It’s reassuring to reach an actual human being when calling the help desk. It’s even more of a comfort nowadays, when automated menus are standard and pressing “0″ often loops you back to the beginning of the options menu.

It sounds simple, but some companies do not understand the concept.

That’s one of the main takeaways from a recent commentary piece by Mike Schaffner published on Forbes.com, and it’s something we hear all the time from our customers. In fact, one of the most common bits of praise we get in our quality assurance surveys is not that our consultants are amazing software ninjas (which they are, by the way), but that “real” people answer our phones.

In Schaffner’s piece, he lists the four basic requirements customers have of IT:

• To know whether IT is working on the issue, or at least where it stands in the queue;
• how long it will take to resolve the problem;
• periodic status updates; and,
• to do what they promise, or say so when they cannot.

It sounds simple, but some companies do not understand the concept. They give it a stab with pricey help desk ticket systems that promise to produce valuable data for trending analysis. But, Schaffner points out, “although efficiency and systems to track issues are great, they don’t mean anything to our customers.”

Indeed, they don’t. A caller’s main concern is his job, and how quickly — or slowly — he can get back to it.

How’s your help desk’s motherboard-side manner? Tell us in comments.

MORE INFO IN: 5 Lessons to Learn Before Outsourcing | Desktop Application Support | Hidden Demand | Contact PC Helps

Jenny Sweeney Customer Service automation, Forbes.com, Help Desk, ninjas

Although the economic slump may be ending sometime soon, companies are still scrutinizing budgets and trying to squeeze as much work possible out of every employee. We’ve covered productivity often in this blog — from Excel calculations that can cost companies thousands to the debate over whether social media and instant messaging are detrimental to productivity.

Here’s a roundup of some of our favorite posts. Read on and tell us what your company is doing to get the most out of its resources.

• Downtime Revisited
• Instant Messaging Increases Productivity, Study Reveals
• Chaos Among the Calculations
• Raising Backyard Chickens, or Getting Back to Basics
• SLAs, Software Ninjas & Streamlining IT

MORE INFO IN: PC Helps Desktop Application Support | Contact PC Helps

Jenny Sweeney Worker Productivity chickens, Excel, instant messaging, ninjas, SLAs