Ask anyone who works in an office, and they’ll tell you: Even a small IT problem can slam the brakes on your production and spike the whole team’s stress.
An IT help desk gives your employees a dedicated resource to get the internet working again, restore access to a key app, get an unruly computer working, or solve any number of tech problems. Instead of spending hours searching for solutions or waiting for an IT employee to become available, your staff can get the assistance they need fast and get back to work without tearing their hair out.
What does an IT help desk do?
Rather than a physical desk, an IT help desk is a service that provides technical support to your employees. The service is delivered by help desk technicians who troubleshoot problems, answer technology questions, and resolve common technical issues. If the problem is major, they escalate the issue to specialized IT professionals.
The goal is simple: help your employees solve technology problems quickly so they can stay productive.
To that end, IT help desks support virtually every component of your IT infrastructure, including computers, mobile devices, printers, business applications, email, network connections, and user accounts. Help desk technicians can handle common issues such as:
- Password resets and account access
- Software installation and troubleshooting
- Computer and device problems
- Printer and connectivity issues
- Email and application support
- Basic network troubleshooting
- Employee onboarding and technology setup
However, a good IT help desk does more than fix individual problems. They track support requests so they can identify recurring issues and look for ways to prevent them. If your team repeatedly experiences the same application problem, for example, your IT provider can investigate the underlying cause instead of simply fixing it one ticket at a time.
IT help desk vs. IT support
As helpful as the help desk is, it’s not a full replacement for IT support, which is needed for complex issues. Instead, your help desk serves as a primary point of contact for IT support.
Before, your employees had to scramble trying to determine which person or department should handle a problem, then take valuable time away from a high-level engineer to fix a simple problem. The IT help desk filters out these smaller problems and provides a clear path to the right solution for the larger ones.
Modern support: Help desk software and AI
Modern IT help desk solutions have moved well beyond a shared email inbox and a phone number. These days, most companies operate purpose-built help desk software that provides a structured way to submit, categorize, prioritize, assign, and track support requests.
When an employee submits a ticket, the software can record the problem and route it to the appropriate technician. This not only speeds up the process but also provides valuable records and data as well.
Many modern platforms also incorporate artificial intelligence (AI). AI can help categorize tickets, suggest solutions to technicians, search knowledge bases, summarize support conversations, and even handle simple requests through virtual assistants or chatbots.
However, AI doesn’t eliminate the need for IT professionals. It can handle simple, repetitive tasks and give technicians useful information, but AI can’t be trusted to effectively solve all of the many and varied problems an average office experiences.
Remote support
Thanks to the internet, your IT help desk doesn’t need to be physically located in your office, or even your country.
Remote help desk support allows technicians to diagnose and resolve many problems without needing to set foot in your office. With the right tools and authorization, a technician can remotely:
- Access a workstation
- Troubleshoot software
- Change settings
- Install updates
- Guide an employee through a solution
- And much more
This makes remote support faster and more convenient, particularly when your workforce is distributed across different locations. It also helps with cost savings, as you don’t need to build out any infrastructure and can simply outsource help desk services from a provider elsewhere (more on that later).
IT help desk in action
Let’s take a look at a hypothetical help desk situation:
Imagine that you’re working on an important presentation. You need to open a document stored in your company’s cloud application, but the application keeps displaying an error message.
In the past, perhaps you would have scoured the internet for possible solutions or run to the one person on the team who knew the most about computers. But now, you just submit a help desk ticket. The help desk system immediately records the request and sends it to a technician.
The technician reviews the ticket and connects remotely to your computer (with your authorization) and discovers that a recent application update did not install correctly. The technician reinstalls the update, tests the application, and confirms that your document opens normally.
In a matter of minutes, you’re back to your presentation, you don’t miss the meeting because you spent an hour troubleshooting the problem yourself, and you keep your job.
If you were a remote employee, the process would have been the same. Instead of driving to the office or waiting for an IT employee to become available in person, you can have a help desk technician diagnose and resolve the issue remotely.
Why is having an IT help desk important?
At this point you might be thinking, “This is all well and good, but is this extra support worth all the extra work and expenses?”
It’s true that an IT help desk probably won’t stop a catastrophic cyberattack or restore your full systems after a disaster like full IT support. However, an IT help desk will solve small to medium-sized problems frequently for your workforce, saving 30 minutes here or an hour there. All this time adds up to a ton of saved productivity and reduced stress, which improves your business’s output and profits a great deal over the long run.
A help desk can also improve your overall IT environment and offer valuable information for management. Support tickets provide useful data about recurring problems, frequently requested applications, device issues, and areas where employees may need additional training.
The benefits of IT help desk support vs. self-service tech support
Without a dedicated help desk, employees may try to solve problems themselves, ask coworkers for assistance, or wait for someone from IT to become available. This turns a simple technical problem into hours of lost productivity, momentum, and sanity.
Search engines, online tutorials, vendor documentation, and AI tools can be useful for solving simple technology problems (eventually). However, relying on employees to provide their own tech support has limitations.
First, employees may not know whether an online solution is appropriate for your particular IT environment. Following incorrect instructions can create additional problems or introduce security risks. As such, encouraging your employees to fix their tech problems themselves may end up costing you more than what you would spend on low-level dedicated support staff.
For the predictable cost of an IT help desk, you can enjoy a wide range of benefits that wouldn’t be possible with a DIY approach, including:
- Faster problem resolution: Technicians quickly diagnose common IT issues instead of employees spending time searching for answers.
- Reduced downtime: Faster support means employees can return to productive work sooner and focus on innovation and revenue-generating tasks.
- Specialized expertise: Your employees can get fast help from highly knowledgeable technicians instead of going to “Brian from Marketing, who is pretty good with computers.”
- Consistent support: Problems can be handled through established procedures instead of random solutions online, ensuring new problems or vulnerabilities aren’t created.
- Valuable improvement data: Help desk software creates a record of support requests, resolutions, and recurring issues, enabling you to identify trends and where your technology or training might be lacking.
- Improved employee experience: Employees get peace of mind knowing there are experts to turn to when technology gets in the way of their work.
Why outsourced help desk services are beneficial
Building your own internal help desk can be daunting as it requires significant initial resources. You need to hire technicians, provide ongoing training, purchase help desk software, establish support procedures, and determine how to provide coverage when employees are sick, on vacation, or on their off hours.
If you operate a small to medium-sized business, maintaining that level of staffing may not make financial sense. The good news is that outsourced IT help desk services let you access professional technical support without building an entire help desk operation internally.
An outsourced managed services provider (MSP) like Transparent Solutions provides you with access to highly trained help desk agents, support software, remote troubleshooting services, escalation procedures, and reporting, all guaranteed with service level agreements (SLA).
Your support requirements may increase as you add employees, locations, applications, and devices, but your SLA will cover that. Your MSP can scale its support resources quickly without requiring you to recruit and train additional full-time employees.
What’s more is that instead of paying to build and maintain every component of an internal help desk, you can just pay for the support your business actually needs.
If you want to learn how a dedicated IT help desk could boost your business’s productivity and reduce your workforce’s stress, contact Transparent Solutions. Our help desk services are a cost-effective, practical way to give your employees fast, professional IT support so you can stay focused on business priorities.