BusinessForward

By: Josh Scott, Client Executive

One of cinema’s great depictions of total frustration with a customer is classically embodied in “Jerry McGuire”.  Whether or not you believe in Scientology, Tom Cruise’s pleading conniption fit to his arrogant client undoubtedly rings familiar with anyone who is in the business of service.

“I am out here for you. You don’t know what it’s like to be ME out here for YOU. It is an up-at-dawn, pride-swallowing siege that I will never fully tell you about, ok? Help me…help you. Help me, help you.”

Maybe a little too dramatic a soliloquy for an IT help desk pro, but there are times when we wish we had a Hollywood script writer handy when all of those request tickets come in, right?

If you are responsible for an internal help desk you know that growing small-to-midsize internal IT organizations are transitioning from worrying about the “bits and bytes” of their customer service to providing a technology-focused service to the business at large.

The IT Help Desk is often expected to simply “know” how to provide support back to the business.  Left to fend for themselves, Help Desk techs do the best they can to identify, define, process, analyze, and resolve requests all while trying to facilitate a clear (but not too clear) line of communication with the requester.  Unfortunately, the Help Desk is rarely provided with the structure, knowledge base, and tools necessary to effectively deliver on the service that they are trying to provide.

Those days must end. We must equip the help desk with the help they need so that they can provide better help.

I recently led a project for a national media company with an internal Help Desk swamped in very typical problems. They lacked consistency, accountability, and had a lot of communication issues within their own IT group. The team didn’t have the skill set and time to select, design, and implement a solution to their situation. To address the issues, they were considering adopting IT service management or ITSM. For those who don’t know, this refers to the entirety of activities – directed by policies, organized and structured in processes and supporting procedures – that are performed by an organization or part of an organization to plan, deliver, operate and control IT services offered to customers.

To this customer, ITSM seemed like a good solution but at the same time caused concern about the impact it would have on internal processes and teams. We were able to provide perspective and help them work through their challenges by determining the right level of ITSM to implement. We designed new IT processes accordingly, because for them it made sense. But it isn’t for everyone.

Instead of trying to jump into the deep-end and implement a sophisticated ITSM solution, there are some very simple, short-term, low cost, high impact solution fixes that IT Leadership can put in place to set them up for success.  Here are four that can be adopted with ease.

Document, evangelize, and enforce a simple “Submit Request” format.

I know it seems so simple. But all too often, IT Help Desks are left to fend for themselves when team members from across the business decide that they need help with something.  Like carrier pigeons dropping notes, the requests flutter down. Email.  Phone calls.  In-person chats.  Instant Messages.  Texts.  Secret Handshakes.  Passing Notes.  (Check “Yes” if you think you can help me.)

Invest a small amount of time into building a simple way to submit requests.  Make sure that everyone involved understands that this simple form needs to be the starting point for any Help Desk request or it’s not gonna happen.

 Provide your help desk with a process.

Let’s say your Web Development team has submitted a request for a new Firewall Rule for the fifteenth time this month.  In some cases, this can be a predefined and simple tweak that can be made quickly.  In most cases, the Help Desk isn’t armed with the standard procedures or knowledge necessary to make this change.

Instead of inertia, a Help Desk equipped with a clear process identifying the right team member to address the issue experiences forward momentum. The process acts as a project manager and can help:

• Find the right person to make the change
• Assign the task to that person
• Remember that the task needs to be completed
• Check for status update
• Follow up when nothing has happened 
  

Take your top 25 most common help requests and document how to fix them.

The chances of a wildly inventive request coming through to your team is unlikely. Since they’ve thrown out the same life preserver many times, nobody should be re-inventing the wheel to solve issues. Document what has been done in the past for the most common problems and be amazed at how much time and frustration is saved.

Take a quick glance at Help Desk technology.

If your help desk still thrives on legacy tools or manual processes, do yourself the favor of looking at new features provided by even the simplest Help Desk solutions.  Many solutions pack in features that can:

•  Automate simple workflows
• Ease the burden of documenting, tracking, and closing tickets
• Provide visibility into the overall effectiveness of your Help Desk
• Allow for remote or mobile access
• Simplify the process of submitting a request

Taking small strides in each of the areas will allow your Help Desk to breathe in the short term and continue to grow and provide service back to the business in the long term.  Enabling them to do their jobs effectively without reaching out to other resources is a huge time saver. Allowing them to act independently and resolve an ever-growing number of issues rather than simply acting as a pass-through for everything other than a password change is a tremendous morale booster.

It boils down to throwing your Help Desk a bone in the form of some simple processes. After all, helping them help you is the best way they can show you the money.

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