Thursday, August 20, 2020

Help Desk Automation Tool Minimizes Daily Administrative Tasks

 A help desk is a resource designed to provide customers or end users with information and assistance related to the products and services of a company or institution. The purpose of a help desk service is often to troubleshoot or provide guidance on products such as computers, electronics, food, clothing, and software. Businesses generally provide technical assistance to their customers through various channels, such as toll-free numbers, websites, instant messages, and email. There is also an internal help desk designed to assist employees.


Organizations use the IT ticketing system to document and track user service requests and incidents. Each ticket is assigned a category and severity so that IT administrators can prioritize requests in queues for investigation, action, escalation (if necessary), and final resolution. 

Traditionally, ticketing systems are just one way to organize requests. It is a front-end to a help system that has long relied on expert human experts to answer questions, implement services, and solve problems.

However, many of the problems with ticketing systems are tedious and mundane, and are quickly resolved using a simple and easily documented workflow. 

For example, if your company needs to recruit new employees, the steps to create credentials, assign application access, and schedule training can be time consuming. Businesses can derive more value from their help desk staff who research and solve more complex problems, such as those related to application performance.

Help desk automation enables IT teams to handle many day-to-day tasks, such as hiring employees and new requests for VM provisioning, through automated responses. New help desk tools set rules and enforce workflows to ensure that every request is fully and consistently addressed. 

Incident response and help desk automation tools increasingly bring together metrics like response time, resolution time, and customer satisfaction. Some also include a customer self-service wiki and documentation. The most advanced tools use artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze the causal relationships between problems and solutions.

Web Or Local? 5 Benefits Of Finding Remote Help Desk Software

 Whether you have 5 or 50 IT staff members, you know the benefits of help desk software. With the right platform, you can be more efficient and effective in answering questions, solving problems, and solving problems for both internal and external audiences.


Until now, it is obvious. However, if you choose to add a help desk service platform to your software portfolio or upgrade from an existing solution, the job is not yet complete. Now you must ensure that you can find the option that exactly suits your needs.

The decision involves many variables. You probably have a fixed budget and need a platform that optimizes the size of your business and even your industry. But don't forget an important component: Decide if you need to install the software on your own server or if you can use the web-based helpdesk software.

In almost all cases, it is better to use a remote platform. Let's take a closer look at why these five benefits of web-based help desk software are considered.

1) Remote Access For All Team Members.

Placing the help desk platform on your own server means, almost automatically, limiting access to only those servers on your network. In other words, unless you also plan to use a VPN extensively, you must choose to make your network publicly available or prevent someone from accessing your help desk management system from off-site computers.

Of course, that can be a problem. Today, almost half of the American workforce works remotely at least once a week. That number will only increase in the future. If your team is working in multiple locations or in your home, you still need access to the software to perform daily tasks.

That's what web-based help desk software can offer. Since it is not server-based, access is extended to team members on any network. This increased flexibility can be very helpful in expanding your equipment and increasing efficiency.

2) Grow Software Together

All business objectives are probably linked in some way to growth. You have a unique software problem when you search for a solution that works at a particular point in time, but it is not always future proof. But what happens if the number of tickets handled with the IT team increases?

Local solutions always have limitations in this area. Limited storage space and speed may not be an issue right now, but it will be important as the number of clients and the sheer volume of projects grows. You need a solution that grows with you and grows as you need it. This is exactly what most web-based software can offer.

3) Secure Server On Shared Host

Cybersecurity remains one of the biggest challenges in small business management. Almost half of SMEs suffer cyber attacks, lose millions of revenue, and often fail to recover from the impact. Whenever possible, you should ensure that your software solution does not increase potential security issues. This is especially true for help desk software, which tends to contain confidential customer information that cannot be compromised.

Local solutions open possible security holes in your system. Web-based solutions, on the other hand, are built on shared servers with strong firewalls that exceed the firepower of most small businesses. Strengthening your server reduces the risk of data loss or compromise, and maximizes security even when it is extended to new software systems.

4) Continuous Supplier Support

Don't underestimate the power of sellers who can truly be partners. In fact, we have a qualified and competent internal IT team. However, all software packages have unknown nuances. Who should I contact if something goes wrong, the system crashes, or the patch doesn't load?

On-premise often means buying the platform once and then buying it yourself. The reverse is true for web-based solutions that come with continuous support for all customers. We are available 24 hours a day to contact experts who can help you maximize your opportunities and minimize problems. After all, they are help desk experts. Is it strange that they know how to implement their help desk solution in the right way?

