Help Desk Providers - What does the community want to see?

Dec 29, 2011

Hello Articulate Community,

I am gathering feedback from the E-Learning community regarding what you would like to see more of from your outsourced Help Desk provider?  What services do current providers do well, where are they lacking?  What advice would you give a help desk provider that is new to the E-Learning market to help make them successful?

Free flowing discussion - any input / advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Mark Reedy

13 Replies
Zara Ogden

The Articulate Community works cause it is a community. I am no better than any other contributor. We are all equals.Individuals who have won awards or failed miserably can all come to an unbiased non judgmental space to seek help from one another. The more we share together the better we all become.

Help Desks are of no use to me because they do not understand my desperation or love for what i do. The only know the basics of a software not the emotional connection I have with it.

Here the managers are designers, software gurus, and trainers; People like me. They know what it is like to succeed and fail. They are also open to those with no knowledge and those with tons.

Dave Newgass

Mark Reedy said:

Yes Dave, That is exactly what I am talking about.  Using an outsourced 3rd party help desk to provide end-user support  (in this case student or faculty) for issues or questions specifically related to a specific e-Learning platform.  i.e. Moodle, Desire2Learn, Blackboard etc...

Mark


Hey Mark,

Well, with that being said......

I have long stated (at least to myself), that as our business grows, my role would change to a 'Moodle Admin' which is not what I want to do, nor it is something I can do efficiently.  I have a working knowledge of Moodle/Articulate, but am not a technical whiz by any means.

I would entertain using a 3rd party help desk set up.  Actually, I have Zen Desk and would want them to use my Help Desk system.  One thing that would be important would be 'are they available during U.K. business hours as well as outside these hours'.

Cost of course is of importance.  It has to make sense financially.  It may be that we pay a small fee per candidate we enrol or a monthly fee.  The most important thing for us would be having a person that knows and understands how Moodle and Articulate work together.

I hope that helps.....I would be interested in seeing where this goes!

Cheers,

Dave

Gabe Anderson

I think the 5 most important factors for an outsourced - or even internal (why should there be any difference?) - help desk are the following:

  1. Core product knowledge.
  2. Understanding of company's vibe / image. This is important for tone of emails (assuming email support). For example, Articulate is a pretty informal company, so we want the tone of our support emails to be neutral, but also informal and not too dry (and hopefully helpful). 
  3. Responsiveness / timeliness. Is there anything worse than feeling like you're talking into a wind tunnel when trying to get support? 
  4. Accuracy of information / replies. Although timeliness is important, accuracy trumps it.
  5. Internal communication. It's important to collaborate with colleagues for sharing knowledge, documenting issues, and providing feedback to development / creating knowledge base entries that are accessible for other customers. This feedback loop helps to drive future product development and fix bugs.

Hope this helps! 

blair parkin

The only other thing I might add would be professionalism (which really should be a given but so often isn't). If you are wanting them to support the end user with the product that you have chosen then I would want them to support it as if it was their own product and not put it down to the end user. Suggestions for improvements would be welcomed but to me, not my learners.

Eric Bybee

Gabe Anderson said:

I think the 5 most important factors for an outsourced - or even internal (why should there be any difference?) - help desk are the following:

  1. Core product knowledge.
  2. Understanding of company's vibe / image. This is important for tone of emails (assuming email support). For example, Articulate is a pretty informal company, so we want the tone of our support emails to be neutral, but also informal and not too dry (and hopefully helpful). 
  3. Responsiveness / timeliness. Is there anything worse than feeling like you're talking into a wind tunnel when trying to get support? 
  4. Accuracy of information / replies. Although timeliness is important, accuracy trumps it.
  5. Internal communication. It's important to collaborate with colleagues for sharing knowledge, documenting issues, and providing feedback to development / creating knowledge base entries that are accessible for other customers. This feedback loop helps to drive future product development and fix bugs.

Hope this helps! 


This time I will T Y P E before I hit the post button...

Gabe, I really like your list of important factors for Help/Service Desks.  And you hit a home run with #4, accuracy always trumps timeliness.

I am new to instructional design and development, but my position has me working very closely with our help desk.  It is an internal desk.  One of the considerations that I am always plugging into my Soft Skills CSR material is customer service.  I often get back blank stares when I start talking about this since all of our calls are internal, but after several months it has finally taken hold.

