For SBT
A few days back, I received an e-mail from a friend entitled "10 things you don’t want to hear from the helpdesk." One of the better ones was: "We can fix this, but you’re gonna need a butter knife, a roll of duct tape, and a car battery."
Dilbert also often has biting cartoons about the lack of sensitivity of computer helpdesk staff.
If you think getting help from a computer support helpdesk has been a challenge in the past, it may get worse in the future before it gets better. Why? One reason is that the US Government (www.bls.gov/oco/) predicts that there will be a 97% growth between 2000 and 2010 in demand for Computer Support technicians. That translates into about 500,000 new jobs in this 10-year period.
I imagine that there will be such a growth in computer-support jobs because small and large businesses rely so much on smooth-running computers. (Try to send out a press release on Friday afternoon if your printer driver has been corrupted by conflicting DLL’s). A recent Sunday Milwaukee Journal Sentinel listed very few computer jobs in the classified section, but the most frequently listed computer job was that of helpdesk technician.
If your small business has computers, then you probably have a helpdesk – even if it’s just the kid in the receiving department who happens to be pretty good with computers. Some of the best small business helpdesks are staffed with A+ certified technicians.
Recently, The Revere Group (with offices in Milwaukee) gave a consultation to my information technology managers in at MATC. Their presentation was entitled "How to do More with Less". (Isn’t that a great name?) The Revere Group said that companies can become more efficient by helping employees get answers to their computer problems more quickly. They believe an effective computer helpdesk can make the whole organization more productive. Imagine the benefit to any company if the average time to get a computer problem answer dropped from two weeks to two hours.
A key part of improving our helpdesk at MATC is a new Helpdesk System – the Magic Total Service desk from Network Associates (www.magicsolutions.com). This new system allows people to enter their service calls from a Web browser. It also allows people to search a "knowledge base" on their own to get answers to anything from how to filter e-mails to how to project profit trends using Excel.
The theory on the knowledge base feature is that most people would rather not have to be on hold with a call to the helpdesk, so an easy-to-use self-help option will be used a lot. I also suspect that most people would rather not get that "I’m a dummy" feeling that often comes with having to ask for computer help.
But maybe your company is not interested in investing in a new computer helpdesk system at this time. To find practical tools for you and your helpdesk, I consulted my favorite Web search tool: www.google.com.
When I put in topics like "PC Help" and "Computer Help" I found a number of useful Web sites.
http://support.microsoft.com/ is a very extensive list of answers to questions involving Microsoft products. It follows the usual pattern of you typing a phrase, like ‘Excel formulas’ and it returns its best guess for related answers. Note: The new Microsoft Office XP includes an "interactive training" CD which seems to be easy to use for non-technical people concerning Excel, Word, etc.
www.Support.com used to have a very helpful free answer lookup feature. It was so successful that it has stopped offering it for free. This site still has a good demo on how to automate self-help for your employees.
www.pcsupport.about.com has a great ‘pc problems to avoid’ in its Beginners section. Its troubleshooting section also has some clear answers to common problems.
http://www.itp-journals.com/ seems to be for more experienced people within your company. One of its free articles that caught my eye was entitled "how to speed up your network".
http://www.geek.com/ This site is definitely for that kid in Receiving. Is has a great name, great cartoons and an easy-to-understand PC buyers guide. If your support staff feels lonely, there is a chat section on this Web site where people can exchange problems and solutions 24 hours a day. The ideas in the Tips and Tricks section alone may be worth the visit to this site.
http://www.helpdeskinst.com/ is the Web site for the Helpdesk Institute. This is perhaps the most widely respected organization of helpdesk professionals in America. There is a local Milwaukee chapter of this organization. Please contact Tony Bigonia at 262-636-7461 for information on meeting times and places.
If answering all the computer questions at a company were an easy job, the US Bureau of Labor statistics would not predict such a tremendous growth for computer support technicians. To get some material for this article, I volunteered to cover our helpdesk phones for a morning. After the experience, I have now dedicated myself to making sure our real helpdesk technicians are recognized, happy and get the help they need.
If your hardworking helpdesk people need help, they might take the CIS 161-350B course at MATC. This is part of the national A+ computer support certification program.
Mark is Associate vice president for information technology at Milwaukee Area Technical College. He holds a master’s degree in business from UW-Oshkosh.
March 29, 2002 Small Business Times, Milwaukee
