The Service desk: A complete experience
If there's one thing we all have in common, regardless of what job we all have, it's the fact that we've all, at least once in our life, contacted a certain service desk. Whether this is a service desk within your own company, an Internet Service Provider or simply one that will assist you in installing household appliances, service desks all should share similar goals and ideologies. Having said that it's important to note that even though the above mentioned examples of service desks are all different in their core business they should serve the same primary goal; supporting a user.
Then the most logical follow-up after defining the primary service desk goal is the question: How do you achieve this goal? At this point it is crucial that you separate your service desk policies and your employees and analyze both of these. So, really, you can sub-divide the question on how to achieve the goal in two other questions which are:
- What are the core policies of the company you are working for?
- What are the key-elements of a good service desk employee?
Sure enough there are more than just these two questions to answer in order to properly define on how you can, effectively, support a user. Alas this article is not never ending so for the purpose of writing a short post we will only discuss the above two mentioned points. To read up some more information as to why a service desk is important for your company you can check out this link.
The core policies of a company:
In my experiences many service desks don't spend enough time familiarizing themselves with the company's core policies. This, however, is of extreme importance to a fully functional service desk. The idea tends to be that as long as the service desk offers the support that is expected of them they are delivering quality work. Yet, in reality, this is far from what is being delivered. In this example the service desk is not going the extra mile to deliver the extra quality a customer may expect.
When a service desk extends their knowledge to not only a particular application or subject within the company but the company as a whole an employee of the service desk may be able to give more information to customers calling. Even though this may not be essential to the service provided it is a bit of extra information that the customer will undoubtedly appreciate.
Key-elements of a good service desk employee:
After clearly defining your goals as a service desk you should establish what type of people may be ideal to work there. Needless to say that a person with a lack of communication skills and someone who's impolite may not be the best individual to have working at a service desk. To get a general idea of a few traits a person may want to have when working at a service desk you can click here. This doesn't mean that if a person doesn't have one of those skills that they are automatically not fit for service desk work but it is a sort of "best practice" that can be used for defining employees.
Service with a smile!
This may not come as a surprise to many but customers can, generally, hear by the tone of your voice whether you're having a good day or not. It is of extreme importance that the customer never doubts your ability and willingness to solve their issue(s). Try and leave all your personal problems outside of the work floor and always try and strive to give the customer a little bit of extra service. The definition of quality, after all, is meeting the customer's expectations. If you can overachieve and surpass the customer's expectations you are delivering an extra bit of service that all customers are anxious to receive.
