To help your Service Desk team practice their description skills, have a series of practice sessions where everyone can participate in a photo/picture description activity. After a while you will notice that your team will be able to describe incidents or problems better to 2nd level support.

To start off the training series, all you need to do is give everyone the same photo and get them to describe the photo as detailed and accurate as they can.  Everyone gets a 2 minute time limit.  Spread out the practice sessions; having hold one photo per session and maybe two sessions in a week.

Start of with a “busy” picture. A busy picture is full of subject and therefore easy for your team members to describe as there are plenty to write about.  After a couple of easy pictures, slowly move them to less busy picture and practice until you are giving out a single subject. A single subject is monotonous, making it difficult for your team members to describe them.

By the way, the above image is that of a Platan leaf and not Maple.  If you have assumed it is a Maple leaf and described it as that, you would have been wrong.  The same is applicable if you are describing your customer’s problems; you could make a wrong assumption.

How then can you develop a single training programme suitable for all?

The answer to that is what I term as structured training.  Notice how you go to a restaurant and you just want a set lunch?  Anything else besides set lunch is then added on to your bill.  Let’s take that similar concept into Service Desk; which means you must have a core training program (e.g. house rules, call handling procedures, escalation process, etc) and the remaining programs are split into multiple smaller units.

Every individual that joins your team will be accorded the core training program and at their own pace, finish up with the remaining programs.  You must monitor their progress, though.

Using this approach to training is effective as it brings new recruits to the phone quicker and more effectively.