MeasureProductivity

The performance of a company’s helpdesk is one of the factors that will determine employee and customer satisfaction. This is why it is important to continuously measure and increase helpdesk productivity by regularly monitoring helpdesk service levels.

It is imperative for many companies to measure and increase helpdesk productivity to be able to achieve more efficient business processes and obtain highly satisfied customers.

Help desk is commonly defined as an assistance and information tool or resource that is concerned with troubleshooting problems with computers and other products. Help desk support is often provided by corporations to their customers through several modes including a website, email address, or a toll-free number. These help desks are designed to assist external customers. Some help desks, on the other hand, are designed to assist the company’s internal customers who are its employees. Traditionally, helpdesks function as call centers since in the past, telephone support was the primary medium used until the emergence of the Internet. A lot of people found online help desks more convenient since in this set-up, they would no longer have to deal with being put on hold or navigating through automated phone menu.

Usually, help desk requests are managed through special help desk software that comes with an incident tracking system that assigns user requests unique tracking numbers. This software help companies identify common computer problem so that something will be done to minimize or eliminate them.

A typical help desk scenario usually starts with a user informing the help desk about his problem. He is then issued a ticket that contains a brief description or summary of his problem. He is then forwarded to a first-level support agent and id his issue is resolved at this stage, his ticket is then closed and documented with the solution provided by help desk technicians. Otherwise, the issue would have to be escalated to second level help desk officers. Usually, first-level help desk is trained to provide assistance and answers to common issues or questions. Concerns in this level are usually answerable and resolvable with basic knowledge on certain products or services. Personnel who provide second-level help desk support are trained to handle calls on more complex issues or concerns. Queue managers or supervisors are tasked to manage the tickets that are handled by the help desk as well as conduct helpdesk auditing. Common objectives of such include determining if sufficient controls have been set in place. These controls make sure that all service requests are documented and that only authorized personnel access to them. Another objective is to ensure that guidelines have been set in escalating issues according to priority levels. Moreover, helpdesk auditing also ensures that all customer requests are monitored and have been resolved within a given period.

Companies have different ways and methods to measure and increase helpdesk productivity. Generally, management calculates all reported problems every month. The number of problems resolved by individual helpdesk staff is also determined. The number of reported problems vis a vis resolved problems are also computed and carefully analyzed. From these data, certain measures are implemented to ensure the better performance of help desk personnel. Moreover, by analyzing the common problems reported, something could be done to make a company’s system easier for both its external and internal customers.