What Makes a Good Service Desk?

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Calling for technical support can be incredibly frustrating. Generally, you are already frustrated before you even make the call because the reason you are calling for support is that something is not working correctly. Obtaining support also takes time out of your busy day, and can throw off your schedule and productivity.

As a Managed IT Support provider, we take pride in our service desk. Most customers will deal with our service desk more than any other department within our company, and it is important for us to keep that experience as pleasant as possible. If the company you are currently working with does not have these hallmarks of a good service desk, it may be time to look for another provider.

Ease of Ticket Creation

As we mentioned previously, you are usually pretty frustrated before you even enter a ticket for your issue. If the process of informing your IT provider about an issue is cumbersome and difficult it will just add to your growing frustrations. A proper service desk will have multiple ways to enter a ticket. The process should cater to the way you work, and not the way the company works. We currently have four ways to enter a ticket for support and are always looking for ways to improve the ease of ticket creation.

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Proper Routing

Once a ticket is created, is it being routed to the right people? While the majority of our technicians are skilled in many areas, it would be almost impossible for every tech to be an expert in all of the available technology. Also, sometimes the company can be separated into pods, where there are specific technicians that are more familiar with specific clients. We know what it’s like to be bounced from department to department trying to find the person that can handle your issue. It’s nice to get to the right person for the job the first time.

Ticket Handling

Once the ticket has been entered and routed to the proper department, is the ticket handled in an appropriate amount of time? Especially when tickets are entered in a variety of ways, it can be easy for some clients to try and “skip the line.” When something isn’t working for you, it can be easy to think that it is the most important issue. The truth is there is a scale of urgency that most managed IT support providers follow, and proper adherence to this scale is essential. At the top of the list is an issue that stops work for multiple people. If the entire company is unable to work, this is the most pressing issue for an IT firm. This is a “business down” situation, and something we first, try to avoid at all costs with proper equipment and reporting and second, try to resolve as quickly as possible. Next on the scale is an issue that completely prevents the work of an individual. Much like the business down situation, an employee that is unable to work is also mission critical to the health of the entire organization.

Tickets should be handled by priority first, then age. So, a high priority ticket that was submitted in the morning will be handled before a low priority ticket that was submitted in the morning, and also before a high priority ticket submitted in the afternoon. Handling tickets in this manner can prevent line skips and actually makes both clients and service desk employees much happier.

Communication During Resolution

Finally, you should never have to wonder what is the status of your ticket. There needs to be a way for you to find out where you stand, and receive notifications when your ticket is updated. There are occasions where it can be hard to estimate the time to completion for a ticket. Finding out what the problem is can be the hardest part of the ticket, and if we knew what was causing the issue, we could have it fixed quickly. If we are currently working on your problem, however, you should know that we are doing our best to resolve it in the quickest amount of time possible. We should be communicating with you, so you never have to make a follow-up call to check the status.

Proper help desk management is a skill. One that we think we have mastered! Efficiently handling all of the issues that come up doesn’t have to be hard if you have these areas dialed in!