5 Ways to Make Your Help Desk Run Smoother

A successful help desk isn’t as easy to create as you might think. It seems like if you have all the conventions of a good help desk structure, things will run smoothly on their own. However, there are often issues with your tickets or customers that aren’t covered by the regular structure. When that occurs, a variety of help desk tools can smooth out the kinks.

Choosing the right software for your help desk is a delicate process. Surface research on various help desk tools will result in lists of products that claim to be better the best. It’s hard to know which one is telling the truth. Most service desk software will be relatively similar with a few key standout features. The trick is to find the right support tools for your specific organization.

Work backwards to find your best solutions and discover what you want your customers to experience and how they will interact with your support team and allow them to do their best work

Next, make a list of essential and non-essential features. Prioritize your list and get as many as you can for your budget. At the very least, the help desk tools you recruit should offer:

  • Scalability
  • Documentation and reporting capabilities
  • Reliability
  • Self-service articles
  • A better customer experience

As you examine your criteria for great help desk software, consider this list of tools:

Remote Support Software

Having to call the help desk is already frustrating for customers, but it becomes an even bigger headache if you’re unable to fix their problems over the phone. The ability to control systems remotely allows you to handle most problems quickly and efficiently.

If you invest in good remote support software, you can remotely control desktops, securely access computers outside of firewalls, perform administration tasks remotely, and fully support end-users. The remote support software from Dameware is a popular choice as it features a native help desk integration. Any effective help desk should have such a remote support tool in their arsenal.

Documentation Tools

Most ticketing services will include documentation within, but if it doesn’t, or your ticketing service doesn’t provide an adequate documentation application, there are additional options. Documentation is essential for both filling out a ticket effectively as well as providing valuable notes for future service.

A documentation tool doesn’t have to be complex or specifically geared towards IT documentation. Tools like MarkdownPad, Dropbox Paper, and SimpleMDE allow you to take notes and store them on the cloud. Anyone on your tech team can easily access them, and it can facilitate smoother customer service.

Email Systems

An inbox that’s specifically geared towards your team is essential for a smoothly functioning help desk. A regular email account would be inefficient, as a single person would have to answer and assign each email request. Emails would get lost, help desk tickets would be slowed considerably, and this system is highly susceptible to security breaches.

A team inbox with a tool like Groove is much more effective. With this plugin, all emails will be delivered to one place, and help desk tickets can be assigned equally to each employee. You can customize the program so that it sends emails during certain times or stops sending emails to certain people while they’re on vacation.

Knowledge Bases and Forums

A knowledge base where customers can find their own answers will solve a lot of frustration. Using the information gathering during documentation of help desk tickets, you can answer frequently asked questions on forums, videos, and blog posts before your customers ask them.

Some of the most popular questions include pricing, services, features, frequent problems, and contact information. Include a useful search bar to help customers find what they’re looking for before they contact you via other means. Then, fill your knowledge base with useful tips, videos, images, and content to meet their needs.

Ticketing Services

Ticketing systems act as an all-in-one software system for service tickets. It makes handling help desk requests infinitely simpler while simultaneously raising customer satisfaction. You can allocate help desk tickets, document processes, track time, take notes for follow up, and make the entire process more efficient.

As you work to incorporate different IT tools into your help desk, you’ll see improved customer retention, a better brand image, saved money, better support, more satisfied customers, and a happier IT staff.

Read more about improving your customer service at TechCo

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Written by:
Anna is a freelance writer, researcher, and business consultant from Olympia, WA. A columnist for Entrepreneur.com, iMediaConnection.com and more, Anna specializes in entrepreneurship, technology, and social media trends. When she isn't writing, she's outside on her bike and contemplating her eventual trip to graduate school. Follow her on Twitter and LinkedIn.
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