For a long while the culture was since these were internal calls they were not "customers", but that simply is not the case.  While they do work for the same organization as we do, their job is to interface with the public that uses our stores and that makes them customers.  This kind of shift in culture or "vibe" as you put it is also very important.

Sorry that I rattled on Mark, I do hope my comments give you some insight.  This is my first foray into a help desk environment, but I have a strong management background and as a consumer I know what it's like to deal with a help desk that does not respond to my needs. 

Funny thing, when I started here our team was known as the helpless desk, thanks to a lot of hard work, a good manager and I hope to some degree what I do, that has changed and will continue to improve.

Gabe Anderson

@Eric: Yes, indeed, customers can be internal, too.

One other thought related to this thread: Some of you may have seen the blog post yesterday by a former Adobe product evangelist (5 Reasons why you should join the Articulate Community if you are in eLearning), which included this section:

RJ Jacquez said:

Articulate as a company is a well-oiled machine that appears to be on the same page on all levels, from the aesthetically-pleasing User Interfaces they design to their engaging social communities, all the way to the support they offer. Trust me, if all the parts are not in sync, it’s tough to delight your customers.

People asked me what was the most frustrating thing for me working at Adobe and with no hesitation I always say that the Support and Customer care Adobe provided (provides), was so poor that it negated all the great things we all did as Evangelists.

I think that's a key point from which any company can learn: Every customer interaction by every employee is important. And it doesn't matter if your customers are internal or external. Pretty much all of us have customers, regardless of industry or job role. And when you interact with those people, you're representing your company or organization (even and especially if you are your own company). So it's important for everyone in your organization to understand that. One missed email, un-returned phone call, rude tweet, or unanswered forum thread can soil your company's image and leave a bad taste in your customer's mouth.

Annie Jean

I would say, flexibility. Even when offering support for the same product the use may differ even more from one company to the other compared to an in-house help desk. The support team must acknowledge that and accept that fact because it has a lot to do with context. So, the respect of different ways to see and do things, and the will to help and understand these clients as individual (and unique) goes in the direction of professionalism Blair mentioned.

Hope this can help you!

Mark Reedy

Wow - Thanks everyone.  So far these are some great responses.

Question:  Do you want your provider to be focused "only" on the e-Learning / LMS application support or should the also provide traditional Desktop or Network support too?

I know "Flexibility" is important, but am wondering if there is a definitive line between Application Support and Traditional Desk Top support?

Thanks - Mark

Gabe Anderson

Mark Reedy said:

Question:  Do you want your provider to be focused "only" on the e-Learning / LMS application support or should the also provide traditional Desktop or Network support too?

I know "Flexibility" is important, but am wondering if there is a definitive line between Application Support and Traditional Desk Top support?


I think this depends primarily on the complexity of your applications, and possibly factors like volume of cases and coverage (do you have enough support agents available at times when you have the highest volume of cases?). 

If your applications are especially complex or have a steep learning curve for training support people, it may make sense to have a dedicated team for each product / area of support. 

Zara Ogden

I would also acknowledge your frequent flyers. Make sure that the basic users and the advanced users have the opportunity to get the same service and value. Tier your CS Reps to their knowledge level but make them quickly accessible. 

Best CS role I had was for a Mutual Fund Company. They had a fully stocked interactive IntraWeb that provided CS reps all the knowledge they needed. It did not matter if I was helping someone with a detailed pension question or just telling them how much they had in their account the definitions and info was at my finger tips. It empowered me and the other rep to sound professional and knowledgeable. 

Put money into your reps resources and training program to ensure they will respect their clients. 

When it comes to providing Desk top support I would say yes.  Often issues with a program are related to not having an update or incorrectly setting up a security feature. If CS can instruct to fix then they become super stars to the customer. I can't tell you how many time Brian Batt has had to remind me to update my Office Suite so that my Articulate works better. 

Gabe Anderson

@Zara: great points. Empowerment is also important.

Another thought: Whenever possible, if providing support via email, try to make your solutions not sound canned. One of the areas where we get some slack from customers is if the email responses we send out sound too canned, or if a reply consists only of a link pointing someone to a solution on our site (even if it really is the solution, people sometimes like to feel like they're getting a more personal response). 

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