5) Automatic Software Updates As Needed

Finally, don't underestimate the benefits of using a modern platform. All help desk platforms receive general updates that improve stability and security, while adding new features. Your local solution is responsible for ensuring these updates. Web-based alternatives, on the other hand, handle that process automatically.

Of course, these software updates don't happen daily. It doesn't happen overnight either and may still require some participation on your part. Still, the benefits of being able to manage this process remotely are immeasurable. Also, as an added benefit of previous dynamic growth benefits, new product features added as part of the upgrade may better support a growing business over time.

10 Things To Check Before Starting Your Help Desk

 When a new help desk job begins, there are a few things you need to understand right away before the call begins. Previous experience can guarantee that the following points should be covered before You Start job at help desk service. This process is sometimes called "lining the ducks."

1: Get Comfortable

Is the work area configured correctly? Do your feet hit the floor? Does your knee hit you under the desk? In short, is your workstation right for you? Being comfortable means focusing on the subject of the caller, not lingering back pain.

2: Learn Registration System

Do you have the correct reference material on hand to fully explain the call recording system? In my experience, no two companies record calls in the same way or use the same set of priority criteria. Make sure the team leader shows you where to find everything.

3.Get The Correct Permissions

Do you have the required access rights? If you need to change your password, do you have the necessary privileges? Is the procedure clearly explained? I have been stuck in the past with people requesting password resets for retired workers. Just consulting with the team leader saved us from a shameful fake.

4: Know The Limits

What are your power limits? Is it permissible to block the abuser's account or should I refer to higher privileges? Be sure to read the relevant documentation of the IT usage policy so you can see what is allowed and what is not.

5: Determine The Objective Of The Work

What is the scope of your remittance? What are the requirements outside the scope of the help desk? If you are in charge of replacing the bulbs, make sure you have the required certifications. Here in England, a progressive nightmare of litigation culture has come and you must qualify for a bulb replacement at work.

6: Know The Policy

What is your company's policy on malicious calls? What warning should I give before ending the call? You may rarely receive a malicious call, but it is helpful to know what to do before it happens.

 7: Find Out About Breaks

When are breaks allowed? The help desk can be a stressful workplace and it may take a few minutes to clean your head. Of course, you won't leave when you get a phone call, but make sure you know your policies for taking eye breaks.

8: Know The Hierarchy Of The Company.

Is the company structure easy to understand? Is there a directory that fully describes where everyone fits in the organization? I remember receiving a call from the person I named. Then I asked him what department he worked for. In the next quiet, a colleague hastily scribbled a note to me.

9: Know Your Boss

Who can I contact and how can I contact them? Have you met your line manager? Or did you just speak to the team leader at the time of hiring? Before you begin, take the opportunity to chat with them, see how they are made, and most importantly, let us know a little about yourself.

10: Know What To Wear

What is the office dress code? There's only one thing worse than showing up in a T-shirt and jeans and tie. That's showing up in the office for suits and ties, shirts and jeans.

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

Help Desk Technician Career Outlook

 Help desk designers requires a deep understanding of computer hardware and software. Solid communication skills are also essential, as desk experts need to communicate effectively with technical and non-technical staff. The IT Help Desk desktop is ideal for solving educational and learning problems quickly with new skills. Patience, intellect, and willingness to help others are great in the role of technical support and technical support.

Many IT professionals start their careers as desk technicians because of their limited experience and training requirements. As they experience IT and new technologies, they discover that they are contributing and moving on to other IT jobs, such as network managers, information managers, or IT security experts. Other technicians remain at the help desk services and use their expertise as an administrator at the help desk.

Help desk skills and duties


Daily activities and technical skills required for IT looga include the following. Computer Technical Assistant:

  • Investigate computer problems and provide technical support.
  • Software problems, hardware, and network problems.
  • Training for end users designing and using new technology.
  • Restore and restore company files and data systems.
  • Install, try and update PC software and operating systems.
  • Clean and adjust computer equipment, such as buttons and printers.
  • Remote IT assistants provide technical or telephone support.
  • Natural remote computers often use software to help desktop computers take over end-user computers and to troubleshoot, diagnose, and solve complex problems.

