The characteristics that Service Desk is moving towards are:

1. Increased use of self help – As customers and users become more technologically savvy, they are getting braver nowadays to execute remedial efforts.  Compared to a few years back, these group of customers have become bolder and have embraced technology quicker than ever before. It is therefore a good time for Service Desk manager to re-look into their FAQs and knowledge bases so that their customers can help themselves.
2. Improved knowledge bases with contextual searching – the tools I work with today have appalling knowledge base design.  The categorization of knowledge leaves much to be desired as is with the search function.  Even a simple wizard-based kind of troubleshooting steps is non-existent.  I’m using a very famous and probably the world’s best helpdesk system but yet, the knowledge base module is not quite to my standard. In time to come, you will find better knowledge base designs with better search engines.  I will also expect vendors to adopt wizard based diagnostic/troubleshooting process; much like the current Microsoft’s Troubleshooter.
3. Reduction or elimination of deskside support – With customers becoming bolder and technology-savvier, this characteristic is bound to follow suit. Now that customers are able to perform remedial actions on their own, deskside support will be reduced.  Furthermore, with technologies such as remote access becoming a common tool in all organizations, IT no longer need to be on-site to assist the customer.
4. Provision of services through a fully integrated service catalog – a service catalog lists down your organization’s service provision along with the description of such services, the service level for service fulfilment, service entitlement, associated cost and procedures to obtain such services.  Comparing analogically, you can imagine the service catalog like a menu in a restaurant.  In time to come, your customers and users can order services right from their desktop where the system will only display the services that they are entitled to.  The request will then be automatically subjected to an automated approval workflow and service providers are constantly reminded of unfillled services so as to meet the service level.
5. Remote rebuild & self healing workstations – these are technologies that are available today.  For example, Microsoft Vista has an inbuilt self healing system where computers are kept running reliably by automatically detecting and resolving many known problems—requiring little or no effort from the user.  It’s here in the operating system and before long, it’s moving to specific applications.  Even software developers are improving their software with such technologies so as to minimize support.
6. Tight integration with IP Telephony – Voice Over IP is cheap; Caller ID makes it personal; Service Desk professional can be mobile and yet reachable through a single number; audio conferencing can be made on the fly; video conversation is available; instant messaging communications is available – no wonder organizations are embracing IP Telephony.

…the most efficient (least amount of effort) and effective (best results) way of accomplishing a task, based on repeatable procedures that have proven themselves over time for large numbers of people.

So, where does one go around getting the set of proven repeatable procedures to best accomplish a task? You can get them through multiple ways including your own experience and other peoples’ experiences as well as right here on ServiceDeskCenter.com.

The following are best practices that I picked up when attending one of IBM’s seminars. Today’s Service Desk Best Practices are:

1. Aligned with IT Service Management Framework(s)
2. People with customer focus and technical/business driven skills where staff workload management is adopted to match skills to tasks resulting in high First Call Resolution
3. Access to support services via telephone, email and portal (including self help)
4. Use service management tool(s) to integrate service request, incident and problem management; and to interface with change management as well as asset management
5. Adop, build and maintain knowledge bases
6. Practice service levels based on severity

Just like many before me, I have asked the question before. From what I gather, there are 3 situations that influence what Service Desk professionals should wear. The 3 situations are:

1. Corporate Culture – If your organisation requires everyone to be dressed in uniforms, then it is a no-brainer that your Service Desk professional should dressed in that. With free uniforms and possibly free laundry, I do not foresee any problems for your subordinates to be dressed in them. If your organisation does not provide uniforms but expects everyone to be dressed in suit and tie, you can either follow suit or beg to change (read next point)
2. Customer Facing – My rule of thumb for dressing is simple, if your Service Desk professional faces the customer; i.e. allow walk-ins or performs desk-side support, then the said professional should be dressed appropriately. Yes, I would expect a long sleeve shirt and tie to begin with. Either that or a nicely pressed tee-shirt with corporate logo for branding.
3. Non-customer Facing – If your Service Desk professional does not leave their seat for 8 hours; and they do not accept walk-ins; chances are that it does not matter what they are dressed in as long as it is decent. After all, we live, work and interact in a community. Broadly speaking, uncontrolled dressing allows your team members to dress in what they are most comfortable in (pajamas not allowed). Comfortable clothings in turn allow your Service Desk professionals to work longer and at ease. It might even raise their productivity and efficiency.

I guess the above pretty sums it all up. The next time you hear someone raise this question, do point them to ServiceDeskCenter.com

Given the high dynamic forces of incidents at attack you and your team, day and night, relentless as the sun rises and sets, human beings on Service Desk experiences burnouts. Wikipedia defines burnout as “a psychological term for the experience of long-term exhaustion and diminished interest (depersonalization or cynicism), usually in the work context” and further suggests that it is a “result of a period of expending too much effort at work while having too little recovery“. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Of course it does; it’s referring to your working environment. It is said that the average lifespan of a Service Desk professional is 18 months. That’s a short 1.5 years. Based on my experience, this assumption seems to be holding water.

So far, I have been assuming that Service Desk professional may leave you because of a highly stressed environment but that doesn’t discount the fact that people may leave the organisation for better pay, better benefits, career advancement, current bitchy boss, horrible clientele and a whole lot of other reasons.

