What makes a good Help Desk employee?

kbowen0188

For all of you who have worked with Help Desk, on Help Desk, or received assistance from a Help Desk employee... has there ever been anything in particular that stood out to you about a particular person, or a particular way that something was handled?

bugzy3188

Tenacity is really what sets the good HD technicians apart from the others IMO, a willingness to venture in to areas that one is not necessarily comfortable with. This is not to suggest that it is good to just blindly charge in to a situation you know nothing about and start making changes, but to me the willingness to learn and become effective is the biggest factor. I have been faced with many unfamiliar situations in my career thus far, especially working for a MSP that handled schools, machine shops, printing companies...etc. I have had times where I didnt even know where to start with a support ticket, an average HD technician would likely try to just hand the ticket off in this situation (in some jobs you may be required to) but a good tech will start asking the right questions, gather information, and at very least be able to provide the higher level technicians with as many details as possible when the ticket gets handed off.

The number 2 most important factor would be communication and setting expectation. Your first instinct when talking to a frustrated user will be to try to make them happy, often times this is done by making false promises of a time of resolution. Be honest and up front with users, if you dont know what the issue is then let them know that more time will be needed to ascertain the situation. Always overestimate your time of resolution by at least 30 minutes and if it takes longer than you told them, give them an update on the situation.

My 2 pennies

bub9001

A good Help Desk employee, needs to have Strong communication skills and a solid understanding of Software and Hardware (hence A+ for most help desk positions). Also he or she would need that drive to learn new things or willingness to step out of their comfort zone.

I do not list troubleshooting skills because the main part of the A+ is the troubleshooting process. If you take learned troubleshooting skills with learning new things, then that is a recipe for success.

Pupil

Interpersonal skills, a lot of patience and empathy.

dsqueo1309

I say working the help desk the best thing you need to have right away is a positive attitude and a good sense of humor. End users are usually people who don't embrace technology very well and will rarely be someone from IT so having a positive attitude and a good sense of humor puts them at ease and doesn't intimidate the person your talking to.

The best thing to also do is to learn as you work. Look at previous tickets you may have handed off to someone else and see if they were able to resolve the issue with the tools that you may have, this is a A+ topic - Documentation so that the next person can follow the steps the next time the end user has an issue.

I have my A+ and pursuing others but i feel besides having an A+ which should really give anyone a strong foundation in Tech Support/Help Desk/Desktop Support, the most important part is to have People Skills-Customer Service skills and try to have fun with it.

N2IT

A couple of items come to mind. Customer service, ability to keep cool, patience, following directions, documentation, adhering to the SLA's. Notice I didn't mention technical ability. While it is critical to have this component if you want to move up in technical roles, I have seen technically challenged folks go way up into companies in other roles following the attributes I listed. One gal went from help desk to senior manager in 5 years. That's nearly a promotion every year. She struggled with basic items.

Tremie24

I have been in helpdesk for almost a year, even though my job is more deskside/desktop. Patients, customer service, documentation, prioritizing your work, multitasking, and then the tech stuff.

edgar2387

Patients, acts very quick, remember, Help Desk is the front line in IT, the first to be notified, and last but not least, a great personality, end users dont give a squat how you fix it, just fix it, and they will love you for it, show sympathy, and always show that you are on top of their request, even when you know replacing a keyboard for a wireless one is not a priority, Ive seen to many of my fellow colleagues rub users the wrong way when they start talking IT lingo to them, leave the lingo among IT, and with users, keep it professional yet be open, dont just speak to them when they have an issue,

take the time to greet, say hello, how was your weekend, did you watch the game, man the game came down to the wire, who in the hell doesnt like sports? One thing I do miss for when I was a tech was all the bribes!! , All the doughnuts, the breakfast, the lunches, the sweets, invites to spreads, again, that all comes with being kind and courteous, no one likes a rude a grumpy IT guy