It only takes one support tech can make the difference between a smoothly running help desk and one that is not helpful at all. When you’re looking for a help desk technician, keep an eye out for these three skills.
Excellent Communication
Generally, help desk technicians need to be able to communicate with a wide variety of people, whether internally or outside the organization. Your support techs likely represent the rest of the organization. He or she has to be able to listen to what users need, translate technical information into easily understandable language, and provide help and explanations without delay or confusion.
Survey data from Bask shows that 34 percent of customers who called for tech support indicated they received a response that didn’t help. 31 percent said the response helped but didn’t solve the problem. Clearly, super support techs are able to help their clients solve their problems the first time around.
Informed Prioritization
A super support tech can prioritize all of their tasks to best assist the entire organization. To do this, the tech has to fully understand the organization, how it works, and what role he or she plays in it. No one wants to bring the whole organization to a halt but sometimes uninformed support oversight can frustrate the whole operation.
While a well-configured ticketing system helps with prioritization, a super support tech should still have a general knowledge of the organization to be able to prioritize trouble tickets on their own too.
Creative Troubleshooting
Of course, a lot of tech support involves logical fixes. But when new situations or problems pop up, a super support tech should be able to think creatively and quickly to ensure that the educational environment stays intact. Not every solution is found in a knowledge base article or technical documentation. Your support techs should be able to think on the fly to troubleshoot effectively and independently.
With support techs employing these three skills and a robust help desk installed, your support team will be able to manage help desk much easier.