Tag Archives: help desk

Why Have an Employee-Facing IT Help Desk?

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Smiling customer support operator agent with hands-free device workingan employee-facing IT help desk

Staffing a internal Help Desk is difficult, why not outsource?

Traditionally, help desks are considered to be customer-facing services. Customer service help desks, exchange and return help desks, concierge service desks. But when it comes to IT, there’s a long tradition of internal employee-facing services instead. Even companies that don’t offer tech products to customers use plenty of technology on the inside. An internal IT help desk is the key to ensuring that each and every team member can handle their own workstations, devices, and work software on the fly — without interrupting the normal workflow of your business.

Employee-facing IT helpdesks have been a hallmark of the business world since the days of separate college internetworks and internal company email. IT help desks are older than the world wide web and have been necessary for as long as employees have been using computer workstations. And today, we’re here to highlight how an IT help desk can streamline any business, even those that don’t spend all day every day on the computer.

No Need for a Computer Whiz On-Site

Many businesses that do not focus primarily on technology (but still use it daily) rely on one or two IT talented staff on site. Your computer whiz is the person with enough IT background or DIY skills that they can solve most problems just by poking around the controls for a while. But not every team has one, and those that do often demand too much IT from someone who’s job is not defined as IT support.

Working with an IT help desk designed for employee-facing service is the key to no longer needing someone on your work team to have the incidental skills. Outsourcing your IT help desk can even mean saving money, as internal IT staff are highly priced in the current job market.

Supervisors Not Expected to Provide IT Fixes

When an employee’s computer, network connection, or work software stops working, the first person they usually call is their supervisor. Unfortunately, supervisors in non-tech industries are seldom equipped to solve more than simple and common technical hiccups. Not to mention, calling one’s boss for every email malfunction or connection problem is bad for business efficiency.

With an internal IT desk, your team members can call IT instead of their boss. The IT technician on the other end can quickly walk any employee through their technical problems or even take control of the computer remotely. They will fix things up quick and get the work back on track without any further interruptions to the workflow.

Staff Can Seek Solutions to Job-Unique Problems

Then there are problems that supervisors or the on-site computer whiz can’t solve because they are not common or easy. Issues that only come up in certain positions using unique devices, software, or tasks that no other role does. In these cases, technical problems can stop work all day as an employee tries to troubleshoot their unique problems or find someone who can.

However, your unique role employees are not alone with the help of an internal IT service. Technicians who specialize in business software are also great at figuring out solutions to not-so-common problems. This can get your team back on-task without losing hours to unusual technical challenges.

Network & Infrastructure Issues Solved Quickly

Finally, an internal IT help desk is key to keeping your entire office or non-office business online. Network and tech infrastructure are what all other computer-based processes are built on. Without your internal network and the workstations it connects, nothing would get done. Which is why infrastructure errors or network interruptions are so important to fix quickly.

An IT help desk can make sure your network is online from working with the local router to contacting your ISP (internet service provider) if necessary. They can also ensure that your infrastructure is up-to-date, defended, and repaired quickly should anything go wrong. This way, your computers stay online and your doors remain open no matter what happens.

Having an internal IT service for your company isn’t just something big corporations do. With MSP (managed service provider) outsourcing, you can have all the benefits of an internal IT help desk without the extensive cost of building a team of full-time technicians on staff. For more information about how an MSP can help you build the IT help desk services your company deserves, contact us today!

5 Reasons Why Your Business Needs a Managed IT Service, Not IT Repair Service

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Executive Optimizing Well Performance Via Apps - Managed IT Service

Is it time to partner with a managed service provider and get out of the break fix environment?

Small businesses need all of the core infrastructure that larger businesses do. Your business needs a marketing team, salespeople, financial and legal analysts, and a help desk. But depending on how small your business is, all of those departments might be yours. Take one of those loads off your shoulders with a proactively managed IT service. Here’s why the plan is basically built for small businesses, especially compared to traditional IT help.

