Question for those that run a support/help desk:

[justcrash]

Hey everyone! (Hello Dr. Nick!)

Anyway... I need some help desk managers assistance. At my work (yup, help desk) our boss is looking for a way to "measure" our work. Something he can wrap his mind around, since he eally doesn't understand what we do.

Past experience tells me this is going to be dropped in my lap, and I don't know where to begin. What methods/programs/advice etc can you suggest to give them a measurable aspect for which they can decide to fire us on later?

 

[techfuzz]

Managers usually prefer to see numbers because they can easily decifer them. I suggest investing in some Help Desk software to help you track your work orders. Make sure you log everything and be as detailed as possible. At the end of the week, run some reports for him to look at.

techfuzz

 

[Viper GTS]

Hell, what CAN'T they monitor you on.

Where I work EVERYTHING is tracked.

When you logon, when you logoff, every keystroke, the time you spent on each call, the time you spent wrapping each call, the time you spent in available, the time you spent in idle, the time you spent on break, the time you went to break/lunch, the amount of time between when you selected an outside line & when you dialed the call, the number of times you selected an outside line without making a call, the number of inside line calls, the duration of those calls, etc, etc, etc.

Viper GTS

 

[seepy83]

well, i dont work at/run a helpdesk...but...

i would think he'd be best off putting someone in charge of the help desk, someone that knows what it is used for, how it work, and sees the way it functions daily. that should be his best way of knowing which helpdesk workers are on point.

edit: i mentioned this as opposed to only tracking work orders, because if your boss really has no concept of what the helpdesk does, he might look at someone who only completes (for example) 2 work orders in 1 day, while other employees completed 10, and he would think that that employee isn't proficient. but he would probably not know if those 2 work orders were more difficult to solve than the others.

 

[justcrash]

Well the problem right now is we aren't really measured on anything regarding our calls. In the past, we were measured on talk time, and amount of calls taken.

Here, it's a different set up, so I didn't know if there were any industry standards that everyone else is using.

 

[episodic]

Just make up an Access Database detailing the work. Put a web front end on it so you boss can access what he needs to see at will. . .

 

[Nanotech]

Well it sounds as though your boss is going to need to purchase a software helpdesk suite of some kind. We use Lotus Notes for our Network / PC support staff but it is a piece of sh*t and I don't recommend it unless it is all they can afford. It is inadequate for tracking software developers projects and time so we have developed a home grown program to track our time. I highly recommend REMEDY software if your organization is big enough to take advantage of it.

 

[TheGameIs21]

Turn on your PM.

 

[techfuzz]

For smaller companies, Intuit's Track-It! (formerly Blue Ocean Software's) is decent. We've been using it for as long as I've worked at my current company. It isn't grand by any means, but it does what it is supposed to and isn't overly expensive.

techfuzz

 

[kt]

We use Remedy for all our IT services here at our company.