Improving the Image of Service Desk

  1. Identify the problem.
    1. Have you received an alarming rate of negative feedback regarding your IT phone support or are they coming from a few who are challenging to please?
    2. Are there metrics that provide accurate data identifying the problem?
      1. Breached SLAs
      2. Customer service Surveys
      3. MTTR times.
  2. Set expectations.
    1. The Service Desk team should be fully aware of the goals IT department is targeting and how to realistically achieve those goals.
    2. If goals are too difficult to achieve, elicit feedback and set goals based on your team’s ability.
  3. Identify motivational challenges.
    1. If you have members on the team that have negative attitudes, figure out what they are looking for in order to motivate them. Once an employee loses motivations, it is very difficult and costly to motivate them again.
  4. Get rid of Negative/Pessimistic employees.
    1. I understand this sounds harsh, but if you don’t cut out the problem, it will continue to grow. One of the benefits of outsourcing, you don’t have to go through HR if you are not pleased with someone’s work standards. Complaints from one agent can become contagious, and detrimental to the rest of the team. Get rid of it!
  5. Develop positive environment.
    1. Genuine positive attitude, team pride can also be contagious and yield amazing results. To develop these, pay what people are worth, respect their personal time, give gifts of appreciation and allow opportunities to learn and grow in the roles.
  6. Consider a call script.
    1. Doesn’t have to be word by word (although it’s the safest approach), just make sure the agents are stating all the important accounts.
  7. Call monitoring.
    1. Absolutely must that supervisors should listen to calls periodically. Let the team know this is done to cretic and help the team become experts, not to monitor and punish..
  8. Support your team.
    1. From user complaints to Tier 3 condemning the Service Desk, your team gets the worst of IT. Show a little love. Take their sides and if you have to correct them, do it in a way you would want others to correct you.
  9. Follow-up with angry users.
    1. Supervisors should contact the users and the agent in order to better understand what occurred.
    2. Provide training opportunities to the agents and education to the user in a friendly, subtle way.