The headline of a recent article in Computerworld magazine grabbed my attention: “Help Desks Under Siege.” An image of angry workers armed with flaming torches popped into my mind. They were storming the help desk, calling for an immediate moratorium on rebooting and demanding basic rights like software that doesn’t require patches and updates. There were even rumblings of self-serve password reset capabilities.
A supply closet as an office? For employees who are responsible for the computing capabilities of an entire company? Shame on them.
Alas, the piece wasn’t about corporate coups d’etat (it’s a little far-fetched, I concede), but it did highlight the pressing issues help desks are facing today, in this sorta-kinda-post-recession era. Namely…
1. Efficiency
The piece’s author, Cara Garretson, mentions improvements that would make help desks more efficient, such as a central knowledgebase, remote control capabilities, and a database of standard responses to common problems. The problem, says Garretson, is that those improvements cost employee hours.
They don’t have to.
There are companies out there, outsourcers or “best-of-breed” service providers like us, who specialize in efficiency. They are experienced with providing remote desktop support, and maintain extensive knowledgebases that include ample information about common software problems. Best of all, when you hire them, you don’t pay all the ancillary costs of having a hulking, certified IT department – you pay only for what you need.
2. Appreciation, Understanding, Alignment
Garretson also mentions the disconnect between IT and the rest of the business and its effect on how well the help desk can operate. One of her sources laments that his department is not fully appreciated by the rest of the company, and that his previous office was actually a supply closet.
A supply closet as an office? For employees who are responsible for the computing capabilities of an entire company? Shame on them.
This misalignment is a holdover from a different era, when IT’s job was to fix things that broke or caught fire. Plus, IT historically hasn’t been seen as a proactive bunch, at least not by the corporate population in general.
When the help desk gains the budget funds, loses the attitude, and actually begins to help people get their jobs done — that’s when its reputation will undergo a renaissance.
3. Full-Timers, Temps, Outsourcers – Oh My!
I agree with the writer’s assertion that piecing together a department with a mix of full-timers and temps isn’t a long-term strategy. But I also believe that it’s impossible to staff a department with techs who are expert in every application a company uses.
I’ve written a few posts on this issue and have included a breakdown of just how much money a company “saves” using each. (Click here to read the full posts.) Here’s a sampling:
Most temps are generalists who cannot support advanced issues like macros and application development. They can support only 18 applications on average. And while they may seem cheaper than full-timers, you’re still paying them a fixed rate plus overhead. That amounts to an average of $43,000 annually.
Factor in the temp response time (6 minutes), the whopping abandonment rate (10 percent), eternal peak hold time (15 minutes), and the troubling amount of time it takes to resolve an issue (45 minutes on average) and the savings disappear.
With full-time employees, the numbers are not much better.
4. Quality of Service
If a CIO expects quality from a deep-discounted, all-in-one outsourcer whose techs’ main goal is to get the person OFF the phone, then that’s just bad business. Likewise, overloading existing IT staff with too much work will only decrease quality.
Although much can be said about each of the points individually, they do not operate independently. The help desk’s quality of service is directly tied to its perception by the rest of the company, and its perception and efficiency affect how big a budget it receives. Everything is related.
Maybe a coup is needed after all.
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