By Ruby Bayan
If you've decided to set up a help desk from the ground up in your organization, your major challenge would be how to start off on the right foot.
A well-defined mission, explicit budget allocations, and quantified service targets will serve as your blueprint, but as they say, the devil is in the details. One of the first areas of concern you'll want to closely scrutinize is the physical aspect of your help desk center—the technologies that your crew and your customers will rely on, and the physical layout that your service levels could hinge on.
Here are some tips we gathered from help desk and contact center experts.
Weigh pros and cons of packaged vs. custom technologies
The size of your help desk and the type of service you provide should give you a hint on what type of technologies will be ideal for your scenario. A call-tracking software package, like HEAT Service and Support, would be the basic canned application to implement. If you expect considerable expansion of your customer base or of the types of products you support in the future, however, you may want to look at full-scale call center applications like an automatic call distributor (ACD).
According to Sarsi R. Pablo, Voice Services Manager at Globalreach eBusiness Networks, Inc., 'Call center applications will be useful as a company expands its services, while saving on operational costs.' But whether a company prefers packaged technologies or custom applications, the major consideration should be the benefits to the users. 'Implement applications that will complement, and not complicate, your daily operations,' she advised.
Jim Puchbauer, director of marketing at AltiGen, defined his first rule of custom applications: 'Customized implementations take at least twice as long to implement as packaged applications and can cost three times as much as originally planned—and that's conservative.'
Puchbauer, whose company provides small and mid-size businesses with VoIP (Internet telephony) technology, added, 'Packaged applications can produce ROI within 12 months... and that's vital, according to our customers.' If you are looking at custom applications, your ROI timeline can expand to two to three years, he said. So, the question you need to ask yourself is this: What's your tolerance for when payback must begin?
Ensure efficiency with ergonomic environments
Another major consideration in creating an effective help desk is ergonomics. Job efficiency is largely influenced by the workplace, and this would be most apparent in your help desk center, especially if your crew's core function is troubleshooting—emphasis on 'trouble.'
It may be sufficient to line up your help desk reps in neat rows of cubicles, but sometimes creative floor plans can spell the difference between a helpful and a helpless contact center.
Consider these ergo-tips when designing your help desk layout:
Teamwork
'I preferred a kind of bullpen area,' said Ray Zorz, network administrator for United Cerebral Palsy of Central Arizona, who was tasked at a previous job to design and manage a corporate help desk. 'I thought it was important for my reps to hear each other and easily ask for or offer help. ' With the various levels of expertise in the team, mentoring is a good thing, he said. 'Keep your eye on the goal, which is to close the call quickly and satisfactorily.'
Proximity
Too much or too little space between support personnel could tip the scale between good and bad service. 'If the work area is crowded and a rep can hardly hear the customer because he's disturbed by the other reps' conversations, this is a disaster waiting to happen,' said Pablo.
Harmony
Pablo underscored the importance of an overall sense of harmony in the workplace—blended, muted, non-primary colors for the surroundings, open floors with movable partitions that can quickly be rearranged to adapt to the size and workflow of the help desk center, and sufficient, bright lights. 'Stress is the leading cause of problems in call handling and staff turnover,' she said. Layout and ergonomics affect the mood of the reps—and stressed reps tend to be grouchy and end up looking for other jobs.
Workflow
'I've set up our workstations with a desk in front and a workbench behind,' according to a help desk manager who requested to be referred to simply as Justin. 'This gives us room to troubleshoot and repair errant computers. We have a small KVM switch, and an Ethernet switch on each workbench, so we can work on multiple machines at one time. I also keep spare mice, laptop CD-ROMs, power supplies, and docking stations close at hand.'
Tools
'We use headsets from Hello Direct that include mute buttons and a volume control,' said Justin. 'This allows me to move about, use both hands, and crank up the volume for those quiet talkers out there (or turn it down when they start ranting!). I've been drooling over the wireless models that would allow me to move back and forth between server room and desk!' Zorz agreed that some reps work better if allowed a little movement.
Zorz emphasized that an effective and successful help desk workplace needs to be pleasant and comfortable. 'Unfortunately, all too often the help desk is considered an expense, and is often relegated to second-class status. They need great working conditions, because this job is tough. It's often a thankless, immobile job with unhappy people on the other end of the phone. If the job requires workspace, then give it to them. If it's a lot of phone time, then give them the best headphones. And, by all means, give them great chairs.'
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If you've decided to set up a help desk from the ground up in your organization, your major challenge would be how to start off on the right foot.
