How Important Is Help Desk Support for IT Infrastructure?

For IT professionals and the users they serve, the doctrine to “do more with less” has been a guiding principle since the era of computers began. But the returns that this approach offers businesses are quickly diminishing.

Now, the most successful organizations are often those that equip their teams according to a very different idea: “do more with more”. But there is a time and place for every investment, and organizations are keen on spending on products and services that boost the bottom line.

When it comes to IT support, tech-oriented executives quickly see the value of having a robust help desk system in place. But in some organizations, help desk support occupies a less central role because leadership does not consider it to be a profit-generating vehicle.

But even though help desk support does not directly generate profits, it plays a critical role in nearly all of the processes that do. Fast, efficient, and effective IT support ensures that every other aspect of the business runs smoothly, boosting revenues by improving efficiency across the board.

How Help Desk Support Reduces the Cost of IT Infrastructure

While there are many advantages of an IT help desk, the most important is its ability to reduce the cost of completing business processes. Decreasing the amount of time that agents spend resolving problems increases their capacity to generate value.

It is virtually guaranteed that employees and customers will have issues with products and services offered by an organization, no matter how careful it is. Optimal help desk support can become an important source of value and cost efficiency for an organization that knows how to treat it as an asset, instead of a cost.

A well-organized help desk service helps employees complete their tasks with greater efficiency and helps highlight issues that may be obstacles for the entire team. Many organizations ignore the preventative responsibilities that a high-quality help desk support offers.

When IT help desk support teams put their resources to work on resolving organization-wide problems, operational costs decrease for everyone on the team. This can result in a more optimal allocation of resources to value-generating teams and processes, and even reduce the amount of resources needed without negatively impacting the organization at all.

Optimize Help Desk Satisfaction Metrics

In order to reduce overall organizational inefficiency, help desk teams need to be an intrinsic element of nearly every aspect of the company’s daily processes. Only at that point can the company truly leverage the benefits of an IT help desk to meet its core objectives in a most cost-effective way.

The best way to achieve this is by optimizing the help desk experience using key performance metrics. Some of these metrics are more important than others. The most critical ones follow:

• Availability. Unavailable help desk staff drastically reduce the potential of the help desk experience to generate value. The only way to ensure that help desk support is always available is by leveraging scalable teams that can grow or shrink based on the needs of the organization in question. This way users can receive support even during peak periods.
• Promptness of Service. Once a user opens up a support ticket, the help desk staff must be able to promptly resolve the issue. This can be particularly challenging when the issue requires physical on-site action, such as printer or copier repairs. Prompt service reduces downtime and improves efficiency.
• Expertise. Users will not trust a help desk service that doesn’t demonstrate considerable expertise in its field. It’s not feasible for every support technician to know everything, but every technician must be able to guarantee that an incoming call makes it to the appropriate expert when needed.
• First Contact Resolution Rate. If there is one metric that executives need to keep an eye on, it is the ratio of first-time resolutions to extended service tickets. High-quality help desk support needs to be able to resolve user issues the first time around in order to generate value for the rest of the company.

Improve the Return of Help Desk Support

Businesses that entrust help desk support to professional service vendors are able to minimize the amount of downtime they experience. A great help desk experience goes beyond simply solving user problems – it includes establishing a comprehensive knowledge base and keeping an entire organization on the same page when it comes to its IT infrastructure.

This approach gives organizations the support they need to solve technical issues quickly and efficiently while remaining responsive to their users’ needs. Proactive user support ensures that preventative maintenance takes place on time and that performance metrics remain favorable to the industry standard.

Employee support helps everyone in the company complete work with greater efficiency and accuracy. Speak with one of our knowledgeable specialists about how to implement a help desk solution for your organization!