IT and Help Desks are consistently challenged to deliver results more quickly with fewer people. Seems like we’ve been saying that for a while, but never has it been more true than now. Here are four essentials to keeping your sanity and that of your 
clients:
Make communication #1 priority
More often than not, tickets get stalled for one reason or another. You may know you’re working on a ticket, but your client may not know it.
At Crow Canyon, we tell our clients that they should be communicating with end users at least once every 24 hour period —- this is more critical when progress has not been made. Don’t “go dark” until the problem is resolved. Provide updates. Just knowing you are working on it is helpful to your clients.
Know when to escalate
How often have you come across one of your techs struggling with an issue for hours, when a quick escalation to a tier two support person could have gotten the client back in operation? Create an escalation schedule that is crystal clear to all support levels.
Get feedback from users
How are we doing? Now more than ever that question is important to ask. Ineptitude that might have squeaked by unnoticed five years ago will no longer be tolerated —- especially by younger end-users, such as millennials. Survey your users regularly and then demonstrate your responsiveness by making necessary adjustments and upholding your SLA. You will gain a loyal (and more patient) user community.
Automate
If you want to attract the best customer support people, make sure you are giving them the tools for success. If your people are still dealing with pieces of paper, phone calls and emails asking for help, you will lose good support people. Help desk automation solutions are available. Crow Canyon offers one using SharePoint as its hub. All those calls, emails and pieces of paper can be transformed into a clean, smooth process, which takes the pressure off your team, so they can concentrate on delivery great service.
Note: By the way, I highly recommend you don’t compound the dilemma by assigning your development team to build an in-house help desk solution! You need your team to conquer the tough stuff, not reinvent the wheel.
Creative Commons Attribution: Permission is granted to repost this article in its entirety with credit to Crow Canyon Systems.