1. Your business is in the field, not in the office.

If your business offers a service that isn’t on-premises like a restaurant, then you and your coworkers will be spending a lot of time traveling. Instead of the traditional office setup of a desktop computer, printer, and modem, you might have a tablet and a VPN. That mobility means you can’t afford to be locked in one place as someone shows up to investigate the issue and make repairs.

Managed service providers, or MSPs, provide remote monitoring and preventative services instead. They monitor (without being invasive) potential network outages, malware and cyber threats, and signs of developing problems in your computers systems. When you’re operating off the cloud and through dozens of different apps and websites, that’s the service you need.

2. Every business is global, even when it’s local.

One of the best things about the Internet is that it opened up the international playing field for small businesses. Even if you run a business by yourself, you can do business everywhere from the United States to New Zealand. Your customers can be anywhere without the fees associated with international shipping and communication from even just a decade ago.

But that also means your business is open 24/7. A midnight website crash isn’t just a small problem anymore: it means your website was offline during some of your customers’ most active hours. A traditional IT repair service won’t send someone out until the next morning. They might even wait until the next business day. But a 24/7 software-based service is on top of the problem immediately.

3. Cyber threats consider small businesses to be low-hanging fruit.

Hackers usually aren’t aiming at a specific target. Instead, they’re looking for easy targets that get snagged in their nets and which require the least effort to break into. Small businesses, unfortunately, are prime targets because you have a lot of useful information but not a lot of resources to chase them down with. So make sure your company’s cybersecurity is too strong to make your company a tempting target.

4. Stay light with software protections instead of hardware fixes.

When you own a small business, you probably don’t want all of the heavy hardware investments that larger companies invest in. You don’t need an arsenal of backup computers, and you don’t need a dedicated floor full of internal servers. As more and more tools become virtual, that means your need for a physical IT service diminishes, too. Look for online solutions such as antimalware programs, cloud subscriptions, and VPNs instead of traditional measures.

5. Pay according to your company’s size, not according to man hours.

When you schedule a window for a traditional technician to come to troubleshoot a problem, you’re going to pay a transportation fee and by the hour. It’s going to be the same rate that every other company is paying; it might even be lower because larger companies can negotiate prices. But with an MSP, you pay based on the size of the network you want protected, and that means your monthly expenses are easier to manage.

Go to SystemsNet to learn more about managed IT services and why it’s the best move your company can make to protect itself.

What Your Customers Get From an IT Help Desk

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Smiling business woman working an IT help desk

No one likes using chat wizards when they have a problem, it’s frustrating

Providing great software is no longer enough to stay competitive in the modern online business culture. Between mobile apps and the full-funnel experience, any kind of technical problem can cause you to lose leads and frustrate customers who might otherwise glide smoothly through purchase after purchase. Incorporating an IT help desk is a great strategic decision for a growing company for the simple benefit of helping your customers use the website and mobile app as intended.

While this may sound small, to customers it can matter a great deal. Let’s take a closer look at the top four things that an IT Help Desk can bring to your customer experience.

A Human Answer to Frustrating Problems

When a website or mobile app doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to, customers get frustrated quickly. It only takes one or two extra clicks, waiting for the site to respond or load, before the situation feels completely ridiculous. For most customers, the first place they go is the help center, or even the chatbot in the corner. With an IT Help Desk on the job, a real human will be ready and waiting to take their question.

Talking to a real person immediately relieves some of the tension, especially when followed up with compassionate help. Whether it’s a login issue or a payment card error, a real human on the other end of the chatbox means a lot to customers when they need assistance.

Assistance Completing Purchases

Purchase completion is one of the most frequent sources of customer technical issues. This is because so many different exchanges are required to complete a purchase. They may not be able to save their address, their card may not be accepted even though it works for them everywhere else. Frustration during the checkout phase leads to cart abandonment unless customers have somewhere fast and helpful to turn to.

An IT help desk integrated into your website is the best possible way to save sales that are stopped by technical difficulties. In fact, you can even create triggers to alert a help desk team member if someone has reloaded or attempted to edit a payment page several times in a row. Offering and providing help in this critical moment can significantly reduce your instances of abandoned carts and lost customers.

