Help Desk Considerations
You need to consider your requirements and IT capabilities before you assess help desk software with respect to your expectations from it. Would you want to outsource your help desk capabilities or would you rather have them in-house? Both have their benefits depending upon your needs and goals. Get answers to the following questions:
- What is the availability expected from your help desk: 24 x 7 or only during working days?
- What will the help desk support–select the systems, hardware, applications that will be covered by the help desk.
- Decide upon the level of service to be offered by the help desk.
- What is the resolution time-frame that you intend to offer?
- Do you have the expertise in-house to run the help desk operations?
- How does the help desk integrate with other applications in your office such as Contact Managers?
- What will be the channels of communication offered by the help desk?
- How will help desk performance be monitored?
You would benefit more from an in-house help desk if IT forms an integral part of your business and problem resolution requires significant human involvement. However, if your customers know their way around your products and services, you can consider outsourcing your service. However, if you choose to outsource your help desk, be sure to draw up well-defined SLAs. Keep your user expectations and your business requirements central to your SLAs. Obtain a demonstration of the product from the vendor and compare prices for similar products.
Conduct a comparison and look for help desk software key features such as:
- Single user interface.
- Easy installation of software.
- Both customers and internal staff can log in calls.
- Clear and exhaustive FAQs and self-help instructions.
- Intuitive workflow.
- Well-defined features for both internal and external support.
- Compatibility with existing applications and flexibility to help internal departments as per their unique needs.
- Ability to work with multiple database systems and scalability.