The help desk is a necessary evil for today’s enterprises. Do it poorly and end user screams can be heard all the way up to the executive suite. Do it well and most users reckon it’s just par for the course, that this kind of work is easy.
Plus, a help desk doesn’t have killer strategic value like when ERP, B2B integration or supply chain systems are done well. Even worse, help desks are labor intensive, which makes them costly and hard to manage.
Some commentators are touting help desk as a service as an answer (hopefully we won’t all be forced to call this HDaaS). BMC Software is one recent entrant with its MyIT service announced last fall. Count Kerry Evans of Quintica as a believer, as Evans recently penned a commentary extolling the virtues of the cloud approach to help.
Evan’s has first-hand knowledge of MyIT. Quintica is an information and communications service provider addressing the Pan-African region. It also happens to be a BMC partner focusing on service automation, service assurance and service desk.
“The speed at which technology devices are moving into the business is a cause for concern for the IT department. Not in the sense that these devices are unwanted, but rather through the highlighting of the need for IT to start providing the same levels of service and productivity they are now used to from having these devices with them,” Evans wrote. “If IT doesn't change the way it engages with users, these users will simply look for alternatives. IT services today need to embrace these disruptive technologies and get back in front of the game - retaking the lead they once had - by way of improved service offerings that delight customers with a customer experience tailored to them.”
MyIT does more than ease the pain of supporting company issued and approved devices. It can also simplify support as bring your own device (BYOD) continues to take over.
MyIT helps to meet these BYOD challenges, and going the services route could be the most cost effective, fastest and most compelling answer. “The MyIT portfolio from BMC is a perfect example of how IT can empower users in the world of social, mobile, analytics and cloud. The application can be installed across multiple devices and gives the user instant access to the full view of the IT department enabling them to engage with IT anytime, anywhere and on any device,” Evans argued.
MyIT is delivered in the form of a set of services than can be specific to each employee or an entire set of employees, including an apps store for mobile apps, a content locker and a set of IT services by way of BMC’s Remedy IT Service Management product.
A Little Advice
Forrester Research, whose research shows that a little more than a third of all IT departments are proud of their end user support, last year offered some help for troubled help desks.
Forrester analyst Stephen Mann says you should “never put the service desk before your customers” such as limiting help to just what is in the trouble ticket.
Service desk personnel should also listen, and try to fully understand the user’s situation.
Here are the final 10 straight from Mann:
- Respond to customer needs
- Anticipate needs
- Treat customers as human beings
- Help your customers understand life on the service desk
- Learn how to apologize
- Value your customer complaints
- Get regular feedback
- Provide regular communications to the business
- Ensure that you can support all employees
- Don’t treat your ‘customers’ like five-year-old children
Edited by
Brooke Neuman