A well-defined mission, explicit budget allocations, and quantified service targets will serve as your blueprint, but as they say, the devil is in the details. One of the first areas of concern you'll want to closely scrutinize is the physical aspect of your help desk center—the technologies that your crew and your customers will rely on, and the physical layout that your service levels could hinge on.
Here are some tips we gathered from help desk and contact center experts.
Weigh pros and cons of packaged vs. custom technologies
The size of your help desk and the type of service you provide should give you a hint on what type of technologies will be ideal for your scenario. A call-tracking software package, like HEAT Service and Support, would be the basic canned application to implement. If you expect considerable expansion of your customer base or of the types of products you support in the future, however, you may want to look at full-scale call center applications like an automatic call distributor (ACD).
According to Sarsi R. Pablo, Voice Services Manager at Globalreach eBusiness Networks, Inc., 'Call center applications will be useful as a company expands its services, while saving on operational costs.' But whether a company prefers packaged technologies or custom applications, the major consideration should be the benefits to the users. 'Implement applications that will complement, and not complicate, your daily operations,' she advised.
Jim Puchbauer, director of marketing at AltiGen, defined his first rule of custom applications: 'Customized implementations take at least twice as long to implement as packaged applications and can cost three times as much as originally planned—and that's conservative.'
Puchbauer, whose company provides small and mid-size businesses with VoIP (Internet telephony) technology, added, 'Packaged applications can produce ROI within 12 months... and that's vital, according to our customers.' If you are looking at custom applications, your ROI timeline can expand to two to three years, he said. So, the question you need to ask yourself is this: What's your tolerance for when payback must begin?
Ensure efficiency with ergonomic environments
Another major consideration in creating an effective help desk is ergonomics. Job efficiency is largely influenced by the workplace, and this would be most apparent in your help desk center, especially if your crew's core function is troubleshooting—emphasis on 'trouble.'
It may be sufficient to line up your help desk reps in neat rows of cubicles, but sometimes creative floor plans can spell the difference between a helpful and a helpless contact center.
Consider these ergo-tips when designing your help desk layout:
Teamwork
'I preferred a kind of bullpen area,' said Ray Zorz, network administrator for United Cerebral Palsy of Central Arizona, who was tasked at a previous job to design and manage a corporate help desk. 'I thought it was important for my reps to hear each other and easily ask for or offer help. ' With the various levels of expertise in the team, mentoring is a good thing, he said. 'Keep your eye on the goal, which is to close the call quickly and satisfactorily.'
Proximity
Too much or too little space between support personnel could tip the scale between good and bad service. 'If the work area is crowded and a rep can hardly hear the customer because he's disturbed by the other reps' conversations, this is a disaster waiting to happen,' said Pablo.
Harmony
Pablo underscored the importance of an overall sense of harmony in the workplace—blended, muted, non-primary colors for the surroundings, open floors with movable partitions that can quickly be rearranged to adapt to the size and workflow of the help desk center, and sufficient, bright lights. 'Stress is the leading cause of problems in call handling and staff turnover,' she said. Layout and ergonomics affect the mood of the reps—and stressed reps tend to be grouchy and end up looking for other jobs.
Workflow
'I've set up our workstations with a desk in front and a workbench behind,' according to a help desk manager who requested to be referred to simply as Justin. 'This gives us room to troubleshoot and repair errant computers. We have a small KVM switch, and an Ethernet switch on each workbench, so we can work on multiple machines at one time. I also keep spare mice, laptop CD-ROMs, power supplies, and docking stations close at hand.'
Tools
'We use headsets from Hello Direct that include mute buttons and a volume control,' said Justin. 'This allows me to move about, use both hands, and crank up the volume for those quiet talkers out there (or turn it down when they start ranting!). I've been drooling over the wireless models that would allow me to move back and forth between server room and desk!' Zorz agreed that some reps work better if allowed a little movement.
Zorz emphasized that an effective and successful help desk workplace needs to be pleasant and comfortable. 'Unfortunately, all too often the help desk is considered an expense, and is often relegated to second-class status. They need great working conditions, because this job is tough. It's often a thankless, immobile job with unhappy people on the other end of the phone. If the job requires workspace, then give it to them. If it's a lot of phone time, then give them the best headphones. And, by all means, give them great chairs.'
1) How important is customer service for you?
The whole business depends on the customer service, and if you are at the help desk you are holding an important position to help the customer in best possible way.
2) Do you really think that company or organization really needs a helpdesk?