Mobile App Support

If your business has a customer mobile app, an IT Help Desk team is even more important. Many modern consumers do everything through their phones and prefer to interact with apps over websites in most cases. These users are also familiar with the ability to quickly chat with or call a help desk and will assume this is an option for your app even if you don’t yet have help desk support.

A help desk can make sure that users of your mobile app are always able to use the features they love and troubleshoot problems in real time. You can even find and fix any bugs in your mobile app quickly because users have a friendly place to send reports. Which takes us to the final point:

Having Problems Solved Immediately

Bugs in websites and mobile apps can’t always be fixed immediately, but an IT Help Desk is the key to helping customers outside the bounds of the software. Solutions can be manually implemented for customers, and then long-term fixes can be worked into future updates of the software. An IT Help Desk is essential for making sure customers get the service they need, even in cases where that doesn’t work exactly right with the website or mobile app.

So what can an IT Help Desk do for your customers? They can provide real-time solutions, human assistance in frustrating problems, save purchases from technical difficulties, and provide support to mobile users. This is something any growing brand needs to consider providing in order to remain competitive and keep customers happy. For more on how to implement a great IT Help Desk for your customers, contact us today!

Is It Time To Make Adjustments To Your IT Help Desk?

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IT help desk professionals in control room

Using a managed service company can help your internal IT resolve issues faster

For businesses, the IT help desk or service desk is an essential component. If your employees are constantly being slowed down due to problems with technology, productivity and efficiency will be slowed down as well. Businesses that have a good IT help desk on their side can keep everyone equipped to be efficient and productive. When everyone is productive and effective, this will result in less downtime.

At one point, having a “good” help desk was more than enough. However, things have changed significantly. Unfortunately, there are many businesses that are still operating a help desk that would have been better suited a few decades ago. One of the most common approaches to management today is measuring an IT help desk on customer satisfaction, the number of answered calls, and the number of resolved calls. Unfortunately, using this type of strategy or approach lacks foresight.

There are a few signs that will indicate your current IT help desk model is not headed in the right direction, including the following:

You Are Only Looking At It As Another Expense

When someone calls into your help desk and shares any type of information and feedback, this is giving you free and useful intel on how your help desk is operating. When you are able to discover this information and use it to provide feedback to the rest of the organization, you are tapping into the power of an IT help desk. Using this intel and using it to improve the IT help desk is also one of the best ways to reduce the call volume. If you are not doing any of these things, you are wasting an opportunity to use one of the biggest resources you have in your workplace. Your IT Help Desk can provide you with feedback from real users.

You Have No Solution For The Mobility Problems

In many workplaces, employees are given the freedom to commute and work remotely due to the power of mobile devices. Mobility is a growing trend in the business world, and sometimes employees will need assistance when they have mobility issues. If you have not dedicated any of your technology to solving mobility issues, now will be a great time to do so. Not every IT expert will be specialized in remote devices, mobile applications, mobile headsets, etc. This is where you will need the assistance of mobility experts who have the skills to solve mobility problems. If you are not currently equipped with an IT Help Desk that can solve mobility issues, it is not too late to get one. If you cannot maintain those skills and specialties in your workplace, you can consider outsourcing your mobility help desk.

The Calls Are Not Being Managed Properly

We know that you are logging your phone calls and categorizing them, but what else are you doing? If you are not doing more, you are not doing enough. Some calls that come into your help desk will contain vital information about technical problems, downtime, outages, etc. Taking the time to assess this information and prioritize it will allow you to provide feedback to others. You will want to do more than provide the basic information that is on the call log.

If your IT environment is currently struggling, there are ways of getting it back on track. You will not have to become experts overnight and you will not have to go above and beyond to completely modernize your IT environment. You can make some improvements to your current environment to modernize your processes, and you will be able to accomplish more than you think.

If your organization is experiencing any of the above signs, it is important that your management team embrace the fact that changes need to be made. Are you ready to rethink and re-imagine your IT help desk? Please do not hesitate to contact us today for more information.