I recently did some consulting for a large retail company and sat in with their help desk department, which was probably the worst I have seen in my 10+ years in business. This was an internal help desk, with the end-users being employees from the various retail stores and warehouses. Not surprisingly the perception of their companys IT support was not flattering to say the least.

Some of the problems I noted were:

Poor (often rude) phone answering skills with the majority of calls being answered on speaker-phone, whilst swearing with heavy metal music in the background.

Lack of management

No system(s) or procedures in place to keep track of calls and problems

No central call person (anyone could answer the phone)

And a lack of morale within the help desk team

Heres some of the suggestions I would make to resolve these problems

1) Team bonding

The nature of customer support/help desk is problem solving. No one calls in to say that everything is going well. Its a bit like being a policeman. People only call you when a crisis occurs. That in its self can become daunting for workers. Dealing with unhappy customers all day, every day, can negatively affect your teams morale.

The first thing that an IT manager needs to make sure off is that their help desk staff feel supported. Give them somewhere they can vent safely without any information being passed on to anyone else. Also rotating your staff so that it isnt always the same person answering the phone.

The second thing an IT manager needs to put in place is respect between all the team members. Too often, the help desk is seen as unprofessional because of their lack of respect towards the competence of their fellow workers. Make sure that people are able and willing to work as a team, and you will without a doubt, increase the efficiency and morale of the department.

2) Hire Competent Support Officers

Theres nothing worse than having your computer crash just when youre pushing to reach a deadline. Actually, having no one who can fix your problem is even worse. Computer technology is a mystery to so many employers. Many seem to think that if someone can install software or surf the internet, that they are competent enough to run or work in their IT Support department. Theres a lot more to it than that.

First and foremost, you want someone who is going to represent your company to have a can-do attitude. Look for someone that genuinely wants to help others, whether or not they know the answer to their problem. Secondly, you want someone that has the basic tools and technologies used in the customer support industry.

Depending on the end-users your help desk supports, either fellow company employees or external customers, you will need different types of help desk staff.

If youre looking at hiring an internal support officer for your IT infrastructure, youll need to make sure that they have a good knowledge of the type of network, and hardware you have as well as a general working understanding of your software applications.

If you are supporting external customers, you will most probably need to train your new support staff on your own support software. But, as I said before, the most important quality you want in the people you hire to take care of your customer service is the can-do attitude. Add to that excellent phone manners, patience, confidence and logic. This will make the difference between getting customers that come back to purchase again or them spreading the word that doing business with you was a big mistake.

Because theres more to customer support than merely answering phone calls, youll want to make sure you train your staff appropriately. Remember that your help desk staff are usually the first people your clients will come in contact with at your company. Having someone competent and helpful at the end of the line will make for a great experience for your customers and will build trust towards your business.

Training your support staff is therefore crucial to keeping ahead of your competitors. You will also save time and money if your support people have procedures in place to solve problems and take charge of difficult situations, promptly and efficiently.

Take the time to fully prepare a training program for your support staff, in the likes of videos, books, one-on-one sessions with an experienced work colleague, training sessions over a few weeknights, etc. Anything to make sure that the people servicing your customers have the knowledge and skills to exceed your clients expectations.

3) Get Proper Tools to Support your Support Team

The help desk industry has one of the highest turnovers of staff, meaning you not only need a system that is fast and effective in helping solve problems, but that is also easy for staff to learn. A help desk system to easily log, track and assign calls to staff for resolving issues, will improve the efficiency of your help desk and will ensure that no calls get lost, thus improving your customer service.

Allowing your customers to log their own calls (through the web) and to see the progress of their issue(s) can reduce the number of phone calls placed to your support team by 78%.

Having a database where every employee and/or customer as well as the help desk team can find previously resolved calls can make for an effective way to solve new issues, faster.

As the IT Manager, it is always prudent to know what your help desk team is working on and what issues are common. One way to ensure that your customers are not left waiting for days to get an answer, is to have an issue escalator. This way, if an issue isnt resolved in a timely manner, you will receive a notice in your email saying so. You can then make sure that actions are taken to fix the problem.

To get the best out of your support team, give them all the training they need and easy to use tools, that take minutes to learn. A good help desk system is THE ingredient that will take you to the next level in customer service. It is with this tool that you can blow away your competition. If you want more information on how a help desk system can help your business, please check out the following link:

http://www.helpdesk-support.com/webciss