected of them when a problem comes in an also when it goes out.

Yes. But they must be properly trained and motivated to handle the task at hand.Customer service is basically the core of the company. Many organization assumes that only the customer service department handle the client/customer. They are mistaken.

Front desk staff are your frontliners. Customer sees them first and last. A good impression therefore is essential.

If you operate a help desk, you should know more about the enabling technology than the users you support. Your users should be able to come to you with any technical issue seeking assistance or advise. No matter how big or small. I believe in being proactive, to go out and find problems either at the server level or the user level, before they become serious. I believe in meeting my users, and getting to know what each of their skill levels are. I have worked in facilities that had 2000 plus users, and I knew them all by name! They knew/know they could/can come to me, and if I didn't/don't have an answer that I knew someone who would/does. The users are just looking for answers on how to do their jobs better, it is the IS departments job to take as good a care of users as possible, because without the users, then the organization wouldn't need us. It is a two way street, we need them and they need us. I have a philosophy that the environment is symboitic to a degree, yes it can make the IT job tougher, but when you have successfully engaged a user and put them back on the road to productivity, I don't know to many things that can make my day any better, especally if the user has a problem that I have never faced before. I get to fix an issue for that user, and I get to learn and retain a new piece of information.

Of course they should, I know when dealing with some of our vendors and their help desks I am thankful for their help but sometimes I have some questions that come up after getting off the phone. If the questions seem trivial or are just curiosity Idon't want to take the time with the call. Also after being on eternal hold for help, or being told that I have called the wrong number, or being told it isn't their problem it would be nice for someone to just touch base and act as if they care if my problem was taken care of or that I might be satisfied with the results of my solution.
Because of my experiences with a lot of the rude companies (Symantec) I make sure that I always touch base with a contact within the week and reconnect with them the following week. It may be a pain sometimes for me and the client, but if it makes one in a hundred happy then it is worth it. I have found though, the majority of clients appreciate it and remember it.

Hi.... I'm new here, but I feel very strongly that "customer service" is and always will be the "backbone" of any service oriented business. Even if nothing more than a brief phone call stateing that we are delighted they have chosen us. (which we are) Letting them know that someone "cares" enough to go that extra mile, proves to them that they have made the right choice.

There is no question that a Help Desk should go that extra mile. It's true that by not doing so, the reflection can and only will be nothing short of awful. Help Desks these days should not be the entry level "ticket takers" that they have been inthe past. Instead they can and should be the HELPful Desk rather than the HELPLESS Desk.

I see a lot of whining about the way customers behave. I think the way the helpdesk communicates with the end-users has a great influence on the way people think about and behave towards eachother. Before I started working in IT, I have worked for anumber of customer services, mostly for largher organisations, what experience has learnt me there is that people can understand that not all problems can be solved at once, but a bit of explanation, and keeping the user informed can help them understand why they have to wait and ease tension accordingly

I would have to agree that help desk should provide follow-up calls and the like. This is very true as I am help desk, customer service, researcher, and problem solver in a small library. People bring computer problems in because they do not trustthe help center sometimes and that they want a person to look at the computer. Also, I help in refernece follow-ups to ensure that the person finds the materials that will do the job.

My 2 cents

Michaelibrarian@hotbot.com

I am one of the first contacts a new employee makes thier first day on the job, so it's important to make a good impression and let the employee know that our company works as a team to help our company achieve it's goals. We make education a big part of our job because in the long run it decreases help desk calls because the employees will resolve basic issues on their own. It's the ol' Empowerment thing. We also make use of an internal "How To" intranet page for the most frequently asked questions. Help Desk is customer service, as the title implies.

I think it depends on the structure & the mentality of the organization. If the help desk has enough qualified people to answer the questions and the tools, then the help desk would be able to provide a necessary service.

However, very few companies provide adquate tools to the people that work in a job control "ticket taker office" or the tools to provide the extra mile service.

I come from the TV repair business that kept a record of EVERY product repaired. Something like the doctor's office. If the help desk office has kept a record of every problem that is called into the office and each help desk employee can quickly access these records and the employee that works in that office has the mental skills, then they have a foundation to build the extra mile service.

I used to work in what was called Job Control. The most people we had at one time working were two. Some days I would open & close 80 jobs in an eight hour shift.

We were ticket takers. We did not have time for many questions.

Yes the Helpdesk should provide the courtesy but not at the expense of productivity. Asking the customer to drop them an e-mail and let them now how it turned out is a viable alternative. You can't just add the task of follow up without setting uptime and or coverage to do so, it isn't fair to the Helpdesk and ultimately the customer.

I have always received positive feedback from our users when we provide an extra effort to see to their needs and satisfaction. I think the Helpdesk should be a place where people feel confident that their needs are going to be addressed, a source for information and support. Often I receive calls from people who are frustrated or confused and are calling me as a last resort for help. Good comments can spread just as quickly as negative ones regarding a support person who is willing to take a moment to help someone. Everything reflects on the Helpdesk even the work from technicians outside the Helpdesk. When we can turn a user around and make their job easier, through training and patience, we are in turn making our own job easier.

A Help Desk is a Customer Service. It is a service provided for customers. In a large corporation environment, I believe the dependability of a Help Desk should be the main priority. All support people know that faith of your users is not given, but earned. It is this faith and your dependability that makes or breaks the Help Desk. If the corporation is large enough and has the staff, the added follow up or courtesy call back would only add to the faith that is needed from your customers.A Help Desk person with an attitude of "just a ticket answerer" will not be called on unless the customer finds no other solution. But a Help Desk person with a smile, excellent social skills and a pleasant attitute will be called on faster than the "ticket taker". If there were no customers to call the Help Desk, because they disliked the results, would there be a need for a Help Desk? I think not. The laarge corporation would lay off all Help Desk employees and get contractors in, that would definitely have the skills needed for a truely excellent Help Desk.

Some places will not help you unless you do their work analysing their software to locate their bugs ... then still want to give you an arguement.

Here I am in which I know the purpose of the software, I have identified the specific program that is spitting out bad data under what circumstances, well documented examples, I have dug into the source code & identified the lines of code that are causing this, and they still want to give me an arguement.

I go on the internet discussion group &learn of many other programs that other customers have gone through the same process with them.

I am talking about the reality where I am the IT person serving the needs of 50 users at a company sharing an ERP in which the source code is like millions of lines of code. I can fix things, but I also have a shared responsibility with other customers of the package to get the vendor to fix things that we find wrong, so that other customers in future releases will also get better software thanksto all of our input.

Help Desk Personnel need Training of Different Kinds ... Diplomacy, Tact, Technical Issues, Paperwork Tracking to Log what they did for larger Management Perspectives.

There are different kinds of help desks.

A company that is servicing the needs of outside customers. A desk that is servicing its own personnel. Outsourcing that.

Are the people being served in the same building city you are in so easier to visit them, or are you talking to folks in another city.

Do you have software such that you can see on your screen what they are doing on their screen.

I have a deal where I start the copy function & the user at far end can say yes or no on the copying. I do not see the keystrokes the person made, but I do see what showsup on their screen so I am on the phone with them & I say STOP ... you see that error message on bottom of screen ... please move cursor so it is over top & then press F1 which is the help key ... I want to see more detail on that error message.

Without tools like that, it can make work of help desk so much more unproductive.