Curing the Help Desk Blues

By Kim Boatman

The help desk in most organizations was once about what Forrester Research analyst Chip Gliedman calls "random firefighting." It functioned reactively, dealing with IT problems as they arose. If someone called with a problem, the help desk worked to solve it and both parties moved on.

"Help desks worked in a very ad hoc fashion," says Gliedman. "There haven't been a lot of heavy-duty procedures. It was absolutely reactive."

But the help desk has morphed, becoming in many instances a "service desk" dealing with issues far beyond IT troubleshooting such as problem, change and configuration management. Gliedman estimates that perhaps 60% of large organizations have adopted a service desk-type structure. Gartner analyst David M. Coyle believes as many as 75% have expanded the help desk role.

"There is an extreme evolution going on," says Gliedman.

When it works well, according to Gliedman's research report, this new service desk model:

• anticipates and resolves problems before they arise
• improves processes and implements systems, so that situations are handled as a matter of routine, not as random events
• serves as a "strategic hub" for the IT organization
• thinks and plans, anticipating needs as well as the problems

The help desk/service desk is "the face of IT'' to the rest of the organization, Gliedman says. The perception of the IT department as a whole often hinges upon just how well the service desk functions. "The average end user bases his like or dislike of the entire IT organization on the service desk," Coyle says.

It's not just perception that's at stake; there's also a significant financial commitment. With one help desk employee for every 100 to 200 employees, a company will have a significant stake in its help or service desk, says Gliedman. Balancing cost reduction -- 85 to 90% of the cost involved is labor, says Coyle -- with customer service is an issue for almost every organization.

But if the service desk doesn't run efficiently or is perceived to be faulty, the stakes are high. A loss of credibility can result in "tighter budgets, longer approval cycles and a reduction in the overall role of IT in driving business change,'' says Gliedman, author of the report "Topic Overview: Help Desk/Service Desk."

Experts offer the following strategies for improving help desk operation:

• Change titles "Don't underestimate the value of a name change,'' says Gliedman. If the help desk is re-branded as a service desk, then there's the potential to reset expectations.
• Establish processes As an organization grows, so does the importance of having formal processes that can be replicated. Employees know what they should do and what is expected of them by others.
• Improve processes Once processes are implemented, it's important to refine and improve them. "There has to be somebody who's sitting back and saying, 'How can I make this better?'" says Coyle.
• Communicate First, communicate with the help desk/service desk employees so they don't feel threatened by change. After all, says Gliedman, people draw self worth from their expertise. Working to get help desk employees to share their wealth of knowledge without feeling like they're going to lose their job and their value to the company can be difficult. "'We don't do it that way' is what you're going to have to battle," he says. Second, communicate with the end users. "You have to perform customer satisfaction surveys. All too often, we just guess we're providing good service,'' says Coyle. And, of course, communicate with management and the departments involved. Without management support, it's difficult to implement change or to handle the inevitable battles over turf.
• Consider outsourcing The experts don't see a real trend here; some companies are moving to outsourcing, while about an equal number return to in-house operations. It can be a short-term solution. Smaller companies can benefit from the know-how of a company that does service desk work for a living and take advantage of the economies of scale, particularly if their needs are simple. Is your organization dealing with repeatable calls, such as password resets? Then outsourcing might work. But if many complex questions specific to a company arise, outsourcing doesn't make as much sense.

While many companies turn to outsourcing out of frustration over poorly functioning IT service operations, Coyle says the standard joke is, "If it's broken now, wait until you outsource. It's really going to be broken."

It's also important to know when to stop expanding service desk operations and how slowly to proceed with a changeover. According to Gliedman's report, trying to integrate IT functions within the service desk, while at the same time expanding to deal with non-IT issues "is a recipe for failure." Don't think Big Bang theory, says Gliedman. Move incrementally, establishing limited goals and fulfilling them.

The key is to establish a bedrock core of predictable, sustainable services -- and to be ready to change.

"The IT environment will be constantly evolving and if you don't have the basics down, it's very hard to accommodate new systems, mergers, reorganizations," says Gliedman.

Kim Boatman is a freelance business journalist in Silicon Valley, Calif. She spent more than 15 years reporting for the San Jose Mercury News.