As customers, clients and colleagues with technical problems increasingly expect to get the answers they need in the way that suits them best, the question has to be asked — have expectations around IT support changed?
Social media, multi-channel engagement and interactive services are all playing more important roles in communications and it can seem like the traditional helpdesk and the desk-side support person are being replaced by online assistants, web chat windows or even Twitter exchanges. Could the end of the helpdesk be nigh?
Not according to those in the support sector, although one thing they do agree on — the nature of how support is delivered needs to evolve.
What we are finding is that the simple questions are easily dealt with by self-service via social media and the Web, but when it comes to the more complex ones then the helpdesk is ideally placed to deliver the answer quickly, Eileen Fitzgerald, Ergo
Service or support
“Firstly there is a difference between a service desk and a helpdesk. Consumer-based products serviced from a service desk are a completely different story to IT services supported from a helpdesk,” said Eileen Fitzgerald, head of service design and transition for Ergo.
“With a service desk, you are frequently asked questions on particular product lines and you need a broad but relatively shallow level of expertise to answer them. However with an IT helpdesk you have two distinct requirements to fulfil. The first is a channel of communication with your customers but the second is a requirement for service fulfilment.”
“Some of that service fulfilment can be done via social media, through Twitter and Facebook and so on but there is also a lot more self-help functionality out there for end users than there used to be. A lot of simple questions can be easily answered through a simple Google query or even by auto-bots giving automatic responses to questions like ‘how do I do this’ or ‘how do I do that?’,” she said.
Automation
As automated technologies become more accepted, some of the work load is coming off helpdesks. Most people will attempt to self-solve their IT problems through search engines and YouTube clips before they will reach out for specialist help.
“However, in terms of IT service delivery and how IT is aligned with the business, every single business uses technology differently to meet its business requirements,” said Fitzgerald. “So what we are finding is that the simple questions are easily dealt with by self-service via social media and the Web but when it comes to the more complex ones, then the helpdesk is ideally placed to deliver the answer quickly,” she said.
“An engineer can add more value and be technically trained in the area and cut straight to the chase.”
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