Managing a Help Desk (need some advice) 4

[butchrecon]

I recently accepted a position with a help desk in my area. The users are not quite as knowledgeable as they could be. The Sr. Manager fro the IT department is looking at me to take over the manager position. No big deal. There are several things that I know I can be of great assistance to. the help desk analysts need better Customer Service Skills and ANY Windows troubleshooting I can provide. So my question is....

What would be the best way to present to Sr. Management that the dept needs these two skills badly and not a fresh start with new employees (He wants to get rid of several he feels is not working out)? I don't think letting anyone go is the answer, I am sure they just need some training in these two areas specifically. Any suggestions?

James Collins
Hardware Engineer
A+, MCP, MCSA, Network+

 

[sleipnir214]

Sounds pretty simple to me. Prove to senior management that training current employees is cheaper than hiring new ones.

Want the best answers? Ask the best questions:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

TANSTAAFL!!

 

[SPguru]

If you are going to be their new manager you need to do one thing that is very important for any manager in any endeavor. Stand behind your employees. They are going to be your employees so tell Sr. Mgt. that you want to offer classes in CRM and that you can improve their effectiveness.

If the employees know that Sr. Mgt wants to get rid of some of them, at least they will know that you are standing behind them and you will have some respect from them.

If the company will spend the money on programs for employees, you could enroll them in CRM classes from Oullette & Assoc. for example. Or if that is too costly then look at other training programs that are offered in CRM that can be taught using video tapes and workbooks that are taught by managers.

These days, CRM skills, the "soft skills" are more important than the "hard skills" even for technical people.

 

[CajunCenturion]

Several things that might want to get your hands around. Does Sr. Management want to get rid of those not working out, or does Sr. Mgmt feel that the best way to acquire the needed skills is by staff replacement. Since you're relatively new to the position, it's possible that "not working out" has nothing to do, or at least not totally, with the technical skills of these people, but is being used by Sr. Mgmt as a euphamism for what could be any number of a multiplicity of sins. Of course, on the other hand, it may simply be that Sr. Mgmt is not happy with the skills levels, or the customer's perception and/or acceptance of the help desk product. If it were me, the first thing that I would try to discern is what the objective of Sr Mgmt is, separately from the stated methods to achieve that objective, and understand which is the real priority.

If you determine that the primary objective is having the right and accepted skills, and you have good reason to believe that the existing staff is capabile of acquiring the Customer Service Skills and Windows Troubleshooting skills, and positioning themselves so that the user community has confidence in them, then I would go to senior management, explain to them what you see in the existing staff that can utilizied and the method and schedule by which you teach and train the existing staff in those required skills, and if applicable, how you will convince the user community that the same people are now singing a different song. Explain why you think that is in the best interests of the company, either financially, or from a PR perspective, or from an HR perspective, or a combination of the above.

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[butchrecon]

Wow!!!

Thanks for the responses. The current staff know the current system. They all have some good skills and they seem willing and eager to learn. The user community seems would not care as long as their issues were resolved faster and with more of smile. I have been there a week and noticed that the staff just need some Windows TS training and some solid Customer Service training. Changing the "Help desk this is Joe" to "Help desk this is Joe how may I help you" and then end the call with "Is there anything else I can do for you" can greatly change the user communities impressions. Training the staff to on some good solid TS techniques and how to put more detail in the call ticket can greatly improve the efficiency of the help desk and will keep the desktop response team from going on little runs and will also give them a greater sense of what a problem is when they do go on one. (There is only TWO on the desktop response team for 1700 users). I appreciate the input you guys have given. Any advice I receive I will see if I can use it to create a management style for myself. I dont think it will be a hard sell to the Sr. MAnager as lng as I get results from the staff.

Thanks guys.

James Collins
Hardware Engineer
A+, MCP, MCSA, Network+

 

[SPguru]

One other idea that I should mention that would be good not only for you and your new department but also your customers would be to have a periodic survey that you could give to your customers that is anonymous but would provide good feedback on what is being done well, or what could be improved.

And with a scale, and with management involvement, come to an target score, say on a 5 scale your department would like to have a 3.5 after the first 6 months, and 4 after that.

It gives feedback and ideas for improvement, and should not be used for criticism which should be stressed to your employees.

Good Luck.

 

[SPguru]

Excellent for your employees is:

Meeting unspoken customer needs.

