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4 Ways to Learn What You Need from Outsourced IT Support

Your organization is always on the lookout for ways to save time, reduce expenses, and improve your processes. If you’re reading this blog, chances are you’ve realized there’s significant value in outsourcing your help desk services to help you achieve those goals.

You’re not alone. Many enterprise-level organizations have turned to help desk outsourcing as an efficient way to hire a team of experts to handle their help desk services. But that’s only the first step. To really determine how an outsourced help desk support team can help your organization, you’ll need to dig a little bit deeper.

Here are four ways to do it:

1. Identify Your Biggest Challenges

Before you determine a solution, it’s important to make sure you’re clear on exactly what challenges you’re hoping to solve. For instance, if your biggest problem is a high turnover rate, that may lead to a different outsourcing solution than if you’re preparing for a new software rollout.

Here are the 10 most common help desk challenges companies face:

  1. Customer Satisfaction
    Do you receive too many complaints about agent availability or ticket resolution?
  2. Skillset Issues
    Does your help desk staff lack specialized skills?
  3. Scalability
    Are you struggling to meet changes in demand for help desk support?
  4. Staff Turnover
    Are you spending too much time (and money) hiring and training new people?
  5. Coverage
    Do you need to expand coverage hours? Is more coverage out of your price range?
  6. Best Practices & Expert Tools
    Are you lacking the critical tools, processes, and practices you need?
  7. Service Levels
    Are your service levels documented? If they are, are they being enforced?
  8. Multi-Roles
    Is your help desk wearing too many hats and costing them productivity?
  9. New Business
    Is your help desk struggling to keep up with the growth of your business?
  10. New Rollouts
    Are new technology or application rollouts straining your help desk resources?

Identifying which of these challenges your company is struggling with is the first step in determining your need. The good news is that outsourcing can help with all the above. Learn more about what these top 10 help desk challenges mean and how outsourced help desk services can help your business.

2. Calculate Your Current (and Project Your Future) Costs Per Ticket

One of the biggest questions companies have when they consider outsourced help desk services is whether it can help them save money. Sounds easy enough, but for many organizations, it’s a tough question to answer.

Factors like monthly ticket volume, staffing levels, overhead, and salaries are all a part of the equation. To help you crunch the numbers a little more easily, we’ve created a calculator that can help you quickly determine your costs.

See What You’re Paying Per TicketNova call to action

You can also use this calculator to help you make future projections. For instance, if you think you might need to staff your desk for 24x7 support, you can use our cost calculator to determine what that level of staffing will cost. How will new agents, support staff, or managers affect the equation? With our cost calculator, you can run these different projections to see just how cost-effective outsourcing can be.

3. Determine How Soon You’ll Need Help

Timing is everything. That’s as true with your help desk support as it is anywhere else. If you’re trying to determine your outsourcing needs, figuring out how soon you’ll need the support is a critical part of the process. Here are a few questions to consider:

  • What kind of training will new support staff need?
    When you’re trying to determine how soon you should bring on outsourced help, it’s important to factor in training. For example, some specialized industries require help desk agents to go through compliance or HIPAA training before they can start. In that case, you’ll want to be sure to give your outsourced help desk some extra lead time to make sure they’re trained and ready to hit the ground running when the calls start to come in.
  • Are there any other upcoming changes that could affect the help desk support that you’ll need?

A new product rollout isn’t the only thing that could put a strain on your help desk. Maybe your company is growing, and an upcoming hiring surge will mean an influx of users. Maybe you’re providing new software for employees, and you expect they’ll need some extra support. If you know about upcoming changes like these, it will be important you factor them in as you determine your help desk outsourcing needs.

  • Do you need more help because you’re rolling out a new product?

One common reason organizations turn to outsourcing is because a new product launch requires some additional support. If that’s the case, when will this rollout occur? Is the product launching next month, next quarter, or next year? How long do you think you’ll need additional help desk support for this product?

4. Remember the Needs of Your Customers

The last point we’ll touch on is also the most important. When you’re trying to determine your help desk outsourcing needs, it’s critical that your customers’ needs are always kept top of mind.

That means making sure you understand what level of support your customers need, versus what level of support you’re able to offer. It also means taking into account the particular preferences of the customers that you support. Try answering these questions:

  • What type of communication do my customers prefer? Would they rather communicate by email, telephone, or live chat?
  • Are my customers comfortable with self-service tools? Can they use these tools to answer their own questions?
  • How long do my customers expect to wait for answers?

If you know your customer well, it will help you figure out if you need outsourced support. More than that, it will help you determine what kind of company you want to work with. At Global Help Desk, we work hard to seamlessly support your customers with the same quality and professionalism you’d expect from an internal team.

If your organization is looking to staff your help desk with an outsourced team that shares your company’s values, we’re ready to help.

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