A Responsive IT Helpdesk Is Essential. Can You Count on Yours?

It’s an all-too-familiar scene: in an office complex somewhere near you, an employee is fighting with a computer. Something that has always worked, something that’s supposed to work, something the employee needs to do their job— you guessed it, it’s not working. At this hypothetical company, there’s a structure in place to solve problems like this: the IT helpdesk. In theory, the employee should just call the helpdesk to get the problem solved. But the employee doesn’t call the helpdesk right away. They spend 30 minutes, an hour, maybe two trying to solve the problem themselves. They bother a tech-savvy coworker or loop in their manager. Two or three people — none of whom is trained for it — now sit around the computer, poking through menus and Googling the symptoms. This not-so-hypothetical scenario plays out countless times every day, wasting too many resources and destroying worker focus and productivity. If you’ve lived it, you already know the reasons why. Still, they’re worth exploring. Click here if your business needs managed IT services in Western North Carolina.

The Real Problem Here

Many readers already know where we’re going with this. (It’s in the title, after all.) But bear with the story for a minute more. What’s the problem here? Is it that the employee didn’t call the helpdesk when the problem first showed up? No, in most cases, that’s a symptom, not the real problem. To get to the real problem, consider this: why doesn’t the employee call the helpdesk as intended? Because the employee has been there and tried that. Instead of insightful, timely assistance, they got something less. They got a helpdesk that was unresponsive, slow, unskilled, difficult to communicate with, or some combination of these traits. And so they gave up on it. Now they avoid it if at all possible. So the problem in this scenario — one that you may have experienced yourself or even be living now — is the helpdesk. If it isn’t responsive, it can’t be effective.

Reasons a Responsive IT Helpdesk Is a Business Imperative

Let’s look at a few reasons why a responsive helpdesk is essential.

1. Work Stoppage

Your team can’t get work done if they can’t use their computers and devices. What’s your IT helpdesk’s average response time? Average time to resolution? Can you afford regularly losing work for those intervals?

2. Employee Productivity

Some helpdesk tickets don’t deal with total device failure or work stoppage, but something less, like an annoyance, distraction, frustration, or complication. Your employee can still get work done, but they keep getting interrupted by something gone wrong. These are especially problematic when your IT helpdesk has a bad reputation: employees simply won’t tell anyone about the problem, leading to long-term productivity losses.

3. Employee Morale

When your team can’t get the IT support they need, morale takes a hit. Employees understand this unresponsiveness to mean “Your work isn’t important,” “we as a company aren’t on top of things,” or a hundred other negative conclusions. It says something about a company when a critical area like this isn’t enough of a priority to fix.

Can You Count on Your IT Helpdesk?

The reasons why helpdesks fall behind are numerous: they might be understaffed, overallocated, undertrained, or even just bad at customer service. But whatever the cause, having an underperforming IT helpdesk can actively harm your company in numerous ways. Whether it’s in-house or you’re relying on a managed IT provider, the question is the same: Can you count on your current IT helpdesk? Does it regularly and consistently meet expectations? If not, perhaps it’s time for a change. Reach out this week to learn what it would look like for us to take over your IT helpdesk functions. We’ll show you the results we’ve achieved for businesses like yours — along with what we can do for you.