5 Time-Saving Strategies for the Help Desk

Support centers in organizations are under constant pressure due to increasing volume of service tickets and increasing end-users to manage. The complexity and diversity of support cases make it all the more difficult to provide timely resolution considering the lean support staff and tight deadlines. So, how can help desk admins increase the efficiency of the help desk process, and ultimately result in faster service delivery? Considering all the things you do, the question to ask next is: “Where can I save time in all my daily goings-on?” Conserving time on repetitive, less important, and menial tasks can help you gain that time for actual ticket resolution.

Here are 5 useful time-saving strategies for improved help desk productivity:

#1 DON’T GO INVENTING FIXES. SOMEONE MIGHT HAVE ALREADY DONE THAT.

Not all service tickets are unique and different from one another. It is highly common to have had different users face the same issue in the past. The smart way here is to track repeating help desk tickets, their technician assignment, and capture the best resolution applied in an internal knowledge base. This way, it will be never be a new issue to deal with from scratch. Any new technician can look up the fix, and resolve the issue quickly.

#2 KNOW WHAT YOUR ARE DEALING WITH.

Before jumping the gun and assuming you know exactly what problem you are dealing with and start fixing it, make sure you have elicited all the details about the issue from the end-user. Sometimes it might just be that the user doesn’t know how to use something, or it is such a simple fix that the user can do it himself. So, don’t settle for vague descriptions from tickets. Make sure you get as many details from the user about the issue, before you start providing the solution.

#3 PROMOTE END-USER SELF-SERVICE.

If your user base is growing and you are receiving tickets for commonplace issues with easy fixes, it is time you start thinking about building an internal self-service portal with updated how-to’s and FAQs to help users resolve Level 0 issues themselves. Password reset is still a top call driver for support teams. Self-service portals will free up a fair share of IT admins’ time if this could be automated.

#4 ESCALATE WHEN YOU CAN’T RESOLVE.

While you might feel capable of resolving any level of support ticket, there will be a time when you face some technical challenges. Finding the cause for slow database response time may not be your forte. That pesky VM always reports memory exhaustion no matter what you do. These are times you must act on judgment and escalate the issue to another technician or your IT manager. Getting all worked up on the same issue (going only off on a hunch) will not only delay resolution, but will result in more tickets piling up. Make sure your help desk has proper escalation, de-escalation, and automated ticket routing functionality in cases where SLAs are not met.

#5 DO IT REMOTELY.

Yes, personal human contact is the best possible means of communication. However, it can cost you handsomely in time and money if you start visiting your end-users one by one for desktop support. So many service tickets can be resolved remotely if you conduct a remote session of the user’s system. And if you have additional remote administration tools, you can master the art of telecommuting for IT support.

What other tricks of the trade do you have to up your sleeve to help fellow IT pros speed up customer support?