We thought we would have a little fun this time, and share some of the things we have seen and heard about automating your help desk. Presented here in no particular order, in a point – counterpoint format are the worst ideas we have seen. Feel free to add your comments and suggest others:
“Use a manual system because it is easier and cheaper” – Oh, man did you walk into that one! We can show you all kinds of reasons why automating a help desk is the way to go! You save time, money and effort. With an automated system, especially everything HelpDesk® from GroupLink, you can “dramatically increase productivity, improve communication, streamline and track issues, and report progress.”
“Design a spreadsheet based system” – Nice try, compadre, but we again must suggest that a spreadsheet even with pivot tables and fancy charts and graphs cannot hold a candle to a well-designed help desk software package. Can your spreadsheet automatically convert an email into a ticket and add it to your database? Can it automatically create, schedule and distribute progress reports to all users? Can users login and check the status of their own tickets or access a self-help knowledge base to solve their own issues? These are just a few of the capabilities in our software. Check here for a full list of features.
“Let the students or interns run the help desk” – Say what? Are you serious? When the reputation of your IT department and potentially your whole organization rests on how well you service your users, we think not! Students and interns come and go. They may have a hot date that is far more important than providing timely response to a user who needs an answer to a pressing systems issue that is preventing them from completing an assignment.
“Roll your own” – Okay, so you’re getting the drift of this article, and we must admit we have a really serious axe to grind. We have invested thousands of hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars into building what we lovingly call “our baby.” If you have that kind of resource available, then certainly feel free to build your own system. Otherwise, consider signing on with us and let us do the development, maintenance and updates of the software while you concentrate on providing outstanding service to your customers or students.
And, finally . . . . “help desk system we have is working so just stay with it” – Our sales team calls this the “status quo objection” when they are involved in a selling situation and is actually the most difficult one to address unless we can engage the prospective client in an apples to apples comparison. People naturally defend their current system and are reluctant to “lay it bare” for all to see. If you truly want to make improvements in your help desk, then we encourage you to check the features list and honestly assess whether or not your existing system can do all these things.
View everything HelpDesk®’s features list here