Does your helpdesk actually help?

We have a helpdesk at work that is starting to drive me nuts. It is as if they just want to make the ticket and never even try to come up with a solution and assign it up the tier system.

I had a ticket today where a user could not find their file. Did anyone think to look in the recycling bin? Of course not.

When I first started IT I had a helpdesk role, not technically desktop support because we never touched the computers, but we solved 90% of the issues.

Are most helpdesks like this? Create a ticket, reset a password and anything more send it to level 2?

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RobertKaucher

I know a few guys who work at a place like that. If you cannot resolve the issue within 3 minutes you need to tell them you are escelating the call to level 2 and get them off the phone. One was once repremanded for fixing an issue he was familiar with that, while not a complex issue, took about 4 minutes. It's all about sticking to the SLA, not helping people.

veritas_libertas

odysseyelite wrote: »

Are most helpdesks like this? Create a ticket, reset a password and anything more send it to level 2?

Hopefully not all of them. On the other hand, ours is just like you described. It's also outsourced, which makes it worse. We are global company so misrouted tickets is a very big problem. A ticket may need to be routed to the east coast, but instead ends up routed to the west coast. Not cool...

it_consultant

odysseyelite wrote: »

We have a helpdesk at work that is starting to drive me nuts. It is as if they just want to make the ticket and never even try to come up with a solution and assign it up the tier system.

I had a ticket today where a user could not find their file. Did anyone think to look in the recycling bin? Of course not.

When I first started IT I had a helpdesk role, not technically desktop support because we never touched the computers, but we solved 90% of the issues.

Are most helpdesks like this? Create a ticket, reset a password and anything more send it to level 2?

This really depends on the IT structure and SLA. It sounds like the level one people really aren't techs, it sounds like they are note-takers who are supposed to get the ticket to the right person. Well executed this system works pretty well. You can hire low payed employees to do a simple job (basically phone operator) instead of an automated phone system that people hate. I have gotten used to talking to "agents" or whatever and getting a phone call back from a tech in 2-4 hours.

odysseyelite

I don't think we have a strict SLA. I asked that when I first started and there is no real policy. SOmetimes you can have a simple install printer ticket for months at a time.

My last job was 5days or less SLA.

I was just under the impression the helpdesk is to atleast try to solve your issue. I just got a ticket that was a forwarded email. The person needed the touch pad drivers installed and needed an admin to run it. HD has the admin account.

Ugh, I try to use this as motivation to move to the next level where I am not always fixing somone's Outlook issue or printing issue.

LoMo

The types of issues you guys are describing are the things we fixed at my last Help Desk position.

Michael.J.Palmer

It took me over a week to get VPN access from my help desk, and that was with me talking to a Network Engineer for my company about it...

Yeah.

crrussell3

I worked a contract job at a place where the full time techs were like this. Most were unable to troubleshoot their way out of a password reset. They would end up spending hours trying to resolve a ticket, and end up forwarding on to the server team which would get fed up with the simple issues being assigned to them.

So, in my experience it is the norm.

Zartanasaurus

I refer to ours, uncreatively I might add, as the no help desk or helpless desk. All they do is forward work orders. I never see any effort whatsoever to actually try troubleshooting the problem before escalating. If the work order even mentions that an IP address might be involved, it's automatically escalated. Had one a little while ago that could've been solved by someone typing ipconfig, but alas, those types of archaic commands are beyond them.

"I can't log in" means the server or network must be down, not that the user has their caps lock on.

I guess I could say I'm surprised, but I'm not. I'm a former help desk jockey myself and I took pride in closing work orders without having to escalate them. If I saw issues coming in repeatedly that I thought I could handle I lobbied to get additional access so I could close those work orders without having to escalate. I realize not everyone feels that way. Some of these guys are being paid $50K+ too.

kingslayer

I work in a support department, not technically helpdesk - we are very helpful. If I was a client paying for my company's product, I would be very satisfied with the support and Im not just saying that to pat myself on the back.

Most troubleshooting type queries are dealt with immediately, at the very latest 1 day. Obviously bigger things like installs may take a bit longer.

We only escalate if it requires a significant change to a database (more to cover our ass most of the time) or if its an obscure software error which only the developer will really know (and sometimes even they dont know!).

In terms of logging, we dont really log things until after its been fixed and only if there's time and if its some obscure fix that we may forget. Routine fixes are almost never logged, there just isnt time for it (much to our line manager's dismay).

Some of the companies we work with as part of our solution are more corporate and they are a nightmare to deal with. Call refs, dealing with 1st line people who dont know anything (waste of time), sending change requests for even the most minor thing, needlessly over-secured/over-complicated setups....Im glad I work for a small company.