The goal of troiing is to leave a lingering, positive memory that builds customer loyalty.

Troiing is:
Thrifty
Rapid
On target
Impressive

Troiing means meeting an unspoken customer need.

How to Troi
1. Look and listen for cues.
Cues for troiing:
* words and voice
* body language
* appearance and props
* context
* other relevant data

2. Review relevant data
Customer information sources:
* personal recollections of interactions with the customer
* customer profiles in computer databases
* paper-based files on the customer or the account
* notes, telephone messages, and memos related to the customer
* news clippings and market research

3. Ask for more
Guidelines:
* be sensitive
* be courteous
* be efficient
* be cumulative
* be flexible

4. Improvise to impress
When considering a troiing action, consider the long-term costs and benefits to you, the organization, and the customer.

5. Reflect, record, and share

 

[SPguru]

Leadership strategies:

C - Create a compelling future.
L - Let the customer drive the organization.
I - Involve every mind.
M - Manage work horizontally.
B - Build personal credibility.

 

[SPguru]

Basic principles:

1. Focus on the situation, issue, or behavior, not on the person.

2. Maintain the self-confidence and self-esteem of others.

3. Maintain constructive relationships.

4. Take initiative to make things better.

5. Lead by example.

 

[cdogg]

Just tossing some other ideas out there:

1) Answer with "Thank you for calling the helpdesk, this is yadda yadda yadda..."

2) End every unresolved call by having the tech rep leave their name & ext to establish a point of contact.

3) Strive for short hold times - set a target around 2-3 minutes if possible. Even if a solution is being researched, customers like it if you check back in every 2 or 3 minutes to let them know you're still working on it.

Of course, that's just for customer service skills. Improving product knowledge is another beast...


~cdogg
[tab]"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources"
[tab][tab]- A. Einstein

 

[butchrecon]

Thanks for the replies. CDOGG that is exactly what I was thinking with your #1 answer. The other two are currently in use. I have managed before, just not a help desk. This environment is a bit different than what I am used to. But I do not see any issues with learning it.

I have always read and been taught to (in the Army) to lead by example. That is the style I will be using. I will also will have a hands off approach to TS. That allows the tech to solve issues themselves (though I may provide input). These people I will be working with are good people who just need some guidance.

James Collins
Hardware Engineer
A+, MCP, MCSA, Network+

 

[butchrecon]

Though I was never taught (apparently) to proofread. DUH!!

James Collins
Hardware Engineer
A+, MCP, MCSA, Network+

 

[Stevehewitt]

Hey,

Its late at night (UK) so I hope I haven't misread the question!

Regarding the helpdesk issue - how much clout do you have? You don't say how many users you are supporting, but in anymore that 100 users I would setup a intranet incase users cannot get though.

Every call logged gets the resolution put on the intranet which can be looked up by a search engine. Most people wouldn't use this as first point of contact, but if you are busy, or they are a more IT literate user then they may feel compeled to try themselves.

Works at a few of my clients. How long does a basic IIS intranet site take to setup? 15 mins? Slap a JavaScript search widget on it and your away. Also handy if you want to lookup a resolution that took you a while to find out.

The quicker a client gets an answer, the happier they will be!

Good Luck,


Steve.

 

[andymerritt]

Thought I would offer some advice that has worked for me in the past. I was a helpdesk manager for 2 years, and found after some trial and error these few things could help address your concerns.

First with customer service:

Come up with a standard Help Desk greeting, maybe perhaps even asking Sr. Mgmt about renaming it something like Customer Support, this will help get your techs in a customer service mindset. Whatever greeting you decide on make it mandatory that they say it at the beginning of every call. A closing is nice, but it annoys some people.

If you aren't are monitoring their calls, you should be. Listen in on 2 for each analyst you have. Come up with a critera sheet. After each monitoring tell them what needs improved, and what they did well on. Nothing feels better than for your mgr to tell you that you are doing a good job. Esecially with phone support.

There is one important thing you need to drive home again and again to your employees. Empathy. If you can teach them to convey empathy over the phone, that will improve soft skills ten fold. On your monitoring criteria make empathy the heaviest weighted category. If they can put themselves in the shoes of the person on the other end, not only will softskills improve, but so will their accountability and their willingness to take ownership of problems. When they start to hear prasies from the customers/employees about how they had been suffering with this problem for sooo long..and how no one else could fix it but them, all of it will start to tie together and become second nature to the analysts.