Tuesday, August 18, 2020

Other Benefits Of Outsourcing Your Help Desk

 When it comes to technology issues in your business, nothing is worse than not being able to find someone or waiting hours for an answer. We understand that this cannot work when we repair the device for you or your employees, that's why, thanks to a remote or on-site service, we work according to your schedule so that your system or device is operational and maintain your productivity without delay or interruption.

Our support services provide IT support designed to improve the productivity of you and your employees, minimizing and solving IT errors and problems quickly and on time. With Tech Guru as a partner in your IT support service, you will benefit from a wide range of benefits, including:

Support for each device and platform: Mac®, PC, Windows and Android / iOS tablets / smartphones

Calls answered by IT specialists, not customer service technicians

24/7 live phone support, 365 days a year

Rapid, remote and / or on-site diagnosis and repair.

Based in Minnesota

Response time after the hour: 60 minutes.


We also work to maintain your productivity by connecting directly with your technology providers, in the event of a problem (copiers, applications and other connections), in order to speed up resolution, which makes it less of a concern. .

Benefits of Outsourcing Technical Support Services

As we mentioned before, when it comes to technology issues in your business, nothing is worse than not being able to contact someone or waiting hours for an answer, especially that your business depends more than ever on technology. Outsourcing your organization's technical support services can reduce your burden in several ways.

When it comes to discussing the help desk outsourcing companies  technical support service, this is usually discussed financially; However, the wide variety of benefits of choosing to outsource your technical support function goes far beyond financial reasons, especially for those with a small existing IT department. One of the main benefits of outsourcing your IT helpdesk is to free up time for your overworked employees, allowing them to spend valuable time on strategic operations and develop income-generating ideas, rather than hours of fire fighting. Additional benefits of outsourcing the technical support function include:

Reduced costs

Simplified management

Higher earnings

Improved response times

Technical and industrial knowledge

Since the potential impact of an outsourced technical support function is so great, it is imperative to define and select the objectives correctly for the success of a company.

To learn more about how our third-party IT support services can help your business achieve its business goals and increase productivity, call 612-235-4895 or contact us. Do you need help developing a technology plan to take your business to the next level? Discover our IT strategy planning and consulting services.

Monday, August 17, 2020

10 Ways A Helpdesk Can Help

 Help desk software helps companies solve technical problems faster and helps IT departments work more efficiently. how? Simply put, help desks organize information, streamline workflows, and eliminate many manual processes. A help desk service software (often a subset of service desk software) enables IT support specialists to manually record problems, examine unrelated emails to get to the root of the problem, and report the status of the problem. trouble. Eliminates the need to manually follow OR demand slips through the crack.

Help desk systems automate problem-solving workflows, centralize information, and use email alerts to keep everyone informed. Also, instead of having to track someone from technical support for help, employees simply send a ticket to the help desk team via email or a customizable web-based form. The help desk software receives the problem, records it, and automatically assigns it to the appropriate help desk technician. This makes the process more convenient for all parties involved.

The help desk service not only streamlines communication, but also keeps a detailed record of all issues submitted, making it easy to track updates and report on work done (useful for year-end reviews). ) As you can see, there are many ways that a helpdesk can make your life easier and make your business more productive. It's no wonder that using help desk software is considered one of the best IT practices that benefits almost every business. Here are 10 great ways help desk software can simplify your office and IT life.

10 Ways Help Desks Can Help You

Work More Efficiently

Office workers can easily submit problems and fix technical problems more quickly, improving productivity and reducing time for everyone. IT professionals can spend less time on unnecessary manual processes and more valuable time on more important tasks.

Smart Multitasking On The Go

The help desk system allows IT staff to more easily classify and prioritize problems and better order the problems they work on. For example, a technician may want to handle multiple similar problems and save time on a single trip from the server room.

One Place For All Your It Requests

Most help desk systems include a user portal that provides a single place for users to create tickets, view the status of open issues, and close tickets after resolution. You can also use the portal to pass important information (such as planned downtime) to your users and reduce unnecessary tickets.

Custom Made To Measure

At the basic level, help desk tickets include a title and description for each issue. For more detailed information and better categorization, companies can create custom fields like apartment, building location, number of floors, or peanut butter preference and report on that data.

 

Analyze It Trends And Improve Overall Workflow

The help desk helps track metrics such as average time spent solving tickets so that IT managers can run detailed reports to spot trends. For example, if you find that a particular technology is very good at a particular task, you can provide all relevant tickets for maximum efficiency.

