4 steps to improve help desk workflow

 Rest assured, we have not given him the change for another patient and they will not remove anything, nor trocars, cannulas and endoscopes will walk through his body ... yet. But we have asked you to look at the most common postures in which health personnel place patients for intervention.

Improve Help Desk workflow

It can be very complex and varied. Receiving and assigning requests, classifying them, prioritizing them, activating specific actions for important cases, and sending response notifications are among the many tasks that must be taken into account help desk support duties.

Any request for Help or technical information made by your clients, must be attended by your Help Desk in the most expeditious and efficient way possible.

The opposite can bring you unwanted consequences, such as the loss of credibility and discomfort among your clients, which in the long run can generate significant expenses for your company.

For an organization to be efficient, productive, and appreciated by its customers, it must strive to Improve Help Desk Workflow.

As we have mentioned in previous posts on this blog, we recommend adopting an ITIL Service Desk in the Cloud to manage Information Technology and Service Management operations with quality and efficiency.

However, implementing this requires carrying out a process of monitoring, control and continuous improvement of processes and services in parallel.

For this reason, it is essential to pay special attention to how your organization is managing the workflow of your Help Desk, for which in principle, you must understand its complexity.

Below we explain what are the levels of support offered by the Help Desk, and in parallel, establish the 4 Steps to improve the workflow of your Help Desk.

First Level Support:  The first level support of the Help Desk is characterized by being the first contact between the user and the Help Desk of your organization, and its objective is to give immediate response to incidents mainly related to the operation of the Information technologies (ICT).

Although it is very important to efficiently manage the management and response of requests, it is also necessary to take care of the costs that this level of support represents.

In this sense, you can save money at this level on staff. Let's be honest: Specialists (programmers, system administrators, etc.) should reserve themselves for more complex topics, and avoid 'burning' them with topics that can be easily solved by less qualified personnel, or by self-service.

And speaking of self-service, this factor also helps save a lot of money at this level. Feeding the Knowledge Base of Solutions for common failures or problems helps to optimize the use of personnel, and the time spent meeting requirements.

Now, Step # 1 to Improve the Help Desk Workflow is activated when a support request is received through any of the access channels (telephone, website, social networks, email).

The step consists of assigning a ticket to the incident, associating it with a number and description of the problem. This process is called Local Bug Tracker or LBT .  Next, Step # 2 to Improve the Workflow of the Help Desk of your company begins .  It consists of diagnosing and classifying the incidence according to the specific characteristics it presents. It is quite similar to the classification that we explain better here , Section 4.- Establish priority levels in the incidents .

       

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At this point, the Customer Service Operator must gather all the necessary information so that it can be resolved hot, referred to the Self-Service or FAQ Section, or if it is warranted, send it to:  

Second Level Support:  At this level, incidents of a more complex nature are dealt with. They are those matters whose solution goes beyond the FAQ or self-service section, and for this reason they are referred to qualified personnel from different areas of knowledge.

The specialist assigned to the case will undertake the follow-up to provide support until the solution is found, or otherwise, refer it to higher instances. Likewise, the solutions to these problems at this level are compiled in User Manuals.

When the case occurs that the solution to the problem escapes the Second Level of Support, then Step # 3 to Improve the Workflow of the Help Desk begins , which basically consists of the attention and referral of the incident to levels support superiors, according to the complexities that characterize it. So, we have:

Third Level Support: Incidents related to the “back-end” are dealt with here, that is, maintenance systems. The specialists in charge of these incidents should focus on researching and developing solutions to new or hitherto unknown problems.

global-socialFourth Level Support: This is the highest and most complex level of support because, for the solution of the problems that transcend this level, knowledge related to the installation, configuration, interconnection, administration and operation of the servers is required. The specialists who attend this level have at least two certifications, and are located in the Systems area of ​​the organization.

Regardless of the level and type of support through which the incident occurs, the Service Desk Operators must keep the client informed of each of the steps through which their requirement passes. To do this, you must use email messages and chats, instant notifications via cell phone and other means of communication.

The objective is to show you that your request is important, it is being attended to and in the process of being resolved, and with this smart move, to ensure your loyalty.

Once the issue is resolved, Step # 4 to Improve Help Desk Workflow is accomplished , regardless of the level of support where the resolution was achieved.

This last step consists of definitively closing the ticket corresponding to the incident, and proceeding to document the solution to feed the Knowledge Base, so that it can be consulted later by other technicians and serve as input for the construction of Help Manuals.

In summary, structuring the Help Desk workflow at different levels, according to the type and difficulty of the requests received, is extremely important to improve and optimize the Help Desk workflow of your company.

Implementing the 4 steps to Improve the Workflow of your Help Desk will allow you to reduce the costs of the Technical Support of your organization, since you will solve most of the requirements through the FAQ Database, the Knowledge Base, and Operating Manuals, and you will manage your human resources towards solving complex problems at higher levels.

If this information has broadened your perspective and you want to implement these 4 steps to improve the workflow of your company's Help Desk, contact us!

GB Advisors Inc assists and advises you for the installation, technical service and customization of Freshservice ITIL Service Desk , which improves the workflow of your Help Desk.

Its automation features speed up your workflows thanks to its advanced ticketing system, together with Asset Management capabilities gathered in an intuitive, customizable interface, and easy to use from the start.

Minimize the administration of telephone personnel (payroll).

Access to the Help Desk tool (Remedy) from the client's offices via the Web. We include the configuration, training and support of the help desk in the different hiring schemes.