The Importance of 24/7 Help Desk Services
To help lead a successful organization we have to be flexible and move at the speed of our marketplace, and that means having it support service available whenever you need it.
Articles published January 20, 2017
As much as I would like my life to revolve around a set schedule, where I go to work from eight to five, come home, spend time with my family, go to bed, and then do it all over again, that is just not the reality for me or many professionals in today’s world. It is much more common that I go into a day with the best plans for productivity and things turn out differently than anticipated in any number of ways. To help lead a successful organization today’s professionals have to be flexible and move at the speed of our marketplace. The same can be said of the IT support our organizations provide.
Here’s an example: One of your team members is in an airport, their plane is delayed, and it’s 11:30 p.m. They have an important meeting the next morning, so they want to use this time to prepare. However, when they try to access information on their PC, they can’t get to it because of an authentication issue. Can they reach anyone in tech support? In our business, it is critical to match corporate IT support hours to the working hours of your team.
Expanded IT Support Services
Today’s workplace is becoming more flexible, which means that there are more employees who set their own hours or work outside the typical eight to five shift. A FlexJobs survey found that out of 1,500 workers, 74 percent of them wanted or needed flexible work options in order to maintain a healthy work-life balance. Furthermore, as remote work options continue to increase and companies have employees working across multiple time zones, it is crucial to have IT support available to all employees during their working hours. According to the 2019 State of Remote Work report from Owl Labs, 30 percent of U.S. workers work remote full time with more than 50 percent of workers saying they work remote at least once a month.
The help desk has to acknowledge these changing factors and ensure that they create a way for their IT support services to be available at all hours of the day when employees or end users are working and consuming resources. Sounds easy enough, right? Not necessarily.
Outsourced IT Services Provide 24/7 Support
Expanding the service desk hours of operation to meet the needs of a modern workforce can cause challenges. It can create stress for current help desk agents, as they are asked to change their schedule. It could create an environment that is unpredictable and unsettling for some in your organization, as there can be a lot of variability in terms of the service request volume on any given day. Expanding hours of operation may also mean hiring more help desk agents who are willing to work flexible hours.
If keeping an internal service desk staffed with multiple agents 24/7 is not in the cards for your organization, outsourced IT services are on option to consider. An outsourced help desk can either handle all of your corporate help desk needs or can partner with your internal team to pick up after-hours requests and provide tier 1 support to your employees during the day.
This can help your organization maintain control of the overall strategy, but transfers the operational responsibility to experts who are experienced with working in an environment that demands flexibility all the time. The most important aspect of a service desk is being available for your customers.
Having a help desk with extended hours of support or even the option for 24/7 availability, enhances the customer experience. Whether providing service to employees or customers, being available to accommodate their needs and their schedule sets the tone for a positive interaction. In the end, that’s what the help desk is all about: providing quality service to end users and helping them get their issues resolved no matter what time they arise.
Personally, when that late night airport need comes to pass, I want my organization to be there for support. I hope that your organization’s help desk feels the same way.
Does your organization need to adjust its help desk hours of operation?