The key to run company effectively is that the resources are available and operational all the time, especially if it is an IT company. Helpdesk is necessary as it makes sure that resources are available for customer and also operational reasons.
3) How important IT skills are in help desk service and how you keep yourself updated with those skills?
To process your work quickly computer skills are very important these days. Computers not only make your work easy but also save your time and energy. I use internet, online books and other educational resource to upgrade my IT skills.
4) How you deal with the frustrated customer?
The first thing a help desk person must do is to try understanding the customer, also try to avoid the conflicts or any such things that disturbs the customer. Then you can confront with each other and try to solve the problem.
5) What are the three abilities of an ideal help desk person?
- Ability to listen others
- Ability to present your thoughts clearly
- To be patient especially in a tense situation
Help Desk
6) What motivates you for the help desk assistant job?
I like to communicate with people. Help desk assistant job is a type of job where you continuously interact with people and help them to solve their problems.
7) Imagine if there is a customer who does not understand your language then how will you help him/her?
I personally think that to help someone, language should not be barrier. Anyhow if you cannot help him out then the best thing would be to make him understand with the sign language (obviously when seeing the customer physically). Over a call, you can use google translate or similar tools to communicate with customer.
8) What is your worst experience so far as a help desk assistant?
Try to give answer where you had a minimum conflict or misunderstanding with the customer, and then explain how you had solved the problem.
9) Are you flexible with the weekend’s job?
As far as I get another day off in place of weekend, I don’t have any problem in doing weekend Job.
10) How do you respond when you do not know the answer?
When you do not know the answer, tell the customer straightway that you don’t know the answer instead of hitting around the bush. And ask them to wait till further assistance provided by your colleague or supervisor.
11) What is the best thing you like about your job?
When you bring smile on tense face of your customer by helping them and by solving their problems, it is the best thing that I enjoy during job. So, customer satisfaction is the best thing that I like most in my job.
12) How would you rate your problem solving skills?
This is a common question asked for help desk jobs, so again it is a personal question, and you can rate yourself on number 1 to 10 / 10.
13) How you face the criticism?
Answer to this question will judge your level of patience, they want to check how positively you can take your criticism and how you deal with them without losing your temper.
14) How good are you at solving problem on phone?
Solving problem face to face is different than handling them on phone. To convince your interviewer that you have an ability to solve the problem you can put an example of any previous incident where you have solved the customer problem on phone easily.
15) Are you a team-player?
This question is generally asked to check whether candidate is capable of working under different circumstances and with different people. As help desk associate has to constantly deal with different people of different departments, and to work with them smoothly and efficiently teamwork is very important.
16) How you deal with a customer who is on the phone and refuses to calm down?
Such situation is very common in a helpdesk job. This question is again put in-front of you to check your ability how you face the stressful situation.
17) Tell me one thing that you don’t like about your job?
Give your answer in brief and avoid telling something that related to customer service. If you want to say something that you don’t like than you can mention that long queue of customers waiting for their turn is something you don’t like.
18) How you will organize your work schedule?
Based on the priority, I will schedule my work and assignment accordingly.
19) In a situation where caller did not understand what you are explaining, what you would do?
First I will repeat the question and try listen to the customer and if the customer is annoyed and is not ready to listen what you are saying, the best thing is to transfer the call to supervisor or another assistant.
20) Please tell me some of the task that you had performed in your previous company?
Explain him about your job responsibility in previous job citing few examples of customer handling and solving their problems.
21) If the customer is not satisfied with your service do you analyze your mistake or just move on to another customer?
Help desk associate responsibility is to give a satisfactory solution to their customer, and if the customer’s problem is not solved then a follow up needs to be taken till the
problem is not solved.
22) What is the difference between helpdesk and service desk?
A helpdesk ensures that the customer’s problems are resolved in a timely fashion. The service desk is a single point of contact between customer and company, where all the information regarding the company’s service are delivered.
23) What experience do you have as a help-desk associate?
Speak about the experience that is related to your position, tell them what are the responsibilities that were involved and also explain what additional thing you were doing like managing call or using any software. If you don’t have experience, you don’t have to worry, you can tell them you are a fresher.
24) What are the new help desk techniques you think would be helpful to improve the service?
IT and computer knowledge would be an additional assets for an helpdesk associate, and evencompany can take a help of computer software to minimize the workload and to communicate with the customer effectively.
25) What is the recent skill you have learned that can be helpful for help desk position?
If you have done anything then you can mention to the interviewer like attending a seminar on mass communication, or any computer course. But it is still ok if you haven’t done related to position.