Zartanasaurus

crrussell3 wrote: »

I worked a contract job at a place where the full time techs were like this. Most were unable to troubleshoot their way out of a password reset. They would end up spending hours trying to resolve a ticket, and end up forwarding on to the server team which would get fed up with the simple issues being assigned to them.

So, in my experience it is the norm.

At least they tried to troubleshoot.

That's better than just scanning for key words in the ticket to figure out which basket to forward it to. "Oh the user said the word firewall and he must know what he's talking about. Let me forward this to the security team".

it_consultant

odysseyelite wrote: »

I don't think we have a strict SLA. I asked that when I first started and there is no real policy. SOmetimes you can have a simple install printer ticket for months at a time.

My last job was 5days or less SLA.

I was just under the impression the helpdesk is to atleast try to solve your issue. I just got a ticket that was a forwarded email. The person needed the touch pad drivers installed and needed an admin to run it. HD has the admin account.

Ugh, I try to use this as motivation to move to the next level where I am not always fixing somone's Outlook issue or printing issue.

Are you aware of what their duties actually entail. If they are not doing what they are paid for that needs to be brought up, but first you have to make sure you know what they are supposed to be paid for!

Psoasman

Our Help Desk is in-house. I work at a Casino, so if something goes down, we need to be able to fix it ASAP.
Most of our techs can fix about 85%-90% of issues over the phone or by using VNC.

pham0329

Most of the helpdesk I've worked with are actually called "service desk" (ITIL $:\$ ) They generally log the problem, and send it off for someone to fix.

it_consultant

pham0329 wrote: »

Most of the helpdesk I've worked with are actually called "service desk" (ITIL $:\$ ) They generally log the problem, and send it off for someone to fix.

I am sure this is what is happening here, or everyone is incredibly lazy and needs to be fired. I go for the former, I am sure they were told to do exactly what they are doing.

rsutton

Big company help desk is usually terrible. Outsourcing help desk requests may save money but it slows the process down and can be the cause of lost tickets, poor escalations & eventually frustrated users.

Repo Man

Both help desks I had to work we resolved 80-90% of all calls. Both positions were outsourced to other companies where the goal was ~40%. Truthfully it's hard to keep a good help desk because the knowledgeable employees want to get the hell out of there.

Anonymouse

Where I work we only have a short amount of time if we have calls in queue. If it's pretty slow I can take my time and troubleshoot. When I first started they didn't really apply the same time limits to me since I was training and I found it a good way to get familiar with a lot of common issues which I can breeze through now. If I escalate a ticket and have free time I usually try to resolve it before the next tech gets it if possible.

CodeBlox

I work at a helpdesk and we resolve most of the issues before escalating up the chain. I've had some where I get so determined that I'm so sure I can resolve but before I know it, it's 50 minutes later and someones telling me to just escalate. I'll admit, 50 minutes is a bit much but still, we all have SLAs to meet. I just got so caught up in the problem that I thought I could come to solve. I'm still new and have only been at this job for about 2 months now but I would say I resolve about 80% of my calls. May not sound good to some, but oh well. At this helpdesk, they say exactly in these words that "if we aren't on the path to resolution in 15 minutes, we need to escalate.". We still do a pretty good job resolving tickets at tier 1 level though.

higherho

When I was on Help Desk I really loved it and did every ticket I could. Out of the 300 user tickets produced in a month (just from users in house or calling in) I would close 270 of them at least. This number is just an average some months were higher some were lower in terms of total user tickets.

Then I saw some System Administrators browsing Facebook and playing online games. So they got some tickets stacked up in their queue for their laziness or boredom. I told them that directly too.

gosh1976

When I worked on a help desk I tried not to escalate anything unless I really needed to. I really enjoyed doing the level 2 callbacks because we didn't have to worry about any kind if time limit.

In my job now I don't really have anybody to escalate to!

N2IT

I've worked for and with some really good help desk. I think for the most part ours does a solid job. You can't let the loud minority get the best of you.

Anonymouse

Today felt like a day I could learn a little and resolve some tickets that I usually escalate. We were slammed earlier in the day 'cause some system problems bringing some applications down but later on in the day it got so slow that I intentionally took my time with my own tickets and even took care of other coworkers tickets which I would have usually escalated. Still feel like I know jack **** though and need to learn more.

djfunz

Our Help desk is actually pretty good I think. Our problem is the Service Desk is off site at the main branch and everyone in house where I'm working calls me directly. I have to always ask "Have you opened a Ticket?" or "Have you contacted Service Desk?" The overwhelming response is normally, "No."

It's as if the users expect immediate service from the system admins without going through the process of contacting Service Desk first.

Forsaken_GA

The problem with our helpdesk is threefold:

#1 - It's understaffed. 5 guys to handle the needs of 700+ employees, many of who are not technically savvy, is simply not enough. Especially during major rollouts, like upgrading everyones computers, and all of the quirks that come along with it. They simply don't have the bandwidth to process everything that's being thrown at them, so it ends up logjamming.