When a key staff resigns, it is most attributed to burnouts. The longest key staff I had is 3 years and she’s leaving for a same pay, less stressful work. I can’t blame her because my team is truly the global lightning rod for my organisation. We always get hit the hardest. In this kind of situation, what would you have done? The first response that any manager would make is to counteroffer whatever she is getting elsewhere. In my humble opinion, that would only prolong her for a little while longer. It’s not a permanent solution and you will continue to face such situations.

This is where foundation of your Service Desk is important. It’s a long road to the illusive perfection; a long road to have your team work like a clock. Things that need to be done are:

1. Be process oriented – like a clock, have your team move at their own gears’ pace; everyone share the same goal, the same function, the same rotation and everyone knows when to chime. This can only happen when you have standard operating procedures and standard methodologies.
2. Document documents – for everything that your staff does, have it documented and verified. Verification is simple; have a layman do what the document says. If the layman is able to obtain the expected results, the document should pass with flying colours.
3. Identify alternates – no one should be the sole custodian to a process. Make sure there is at least another person who is able to perform the same function.
4. Panic – If you do not have 1, 2 & 3, offer your resigning staff and start working on 1, 2 & 3.

When you have the necessary in place, you should not fear when a key staff resigns. It’s part of life and you are prepared for such a change.

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.

Process and procedures can be rigid and restrictive.  Humans tend to slack after a while because over time, no incidents have happened even though they slacked.  Take my case for example; over a period of time, signature in forms are no longer verified because all the while, the requests that came into Service Desk are genuine, or rather, assumed to be genuine.  Just because no incidents has occurred, it does not mean that something has not happened; it also does not mean that nothing is ever going to happen.

Being complacent is just so dangerous.  If one of your team members start to develop a lackadaisical attitude, it will spread to the rest of the team in no time.  Trust me, I’ve been there and it takes a huge effort to change that habit.  As the famous saying goes, Prevention is Better Than Cure, rings true in Service Desk too.  Once in a while, on an ad hoc basis, you have to press that Test button to check the quality of your team’s work.  To add on a weightage to your new ad hoc quality checks, build this into your team’s Key Performance Indicators so that they know you mean business.

Knowing that you will spring surprises on them, your team members will be constantly on their toes; bringing about a slight increase in work pressure, which can be reduced through appropriate rewards.

If we do not realize by now, helpdesk or service desk services are essentially customer service. You are measured not only by your technical capabilities but also by the level of professionalism, courtesy, timeliness and friendliness.

Apart from all the soft skills that you have been preaching to your people, the trainings provided by your external training partners, you should encourage your team to practice self improvement. Self improvement can be achieved on technical aspect, from conversation skills, going a step further with the customer, and a whole lot more. I realized in my role as a global service desk manager that no matter how hard I push all my teammates to practice self improvement, a large majority do not.

I am thankful that a handful of my teammates do go that extra mile for self improvement. An extra follow up call to the customer can do wonders to your customer satisfaction results. I know because I’ve done this, I’ve experienced this and I can reproduce this result. For the small majority of them who did improve on their own and introduced these small gestures into their teams, I make sure I reward them. Rewards are mainly in monetary terms because a clap, an email and a pat on the shoulders is not tangible. Reward giving are announced to the entire service desk operations to let them know my appreciation and more importantly that hard work does pay.

We can all learn from Johnny, a Down Syndrome who is a grocery store bagger. If Johnny can do it, surely we can too. If you do not know Johnny’s story, play the video below.

Choosing the right helpdesk system is never easy.  It all depends on what you need, want you want and how deep your pocket is.  The most important thing is that the system must be able to suit you, to be flexible enough for customization.  Here is my take on what helpdesk systems must have and nice to have:

Core components of what a helpdesk system must have:

1. Web based
2. Tracking
3. Alert& Notification
4. Escalation
5. Severity Determination
6. Mobile Integration

Some optional features that you can consider:

1. Best practices
2. Knowledge base
3. Multi Company Support
4. Dashboard
5. All Other Bells & Whistles

After you have put in a well-thought helpdesk system, you will quickly notice you team scaling new heights.

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.

The fact really, is to empower your helpdesk agents with these rights and accesses so that they will be able to serve customers’ request at first call. You actions of empowerment will result in, [1] Higher customer satisfaction. Since your helpdesk agents are able to serve the customers without the need to escalate, customers’ requests are immediately attended to and solved.

[2] Higher employee satisfaction. If you have not sat in the helpdesk chair/shoe, you should. It feels great to be able to resolve customers’ requests and incidents. With more requests resolved, your helpdesk agent will feel a higher level of job satisfaction. A higher level of job satisfaction translated to motivation.

[3] Better team reputation. Now that customers’ requests are resolved at first call, guess what, they are going to sing your services greatness. Your customers will continue to contact your helpdesk whenever they need help. Don’t be surprised that customers do make contact with your 2nd level support and beyond; especially when the majority of requests are escalated by first level.

Having said these, there are some risk management to address. First, you should not grant higher level of access to young helpdesk agents. It is prudent to first establish their suitability for the job and their integrity to perform the task honestly and ethically.

It worked for me and I hope it will work for you.

Cheers,
Amos