The Different Ways That IT Help Desk Can Save You Time and Money

In today's digital age, virtually every company relies on technology. However, problems will inevitably arise. When they do, you need to trust that your IT professionals can handle the issue quickly and effectively.

This is why more and more companies are turning to IT help desk systems. The market for these solutions is expected to reach $11 billion by 2023.

So what are IT help desks and how can these IT support systems benefit your company?

What Is an IT Help Desk?

An IT help desk works as a streamlined point-of-contact for employees to troubleshoot technological issues.

When one of your employees or customers experiences an issue, they'll turn to the help desk for assistance. In most cases, the help desk can be reached by phone call, email, or web portal.

The help desk makes it easy to report problems as soon as they happen. If the issue has a simple solution, the help desk will be able to walk the user through whatever steps may be necessary to remedy the situation.

If the issue requires the help of an IT professional, the system will generate a support ticket at a centralized location. Tickets with similar issues will usually be grouped together.

The Benefits of a Help Desk

There's no doubt that this software can help your business be more productive, saving you time and money along the way.

Easier to Reach IT

Being able to reach out for IT support at any time with any contact method helps employees stay on task and keeps customers satisfied. They don't need to waste time hunting down their own answers when they can simply open a ticket for your support professionals.

Next Level Technologies' Next Level Hub is an excellent example of this. It even has read receipts, so users know when a message has been received.

Streamline Operations

With the aid of a help desk, you'll be able to see your IT assets at work. You can track incoming tickets and arm yourself with the requisite information to respond to any situation as it arises.

Many can even monitor the type of incoming ticket and identify repeat issues. Then, you can prioritize those issues so they don't continue to slow you down.

Some help desks, like Next Level Hub, have a Consolidated Service Portal. This lets you quickly reach out for assistance if it's more than your in-house team can handle at the moment.

Prioritize Incoming Tickets

Some IT issues are a code-red situation, but not every ticket is an emergency that warrants an immediate response. Fortunately, help desks can differentiate between these circumstances and rank tickets based on their importance.

This allows your team to structure their workday, so they're always ready to tackle those severe issues.

Assign Tickets Automatically

In addition to prioritizing important service tickets, the help desk can automatically assign tickets to the right person for the job.

You may have specialists on your staff who are particularly adept at their area of IT. For instance, your software wizard should receive all tickets relating to their specialty.  

This lets you be a more efficient manager. Your employees will focus on their area of expertise, so the most qualified person for the job will always be ready to work.

Keep Everyone on Schedule

With a help desk, it's simple to set due dates for IT requests. Your employees and customers are at ease when they know exactly when their IT issue will be resolved. It also helps your IT professionals stay on task and prioritize projects that are overdue or urgent.

Many help desk software systems feature an integrated calendar. Every employee at your company can quickly reference the calendar and instantly be up to date regarding your schedule.

Oftentimes, things like routine maintenance are performed at regular intervals and added to the calendar. This gives your employees a heads-up so they can optimize their workday and don't waste time submitting a ticket for an issue that will be addressed in a new update.

Put KPIs at Your Fingertips

An IT support platform makes it easy to monitor the effectiveness of your IT department. You'll be able to track incoming tickets and see how long it takes to get them resolved.

Along the way, you'll see trends emerge so you can better allocate IT resources to areas that continually experience hang-ups. This sort of agility saves you money.

In addition to ticket churn, help desks can help track things like server downtime, software bugs, and the amount of time it takes to repair critical issues.

Keep Track of Solutions to Common Problems

Your IT professionals will be able to leave notes on how they solved many of your business's most common IT issues. Another member of your IT team can easily reference these notes and rectify the problem with a minimal amount of additional work. This certainly streamlines your IT workflow.

This is also beneficial if you expect turnover within your IT crew or have to enlist help from outside your company.

Improve Security

With help desk software, you'll be able to review your company's information security and the protocols surrounding it in real-time. You can keep everyone up to date regarding restrictions, protections, and compliance requirements.

With this information, you can quickly amend your practices so you can avoid problematic security breaches and shut down information leakages before they affect your company's bottom line.

Put Help Desk Software to Work

Companies all over the world are realizing the time and money-saving benefits of an IT help desk.

It can streamline your IT professionals' workflow, serve as a quick way to reach out for support, and keep your entire company on task and up to date regarding important events and policy changes. Help desks even provide you with the real-time information you need to keep your operation running smoothly.

Next Level Hub from the Columbus, Ohio-based Next Level Technologies has everything you're looking for in an IT help desk. Reach out to see how they can help you.