Have you ever worked at an organization where you couldn't access your work email on your first day on the job? This is an example of a problem a helpdesk ticketing system would solve.
Service desks are the first point of contact for technical support in the customer service function. Depending on the organization's needs, help desks may also provide technical support to company employees or serve external customers.
For those wondering about the best help desk practices, strategies, and crucial metrics for your help desk, we have prepared this article to address these exact questions. Follow these service desk best practices to take your IT support to the next level.
#1. Choose The Right Help Desk Software
First and foremost, we recommend implementing customer experience management software for your team to supercharge their performance.
According to Hubspot, 60% of high-growth customer service teams use a help desk system to assist internal and external stakeholders.
Furthermore, the right help desk software can:
- Streamline your customer service workflows and processes
- Optimize workload distribution across the team
- Ensure compliance and maintain standards
- Provide security to your IT network by keeping track of connected devices
- Improve the overall customer and employee experience
- Provide useful and accurate data to the service desk
- Help you track and maintain service delivery as defined in the SLA
Check out our detailed guide on the best help desk ticketing systems for a thorough analysis of the benefits, common mistakes, pricing, and other aspects of buying this type of software for your company.
#2. Hire the Right Talent
Ultimately, a help desk is just as good as those managing it. Your employees are essential to your customer service strategy, so make sure to hire the right ones.
IT help desk jobs are often entry-level roles. Consequently, your hires will likely be inexperienced and will probably need training for the specific tasks they’re expected to perform. However, the best candidates for help desk roles are people with certain personality traits.
People likely to succeed in help desk jobs exhibit customer focus, patience, good listening skills, and kindness. Your best hires can remain calm and empathetic when dealing with angry customers and employees.
You can also check for relevant qualifications to calculate a potential hire’s chances of success. For example, certifications from Help Desk Institute (HDI), Google, and Udemy illustrate candidates' suitability for help desk roles.
#3. Maintain Enough Capacity
Having the right people is only half the job. To run a help desk effectively, you need to ensure there are enough agents to manage the queries and tickets sent their way.
This is even more important when you have remote employees or a customer base that’s located in various international markets and needs assistance around the clock.
Having the right headcount for your team ensures the help desk is responsive 24/7, on weekends and on holidays without overburdening the agents.
#4. Build & Implement a Service Level Agreement (SLA)
A Service Level Agreement (SLA) outlines your service delivery parameters for all the stakeholders. It is a mutual understanding between an organization, its employees, and customers about the level of service you’ll provide.
SLAs help companies set customer expectations and help your team understand the KPIs they need to meet. The result is a better-organized help desk that responds to tickets in a timely manner.
SLAs also help managers measure help desk agent performance and set targets for the future. This is an effective performance management system that highlights both the stars and the poor performers.
#5. Use Pre-Drafted Responses
According to Tata Consultancy, over 32% of businesses around the world have adopted some form of automation or customer service technology. Having pre-drafted responses is a small step towards automation every business should take.
Having a library of pre-written responses saves valuable time for your agents so they can focus on solutions. Better yet, have AI-enabled help desk software features that answer common queries for you.
Help desk software can make it easier for your customers and employees to get the right information as soon as they need it, whether via HR chatbots, texting apps, or any other customer communications management software.
You can further improve this process by linking your help desk software with your knowledge base. Your help desk system would then be able to link users to relevant articles that can speed up resolution time.
#6. Be Available on Multiple Contact Channels
One of the best things you can do to improve employee and customer experience is to be more accessible. Find out which platforms they are using and be available on as many of these platforms as possible.
In addition to the help desk portal, these channels typically include email, live chat, phone, and social media. In fact, experts are now debating whether the role of help desks can be extended to the metaverse.
Furthermore, using help desk software, you can centralize all multi-channel communication into one place. This would make it easier for agents to keep track of conversations and respond to tickets faster.
#7. Invest in Growing Your Team’s Knowledge
The best help desks have a culture of continuous improvement. As part of this culture, it’s crucial to invest in improving the knowledge and expertise of your help desk employees.
Well-trained employees are in a better position to resolve more problems on their own instead of escalating them to level two.
We recommend getting employees certified in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL). The ITIL framework is a set of integrated best practices that allows businesses to deliver high-quality IT products efficiently.
#8. Focus on First Contact Resolution (FCR)
Research suggests that 93% of customers expect their problems to be resolved upon their first contact with a help desk. This makes First-Contact Resolution a critical metric and best practice.
