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, Read more…

Jenny Sweeney Help Desk Cara Garretson, CIO, CIO.com, computerworld, Customer Service, outsourcers, temps