It’s one of the most dreaded problems for employees on the business side of the enterprise: IT installs a new application or a software release upgrade over the weekend, and suddenly nothing works the way it’s supposed to work.
That’s a huge problem for employees who can’t use IT downtime as an excuse; they still have to prepare presentations, process invoices, and do all of the other activities that keep the company running. And when their coworkers can’t help, they take a deep breath and take the one step they were hoping to avoid: calling the IT help desk.
There’s a reason why they call it “help desk hell.” The employee doesn’t really know what’s wrong with the system — that’s why they need help — but the automated system they’re forced to use makes them guess anyway.
Getting to a live person doesn’t make things much easier — an entry-level support rep might not even realize that there was a software release upgrade performed the night before. They don’t know what the problem is, but they promise to look into it.
Then the hapless employee waits. And waits.
This scenario doesn’t unfold in every company, but it’s way too common. When so many IT departments are saddled with other projects and priorities, the help desk often turns into a neglected backwater staffed by new hires or IT employees who can’t make the grade doing “real” projects.
Fortunately, a growing number of CIOs are beginning to understand why end users hate the help desk — and more are doing something about it. After all, don’t you expect your vendors to stand behind their work and products and to answer the phone and have answers when you call? End users have the same expectations of their IT departments, and in too many cases those expectations aren’t being met.
Several years ago, CIOs began to make help desk reforms by automating help desk functions and software. That’s a good start, but only if an IT organization invests in the people and processes required to make help desk automation work. Here are some “next wave” IT help desk approaches CIOs are trying:
- Putting some of your best people on the help desk, especially during critical implementations. Most CIOs cringe at the thought of doing this, because they don’t want to take productive employees out of the network and application groups. But progressive CIOs also understand the inherent risk of having a major new application project fail — not due to technical issues but because the end are put off by shoddy technical support.
- Being more proactive in new project implementations by including training, preparation, and execution with end users as key project milestones instead of as afterthoughts.
- Making every effort to avoid technical jargon in IT-prepared documentation on new systems — or during help desk conversations.
- Establishing internal procedures where help desk logs are reviewed monthly to determine where most user trouble issues are occurring. This does several things: It provides insights into which applications have training or usability issues; it allows help desk employees to focus their own learning efforts on key areas; and it provides vital feedback to the development and design teams.
There is no silver-bullet solution to the widespread help desk malaise that is so common among business users. But your IT organization has to start somewhere, because too often the status quo just isn’t good enough.
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