| The help desk is an information and an assistance resource as well that troubleshoots the problems that you are facing with your computer or the similar products. Help desk support is often provided by corporation to their customers, through toll-free numbers, websites and e-mails. Providing the same kind of help, but only for employees, there is also the in-house help desk. A typical help desk has several functions, such as providing the users with a central point to receive help on various computer issues. This assistance resource also has the possibility to manage its requests through a help desk software that practically allows the tracking of the user's request with a unique ticket number. This function is also known as the "Local Bug Tracker", abridged LBT. Being an extremely beneficial tool, the help desk is used in finding, analyzing and, ultimately, eliminating all the common problems that may occur in the computing environment of an organization. By notifying the issue, the user receives from the help desk a ticket describing all the details of the problem that has occurred. Then, the ticket is closed and updated with the documentation regarding the solution to allow other help desks technicians to reference, but only if the first level is able to solve the issue. The issue is being dispatched to a second level if it needs to be escalated.
In order to support the functioning of the help desk, there have been developed several software applications. While some of them target the enterprise level help desk, others focus in the departmental needs. At the Robert Gordon University it had been found, after the middle 1990s research by Middleton, that many organizations recognized that the real value of the help desks derives from the unique position of the assistance resource where it communicates daily with numerous customers or employees. So, its value doesn't come only from providing with reactive responses to the user's issues. It practically has the ability to monitor the environment of the user from issues ranging between technical problems to the preferences and the satisfaction of the user. In the planning and preparation to other units in IT and non-IT departments as well, such information gathered at the assistance resource can be very valuable. The help desk features different levels in order to be able to handle different variable types of questions. The first-level is prepared to provide with the proper answers for the most commonly questions. It may also offer resolutions that are often incorporated in an FAQ or in a knowledge base. In order to allow a logging process to take place at the onset of a call, there has been implemented, typically, an incident tracking system. In case the first-level is not able to resolve the issue, the ticket is escalated to a second level, higher than the first one, which features the necessary resources in order to handle more difficult calls. There is a person or a team responsible for the management of the tickets that help desks provide with. These persons are commonly known as queue managers or queue supervisors, and they are practically involved in the ticket queue. These ticket queues can be setup in different ways. It mainly depends on the help desk size or structure. The larger help desks involve several teams with experience in working and handling with different issues.
Back To Articles... |
