4 ways to avoid a holiday helpdesk hangover

It’s that time of year again when it seems like everyone is out of the office — especially IT staff.  When your support staff is stretched too thin service levels will decrease, customer satisfaction will plummet and employees will become frazzled and leave.

Thankfully, it’s easy to help your staff succeed despite being shorthanded by addressing four critical areas of your business: people, process, documentation and technology.

PEOPLE

SET EXPECTATIONS FOR HELP DESK STAFF TO HANDLE SERVICE REQUESTS

  • Double check that each staff member is willing and able to wear multiple-hats during peak service times.
  • Make sure that your team knows their SLA metrics (for first reply, escalation and resolution) before tickets are created.
  • Estimate the upcoming volume of tickets based on historical data to help your team prepare an action plan.

PROCESS

RELY ON AUTOMATION TO IMPROVE AHT (AVERAGE HANDLING TIME)

  • Arm your techs with the tools they need to automatically diagnose and resolve common issues.
  • Manual ticket assignment is slow and inefficient.  Auto-assign tickets to help desk technicians based on pre-defined business logic.
  • Implement ticket escalation automation if customer requests are not addressed by the target SLA time.

DOCUMENTATION

QUICKLY ADDRESS ISSUES WITH USEFUL INFORMATION

  • Inform users of progress, communicate that the issue is being actively worked, let them know things are progressing. A 15-minute support session can seem like an eternity when the end user is kept in the dark.
  • Create a help desk knowledge base to save techs time when looking for fixes.
  • Leverage collaboration technologies to allow front-line reps to observe higher-tier techs resolve issues so they learn what to do the next time the issue arises.

TECHNOLOGY

IMPLEMENT THE RIGHT TECHNOLOGY & TOOLS TO STREAMLINE SUPPORT TASKS

  • Add new support channels, such as live chat which allows techs to handle multiple customer issues at once. Reps often have to wait for 3rd parties or a file download, so they might as well help other customers during that time.
  • Try using remote control tools that could initiate remote connection with end-user systems right from your help desk interface, eliminating the need for customers to self-help.
  • Use automated asset inventory tools as part of your help desk solution to discover assets and associate them with service requests so that a history of IT support is available when new issues are identified.

DON’T OVERTHINK IT!

Help desk and customer service management doesn’t need to be complex during the holidays, or any other time of year.

When you have the right people, processes, documentation and technology in place, you’ll maximize productivity and customer satisfaction – leaving you more to celebrate with loved ones during this holiday season.