Bringing your help desk employees up to a level where they can achieve FCR in most of their interactions requires a substantial investment of time and money.
Your team would have to be trained on a wide range of organizational issues before they can start resolving most queries on first contact.
However, it is well worth the effort. Solving employee and customer issues at first contact saves your team’s valuable time, cuts operational costs, and allows them to focus on other important tasks.
#9. Enhance Your HelpDesk with Proper Implementation
Here are some useful strategies you can adopt to improve the performance of your service desk as well as your help desk.
1. Train Your Employees
In 2014, Richard Branson famously said, “Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough, so they don't want to.”
Having service desk employees who are well-trained means they’re in a better position to solve organizational problems, reducing resolution times and avoidable escalations.
2. Continuous Improvement Through Employee Feedback
A culture of appreciation and constant growth requires continuous monitoring and employee feedback. Developing such a system can help you figure out what your employees want from the service desk.
For the best results, design your service desk based on the end user's needs, whether it’s faster resolution times, presence on a particular channel, or more self-service options.
To encourage easy and instant feedback, you can set up automated triggers in your support software to send feedback surveys to employees after their tickets are closed.
3. Build Synergy With Business Goals
On the surface, IT support desks seem mainly concerned with employee and customer support. However, aligning them with business goals can help all the stakeholders involved.
For example, when a new product is launched or a new marketing campaign is executed, the service desk should be kept in the loop so it can prepare for a spike in customer queries.
4. Supercharge Your Service Desk With Software
Having the right software empowering your team can boost their performance by leaps and bounds.
Implementing IT service desk software, such as Freshservice or Live Agent, may sound daunting, but there are a number of flexible options available today that can easily be installed and adjusted based on your team's size and needs.
Depending on your needs, a software solution can assist you with Asset Management, SLAs, Knowledge Management, and other aspects of the IT Service Management (ITSM) framework. The ITSM is a set of conventions that define the end-to-end delivery of IT services to customers.
5. Develop an Internal Knowledge Base
Building and continuously updating an internal knowledge base is a surefire strategy for taking your service desk to the next level.
Having a solid knowledge base not only positively portrays your organization professionally but also empowers users to find answers to common questions on their own and drastically reduces resolution times.
This also means your team gets more time to focus on important issues instead of spending time on clerical tasks.
6. Develop Robust Escalation and Handoff Processes
A robust escalation process goes a long way in building an efficient service desk. When escalation processes are clearly defined, every agent knows which tickets to escalate and which ones to resolve on their own.
Similarly, well-defined handoff processes ensure no tickets go unanswered even when certain agents are on leave.
#10. Continuously Measure Help Desk Performance
Implementing help desk best practices and strategies can only take you so far if you don’t continuously measure and optimize for performance.
Help desk metrics are Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that help you understand and compare your help desk's performance over a defined period of time.
Here are the three help desk metrics you can measure to stay ahead of the curve.
1. Ticket Resolution Rate
The Ticket Resolution Rate highlights an agent’s ability to resolve issues by taking into account the number of tickets received vs tickets resolved by an agent.
In other words, this metric shows the percentage of issues an agent resolves out of the total they receive.
Formula
The formula for Ticket Resolution Rate is as follows:
(Total number of tickets solved / Total number of tickets assigned) x 100
2. Average Resolution Time
This is the average amount of time it takes for an agent to resolve a customer’s problem. Average Resolution Time includes the time it takes an agent to open and respond to a reported issue and goes all the way to the closure of the ticket.
Formula:
Total resolution time / Total number of tickets resolved = Average Resolution Time
3. First Response Time
First Response Time is the time it takes for an agent to respond to a ticket after it’s been posted. In other words, this is an indication of the amount of time a customer or and employee has to wait for an agent to answer their query.
TL;DR
When implemented correctly, help desk best practices allow organizations to save thousands of dollars and man-hours annually. The way you treat customers after you sell them your product can often mean the difference between repeat purchases and permanently losing a customer.
Similarly, help desks serve a crucial function for internal stakeholders. From helping new employees settle down, to solving daily technical issues, to providing valuable data to the service desk. Help desks add tactical as well as strategic value to the organization.
If done right, following help desk best practices and tracking your team's performance using the right help desk metrics can strategically boost employee engagement and customer experience.