#2 - Lack of training. Not that they have time to actually do any training, considering how backed up they are, but there's simply no real budget expended to allow people to up their skills. The smart ones study on their own time, and get the hell out as soon as they can. The others aren't quite so adept.

#3 - Lack of qualifications. Some people just should not have been hired for the role to begin with. They have little knowledge of how everything fits together, they have no troubleshooting skills, hell, they don't even really have any critical thinking skills.

Take all of the above, and it's a real pain in the ass. Things end up getting escalated to people who earned their way out of a helpdesk role a long time ago, which impacts overall productivity. Some things are just stupid. For example, I've had more than one occasion where a user wasn't able to get to any web pages. The helpdesk escalated this to network engineering as 'something is wrong with the network'. Turned out the user had their proxy settings misconfigured. The last time that particular call happened, I refused to take the transfer, walked over to the Helpdesk, told the tech to get the user to share their screen with them (Gee, we can do that through OCS? I didn't know that!) and showed them *exactly* where to look, and explained that the next time this issue popped up, they had better damn well make sure they check the basics before they try to tell me my network is busticated.

I followed that particular conversation up with a lengthy email to their boss, cc'd my boss and my bosses boss on it, and there have been blessfully few braindead escalations since. However, I fully expect once the current crop of numbskulls turns over, I'll have to train an entirely new group to fear the wrath of the network deity department.

cxzar20

Help Desk at my company is pretty good. I almost always know what it is if something is broken but rarely can I fix it due to privilege settings. I will just call them up, tell them what needs to be fixed, and within an hour it's all done. Getting new software installed is a bit different though as it has to be approved by multiple people first.

Zartanasaurus

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

Take all of the above, and it's a real pain in the ass. Things end up getting escalated to people who earned their way out of a helpdesk role a long time ago, which impacts overall productivity. Some things are just stupid. For example, I've had more than one occasion where a user wasn't able to get to any web pages. The helpdesk escalated this to network engineering as 'something is wrong with the network'. Turned out the user had their proxy settings misconfigured. The last time that particular call happened, I refused to take the transfer, walked over to the Helpdesk, told the tech to get the user to share their screen with them (Gee, we can do that through OCS? I didn't know that!) and showed them *exactly* where to look, and explained that the next time this issue popped up, they had better damn well make sure they check the basics before they try to tell me my network is busticated.

I followed that particular conversation up with a lengthy email to their boss, cc'd my boss and my bosses boss on it, and there have been blessfully few braindead escalations since. However, I fully expect once the current crop of numbskulls turns over, I'll have to train an entirely new group to fear the wrath of the network deity department.

Hmm, I wonder if I could get away with this where I work? I have the urge to do this constantly. It would create a political **** storm between the two directors who already aren't getting along I think.

RobertKaucher

Zartanasaurus wrote: »

Hmm, I wonder if I could get away with this where I work? I have the urge to do this constantly. It would create a political **** storm between the two directors who already aren't getting along I think.

I don't understand why it would be an issue to insist that other people perform their jobs with a minimul level of skill before they simply pawn it off on other people making it harder on others to do their own official duties.

RobertKaucher

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

The problem with our helpdesk is threefold:

#1 - It's understaffed. 5 guys to handle the needs of 700+ employees, many of who are not technically savvy, is simply not enough. Especially during major rollouts, like upgrading everyones computers, and all of the quirks that come along with it. They simply don't have the bandwidth to process everything that's being thrown at them, so it ends up logjamming.

This is the major issue where I work. A simple issue that I could resolve in seconds if I had the propper access takes 3 days. I am aware of the cause, I know how to fix it, I include the exact steps in my ticket but it takes 3 days to be resolved because there are 3 guys supporting 500 people. I try to do my best to make their lives as easy as possible. My team even acts as first line support for our building...

rsutton

Zartanasaurus wrote: »

Hmm, I wonder if I could get away with this where I work? I have the urge to do this constantly. It would create a political **** storm between the two directors who already aren't getting along I think.

It's all in how you say it.

Devilsbane

It goes back to your management. Where I work, the goal of the help desk is to fix the problem if they can. But they are limited to about 10 minutes on the phone (not strictly enforced, but if you are coming on 10 minutes and are no closer to solving, then a ticket is needed).

To go off of Forsaken:
1: Our company has about 2,000 employees and about 7-8 people staffed.
2: There was some windows 7 training a couple weeks ago. It is extremely difficult to do things like this because then nobody is answering the phones.
3: If I had to hire a new person and narrowed it down to 2 people. The first person is very tech savvy. The second is a very customer oriented. The second person is probably going to be a better fit because they can make the customer feel more helped.