Help Desk Management

Help Desk Management is becoming most controversial area facing IT management today. Here is a single look on help desk management especially with regards to IT management.

Defining Help Desk Management

Help Desk Management is -

1. A centralized or multiple help desks,
2. Staff working exclusively
3. Manning by experts or staff with basic knowledge who can pass on problems

Help Desk in IT Management

Following are the reasons mostly found in Information Technology solutions providers companies to manage help desk.

-- Request for Support specific service ("How to")
-- Request for changes in IT Infrastructure
-- Physical or virtual movement of IT resources
-- Installation or upgradation IT resources
-- Accessing IT resources
-- Fixing problems or breakup
-- Privileges to access secured network
-- Inquiry or Complain

Helping "Help Desk Management"

Other than technical aspects, what else to be done to carve excellent help desk for your customers? Rita Marcella and Iain Middleton explain path of help desk development.

Motivation
A motivator is required in the first instance, to identify the need for a help desk, or a change to it. Motivators tend to be those involved with current service provision: managers, team leaders at the point of contact

Back up
The backing of management is then required. This can be gained by highlighting current problems and their cost to the various departments in terms of time and money. The marketing of the concept to management is crucial, since considerable financial and organizational backing may be required to get any development

Definition
The service should be defined rigorously with the participation of all necessary groups. This includes internal and external procedures and the application of appropriated standards

Marketing
The new service must be marketed to the users

Monitoring
Once operational, the service must be rigorously monitored in order to ensure that it is achieving its goals and meeting standards

Here are few questions regarding help desk management, answering to which you will clarify most of your doubts to establish your help desk.

1. What is role of help desk in your organization? Why?
2. Has your business requirement to establish help desk? Does business understand the importance of help desk? Clear what to do and what not to do.
3. Is your SLA ready to cover help desk support?
4. Have you arranged your best people on help desk?
5. Is your help desk system capable to monitor service and measure trends or causes?
6. Have you defined policies and legal action required to manage help desk?
7. Have you set up user expectations? "The only requirement of users is for their problems be fixed as quickly as possible".
8. Match your budget with service provision.
9. Compare with your traditional help desk with technically sound help desk. Do you find any change? Being proactive instead of reactive, solving problems instantly and customer service orientation are key difference between traditional help desk and modern help desk approach.

Walking further ahead, help desk management needs to solve following problems in future if not today.

1. Managing performance of your help desk staff (Short run & long run)
2. Employee retention
3. Employee satisfaction and growth
4. Process simplification
5. Quality of staff and training
6. Fun desk rather desk with headache
7. Keep customer first, employee second and yourself third
8. Normalizing human resource aspects (Setting up freedom to be inspired)