On the other end of the phone call.

So like many of us here we've all worked help desk. I've worked help desk for 5 years. I'm now working outside of help desk for the first time doing contract work and today I got to call the help desk line.

Problem: Lotus Notes was missing an ID file of some sort, couldn't get my e-mail or anything.

The help desk for the company I'm doing work for is outsourced to India. I now hate outsourced help desks even more after today's adventure. It took 5 hours for them to fix my issue. The first call the girl couldn't create the file someone else had to do it.

The second person couldn't find the file and realized he had to make it or something he said he'd call me back with in half an hour. Surprise no call I waited an hour and half went to lunch got other work done.

Finally I call back the guy went home and never passed the ticket off and just left it blowing in the wind so someone else had to pick it up and what not. Finally the thrid person spent 2 hours on my computer remoted in getting Lotus setup for me.

I found myself on the other end of the line for as long as I've been in a professional career I was the one giving the help and for the first time today I was the one having to stop was i was doing for the help desk.

It was rather weird and puts many things in perspective I've always worked hard and tried to do things quickly but sometimes you need to take 2 hours or more or days to get a fix.

Finally I don't understand why companies put up with this sub par performance I mean is the cost savings really that great? I know if I pulled the same crap I'd have a lot of explaining to do if not more.

Has anyone else found themselves in a similar situation?

As far as getting out of help desk. It is nice I get to focus on something new and get to Broaden my horizons in IT.

Thanks.

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Comments

Claymoore

wweboy wrote: »

Finally I don't understand why companies put up with this sub par performance I mean is the cost savings really that great? I know if I pulled the same crap I'd have a lot of explaining to do if not more.

Has anyone else found themselves in a similar situation?

Thanks.

Yeah, I don't really understand why companies use Lotus Notes either.

alan2308

This sounds about like every time I have to call Comcast.

Someone had to say it.

wd40

I work in second line support, in many cases we have to call First line support "which is outsourced to India" for password resets "including Lotus Notes", or to raise tickets to Third line support!.

And every one Hates it!, it is cheaper they say, but as you said, a fix that could have been done in 5 minutes takes half an hour.

++

Why would lotus Notes setup take 2 Hours?

RobertKaucher

You're not high enough on the food chain to matter. The inconvenience of you not being able to get your email for a few hours is irrelevent to the bean counters who see a hard savings of several million dollars by out sourcing the help desk to people who will be happy to make $5.00/hr as opposed to $14.00/hr. You have to consider 200 people x 40 hours x $5 = $40,000. That's a cost savings of $72,000 a week. That scenario would save them $3,744,000 a year.

Paul Boz

RobertKaucher wrote: »

You're not high enough on the food chain to matter. The inconvenience of you not being able to get your email for a few hours is irrelevent to the bean counters who see a hard savings of several million dollars by out sourcing the help desk to people who will be happy to make $5.00/hr as opposed to $14.00/hr. You have to consider 200 people x 40 hours x $5 = $40,000. That's a cost savings of $72,000 a week. That scenario would save them $3,744,000 a year.

Who do you know that has a 200 person helpdesk? I've been to some of the largest financial institutions in the country and they never have more than 20-30 people in IT.

RobertKaucher

Paul Boz wrote: »

Who do you know that has a 200 person helpdesk? I've been to some of the largest financial institutions in the country and they never have more than 20-30 people in IT.

I worked briefly with a large financial company's help desk. We had about 35 people. We supported all the US and we were based in Ohio. But if you consider there were locations in Europe and Asia as well all working 3 shifts... 2nd shift was about 1/2 the size, 3rd shift was about 5 people.

Even if you half my number the point remains. These are HARD savings. John Doe not getting his email for 2 hours might be lost productivity, but it is a SOFT loss. If John Doe cannot find something else productive to do that does not require email for 2 hours, perhaps John is not productive enough.

I'm not saying I agree with this. Just pointing out the view of the financial types.

Devilsbane

First of all, let me say, I dislike Lotus Notes.

Second, I work help desk for a company that uses lotus notes. At the service desk, I am unable to fix a problem like the one you said. All I can do is open a ticket and send it off to another group. Then they have something like 8 hours (and I believe that is business hours, so 5:00 on a friday could mean you are waiting until around noon on monday) to contact you. Thats right, all they have to do is start the problem. They then have even longer to solve the problem. You could be potentially waiting for that password from 5:00 on friday until Tuesday or Wednesday. That is potentially because generally they are faster, and the fix is generally nearly instant. But you would still be waiting 2-3 hours.

I also hate having to call india, usually they have no clue what they are talking about and it is difficult to understand what they are saying. But just because you called a help desk in the US wouldn't necessarily get you your password any faster.

Currently the company I work for is in the process of taking back the help desk from another company located in Canada. The main reason is the sub par performance they were giving and my company was unable to increase it.

Sometimes it pays to outsource. Consider that some of these call centers in India pay $20 a day, while a person in the US would have to make at least $50 or so per day (minimum wage x

. Even if it takes India twice as long to fix your problem, it is still cheaper. But for that cheapness you are putting your employees are suffering.

Paul Boz

I'm always at a loss when I go to clients who outsource everything IT related, including basic support. I feel that having at least an infant form of internal IT is completely necessary for any business that operates within an office environment. I've been to quite a few places where they have to make a phone call for basic printer support. Computer systems and their peripherals are far too critical for most businesses to be without them for any significant amount of time. When we have any type of network connectivity issues in my office the entire office shuts down because no one can work. I could not imagine having a 10 minute problem turn into a 4 hour outage just because someone wasn't on staff to maintain the equipment. I think that anyone who's worked in business long enough understands how important uptime is. There is a reason why Cisco sells a "five nines" guarantee and most major servers support multiple redundant power supplies.

exampasser

When I called Microsoft support about a product key issue any doubt was removed if the support rep was from India when he said, "have you ever been to India?"

It's always fun trying to explain the most simple things such as regaining a use lost on the product key. That took almost an hour and a half for them to finally get it . . .