Not all help desk providers are created equally. If you choose one that’s inefficient, it can end up being less of a help desk and more of an unhelpful frustration.
A help desk should be an asset to your business, not something that creates more problems than its supposed to resolve.
If you’re considering a new help desk or want to replace your existing one, look at these latest top six features you should be making sure are included:
1. Very Easy to Use
One of the most important things to consider is that your help desk should be easy to use overall. Its goal should be to make everyone’s work a little easier. If every part of your help desk system is working toward that goal, you may be onto a winner.
A good help desk is very easy for end-users and technicians to LEARN to use, provides a very-simple way to open and track an incident (“ticket”), solves issues in an efficient and timely manner, and gives you the information you need when you need it. With the right software, the right attitude, and the right tech, you can provide excellent user support that increases productivity and profitability.
2. Ticketing Timeline
A certain well-known pizza delivery company has the journey of the pizza – from creation to delivery – available to view online. As soon as a customer places their order, they can see exactly what stage their pizza is at and when to expect it. It makes the wait far less excruciating!
If a customer knows exactly what is going on, it eliminates much of the frustration experienced when waiting for something to happen.
When using a help desk, there’s nothing worse than submitting a ticket for an issue and then not receiving a response or update for days on end.
Choosing a help desk provider that makes the ticketing journey visible shows that a person’s ticket is being dealt with, what stage it’s at and when it is likely to be resolved. The customer can relax with this knowledge and not spend their days tearing their hair out thinking that nothing is happening.
3. Self Service
More and more people are working non-standard hours, particularly those who work remotely. Having a help desk during standard hours is great but what if you need help at 11 pm or first thing in the morning?
Having to wait until opening time to resolve a problem is inconvenient for a lot of people. It has never been more important to make help available 24/7.
This is why you should be ensuring that the help desk you decide on has self-service features. FAQ’s, knowledge base articles., forums, online chat and easy ticket submission all go a long way to ease a person’s frustration when using the service out of normal business hours.
4. Intelligent Search
A library is next to useless if it doesn’t have a simple-to-use indexing system. What good is having all of that information available if no-one can find it?
Any decent help desk needs to have an intelligent search system that gets the searcher to the correct information quickly and easily. A help desk technician should not be keeping their customer on hold for extended periods of time whilst they rifle through pages of notes.
Having a comprehensive knowledge base is important. Having a quick way to navigate it is essential.
5. Product Specialists
The chances are good that you use many different software and hardware products to get the job done. You never know which product will start having an issue but you do want to be sure that when you contact the help desk you are going to communicate with someone that has good knowledge of that particular product.
A person with expert knowledge in a product is going to be able to solve a problem far more quickly than someone who has to consult the user manual or help notes. Using a help desk system which lets you automatically assign certain types of inquiries or incidents (based on the technology involved) to the in-house “experts’ will save your organization a great deal of time. It will also greatly reduce the frustration of end-users. At the same time, choosing a help desk that has people on its team who are specialists with the various environment components of its implementation, therefore, can save you a lot of time as well. In this way, you can be sure you’re consulting with an expert should an issue arise.
6. Mobility
Help desks should be keeping up with modern times. A lot of people now work from their smart devices, tablets, and phones. Being able to engage with the help desk via any device is essential.
It’s not enough to just have the ticketing service available through a web browser, it should also be available via app, phone and email.
Having multiple ways to reach the help desk ensures that those who are mobile can be reassured their problems are going to be dealt with in a timely manner.
IT issues are a huge source of frustration and can severely impact productivity if not dealt with quickly.
Why settle for a help desk that’s outdated and inefficient? By choosing a help desk that’s going to keep up with the demands placed on it, you can be reassured that productivity within your business will not be affected. It’ll certainly save you a headache or three in the long run.