An organisation can develop and manage a successful help desk that will efficiently serve the needs of the organisation. In order to achieve this, the organisation must devise and implement the best strategies that will fully complement the activities of the organisation. The end users do not care about the constraints that the organisation might be going through, they only expect to get the quality services from the help desk.
Hiring and maintaining competent work force for help desk is one key strategy of an organisation for achieving successful help desks in its operation. Help desk operators with the appropriate set of skills will be efficient in carrying out their duties. It is necessary to hire personnel with the correct proficiencies and talent to ensure that the hired personnel have the requisite knowledge and expertise to fulfil their obligations. When introducing a product in the market, the helpdesk should have proper knowledge about the product. Personality should be one of the criteria for hiring help desk personnel since they are directly involved with the customers. They must have manners, logic and patience when dealing with end users of their services. A good example of personality traits can be selected from bank tellers, waiters or any individual who was involved in dealing with the public in the past jobs. Their skills must be evaluated in order to hire the best help desk.
Another strategy is to developing efficient ergonomic environments in the organisations. The help desk environment must be comfortable and pleasant for the employee to operate efficiently. To develop such environment, the organisation must invest in help desk tools, ensuring harmony amongst the work force and appropriate proximity between help desks. Investing in tools like the escalator will ensure that the customers do not have to wait for a long time while their problems are being solved by the helpdesk. Also investing in a website where they can follow up the progress of the help desk in solving their issues will reduce the number of follow-up calls. This will help the help desk in avoiding to deal repeatedly with similar issues from same customers. Having proper ergonomic and office layout affects the emotional and physical harmony of an individual. It will reduce the stress which is responsible for the high level of turnover in the help desk turnover.
Understanding the customer or the end user is another practice that facilitate the efficiency of the help desk. Carrying out satisfaction surveys on the customers will help the organisation determine whether the help desk is efficient in responding and solving customers’ needs. The organisation should be able to differentiate between the process and knowledge workers. Customers’ issues relating to complex products or services should be dealt by knowledge workers since they have high analytical skills. Redundant customer request requiring simple and straight forward answers should be resolved by process workers. A customer’s need like how to operate an electronic product sold by the organisation should be solved by a knowledge help desk. Correct matching of a customer’s need with the appropriate help desk ensures efficiency and customer satisfaction.
I have an experience with a help desk from a company which I had bought a vacuum cleaner and the assistance I got was superb. The help desk understood by request since he had good listening skills and patience. He also had the proper knowledge of the product since he provided proper advice on operating the Vacuum cleaner. I was satisfied by the service I got and would recommend that organisations invest in competent help desk.
Works Cited
Bayan, Ruby. "Try these Efficiency Strategies when Setting Up a Successful Help Desk." 6 January 2004. TechRepublic. 21 November 2013. <http://www.techrepublic.com/article/try-these-efficiency-strategies-when-setting-up-a-successful-help-desk/>.