Prioritize Important Tasks

Different inputs guarantee different responses depending on their severity. Replacing an old mouse by a single person is much less important than repairing a damaged server that affects the entire company. The help desk system makes it easy for technicians to prioritize and sort tickets so they can quickly tackle high-value tickets and reduce the chance of cracking.

Automatic Assignment Of Help Desk Tickets

The best help desk software can automatically analyze tickets and assign problems according to specific criteria. For example, you can send all hardware problems to Steve and all software problems to Bob. Alternatively, you can assign all Accounting or Marketing tickets to Sally and all tickets containing the word "password" to Mary.

Set Expectations On Time

Setting up, tracking, and propagating changes by the problem deadline is easy with the help desk. This helps both the IT professional who addresses the problem and the employee who submitted it. Deadlines can be assigned automatically or manually, and help desk technicians can classify tickets based on when the project should be completed.

Don't Reinvent The Wheels

Some technical problems recur regularly. The help desk system allows you to record relevant notes on tickets and upload files necessary to solve problems. Anyone on the IT technical support team can search old tickets to find help for similar issues.

Show Your Value

Help desk reports allow you to easily run reports to see how many tickets you or your entire IT department have closed in the past week, month, four months, or year. . These reports help identify problem areas in technology and show the value that IT professionals can bring to the business.

What Is The Help Desk Ticket System? It Is Important?

 Organizations are working hard to maintain revenue. It has fostered a customer-centric culture since organizations began to understand the content and methods of the customer experience. Simply put, customer focus means putting the customer at the center of your actions. Still, Gartner declares that customer experience is a new battleground. Recognizing the need to improve customer service and satisfaction is not enough. Organizations must take the appropriate steps to achieve the goal of satisfying their customers. One of the most important ways to do this is with the help desk service ticket system.

What Is Help Desk Software?

It is known by many names, such as help desk, customer service desk, service desk software. However, by definition, the help desk support system enables companies to solve customer problems efficiently by simply automating the complaint resolution process with ticket management. The boundaries between help desk management systems and IT service management can be blurred. However, while the help desk focuses primarily on managing customer concerns, IT service management also addresses the needs of internal functions.

Now that we have seen what help desk software is, let's take a look at why it is important for organizations to buy efficient help desk software solutions.

Importance of the help desk management system

Help desk software solutions have three benefits for customers, agents, and businesses.

# 1 Customer Satisfaction

Quick ticket resolution: Customers don't care what happens in your organization. They are only concerned with their own concerns. Therefore, a help desk solution enables agents to resolve tickets faster. Agents can also access the FAQ repository to quickly answer customer questions and improve satisfaction.

Know your clients: clients want to know what happens to their queries. Help desk software makes it easy to send regular updates on the status of customer requests. Clients are kept in a loop not only when the ticket is resolved, but also throughout the life cycle of the ticket.

Multi-channel customer service: Customers want to communicate with their support team through their favorite channels. The omnichannel ticket management system makes this possible. Customers are free to file complaints in any medium, including voice, email, and social media. HMS allows agents to create tickets regardless of the channel that reaches the CRM.

# 2 Agent Productivity

Automatic ticket creation: creating tickets takes most of the time to agents. However, this can be avoided. Especially for mediocre inquiries. Agents do not have to create tickets manually, tickets are created every time a customer contacts the same or a different problem. Therefore, agents can focus on solving the problem at hand and not waste time creating a new ticket every time.

Integrated Agent Interface - Save time and improve agent efficiency by saving the necessary "clicks" for agents to retrieve customer information and perform tasks. The built-in desktop allows agents to view customer details (personal information, interaction history, etc.) in one view.

Knowledge Base - Create a repository or knowledge base that helps agents answer queries from exceptional customers, as well as being mediocre. In the case of an exceptional query, the resolving agent can record and save their focus so that others can refer to it in similar situations.

# 3 Business Benefits

Monitoring and reporting: Allow supervisors to monitor contact center functionality with real-time dashboards and detailed reporting. Real-time data helps supervisors make informed decisions about resource allocation, ensuring agent satisfaction and operational efficiency.

Service level agreements (SLAs): SLA monitoring ensures that SLAs are not violated. With help desk management software, managers can set SLAs and level up when they have a high priority.

Ticket Prioritization - Supervisors can set rules to prioritize specific tickets or allow agents to prioritize. 

Why Your Organization Needs Integrated Outsource Help Desk Software

A wide range of IT operations within an organization can address a wide range of activities and processes, such as ticketing, endpoint manag...