As far as getting their troubleshooting skills in order. First thing is you need to test them and see where the best skills are at, and any common skills that all of them may need. Give them dailey assignments, not like homework or anything, just something simple like for a week give them terms to search online for. At the end of the week have them explain what those terms are, not the book definition, but make them show you they understand what it means. Make them learn what .ini, .dat, DLL, illegal operations, and GPF's are for example. Have them explain how they can use it in their own job. Keep doing that until they understand how nearly everything works in and with Windows. Teach networking skills to those who don't have them.

When you teach them something, they need to be able to relate it to what they are doing. The best way I found to do this is make sure they understand that one of the best troubleshooting skills is the process of elimination, deductive reasoning. The analysts need to be able to immediately think of all the things something CAN'T be when a customer describes a problem, instead of what they think it is. It will save them loads of time, and frustration. Go over each of the common issues they encounter with them this way. Hold weekly meetings so you can tell them what they are doing well, and what all of them as a team need to work on. Encourage the exchange of information between them. Create a distro in outlook if you have access to it, that is only for the exchange of information amongst them. Perhaps depending on how many their are, let them keep chat clinets open to talk to each other. In the tech support game its not always about if you know the answer, but more so if you can find it.

Have an analyst with the best technical skills update you every day with issues that have arisen, and any known solutions or fixes. These guys know more about what is going on with the systems, and the users than anybody. Then email that update to your entire team.

Also have the analyst that has the best empathetic and customer service qualities update every week with you so that you can gauge on how the users are feeling about the service they are getting from the help desk.

This motivates both employees to be the best at what they do because you have recognized them, and giving a little extra responsibility goes a long way toward self-esteem. Make it known to the other employees that if they want such things, to learn as much as they can, and if you seem great improvements, reward them.

If your employees know you can do their job with your eyes closed, and that you have been there before, they will respect you. If they feel you are on their side, and not another suit, they will want to improve.

The most important thing is to give constant feedback. Never tell someone that they are doing something wrong without making a point over something they did correctly.

Set goals with each one, and for each goal they meet reward them. Even if its giving an extra break, or taking their calls for an hour. No matter how small the reward, most people will work harder if they know there is something else in it for them.

2 last things.

Make your agents use a notes template for every call they do. Most all ticketing/call tracking software has a summary field that you can copy and paste to. Have the users keep notepad open with blank templates in them, fill them out as they go along, then copy into the software. This way all their notes are consistent, other members of the Dept will appriciate getting the information they need every time.

You can try something like this.
NAME
(ANY RELEVANT CONTACT INF0)
OS
ANY ID's(printer, and workstation names)
DESCRIPTION OF THE PROBLEM
ERROR MSG RCVD
STEPS TAKEN DURING CALL
PC REBOOTED IN PAST 12 HRS?
ANY RECENT CHANGES?
WHEN DID THEY FIRST NOTICE PROBLEM?
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS

Of course you will need to tailor it to your needs but just a rough idea. Also poll any other dept that they submit trouble tickets to and ask them what information they would like to see on their tickets, and what steps the analysts should always be taking before a ticket is even submitted.

I hope this helps you. Sorry this was so long winded. These are just things I have had sucess with, and always wished my mgrs would have done with me.

Good Luck! Once you see improvement, you'll feel like superman

 

[Kjonnnn]

My former job had three sets of IT Staff.

The first set was very knowledgeable. Could fix any problem. Had personalities like leftover cabbage. No people or customer service skills. Everybody hated them. Pooof! They were gone.

The next set were the most charming accomodating people. People would call them even if they DIDNT have computer problems. Everybody loved them. They couldnt fix a darn thing. Poof! They were gone.

The 3rd set was equal mix of technical skills and personality and CS skills. THEY worked out great.

 

[Kjonnnn]

One more suggestion.

Often when dealing with people, perception is very important.

Make sure you keep users/clients/customer informed of the status of a problem or project your working on. They won't feel you've forgotten about them, and they'll think the IT staff is wonderful.

 

[TrmblingBluStar]

When I was working for a help desk, night shift, I found the best thing to do was to develope a relationship with the people you are helping. Let them know they aren't bothering you, and you enjoy fixing their problems. We had people who were rock solid when it came to technical skills, and one person who simply was incapable of threating another human being in a courteous way.

I remember when one of our guys left, we had customers asking where he was. That's a good thing!