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Hello from Omaha, NE

 
Author pltech
Member 
#1 | Posted: 11 Feb 2007 11:43 
Good Afternoon! (Here anyway)

I currently manage a Technical Service Desk for a 3 year old company. I would love to share ideas and suggestions with everyone.

Here is my first one....

What is the best way to support more users with less staff?

James Brouhard

Author KarenSB
Member 
#2 | Posted: 11 Feb 2007 16:13 
Hi James,

A couple of ideas.

First, staff must have all tools at their disposal to be able to support the users to the best of their ability. This includes ongoing training and development.

Anectdotal meetings usually help tremendously. For the support staff to tell each other stories often results in the next incident being identified and solved sooner.

Established escalation procedures are critical.

Well-detailed and published service level agreements are a must. Further, these SLAs should be in everyone's hands for distribution, sales included.

And, assess, assess, assess. You need to be like a small boat, not a cruise ship. Small boats can change course at a moment's notice. If it doesn't work, don't be afraid to scrap it and start anew.

Good luck to you,
Karen

Author ayaree
Member 
#3 | Posted: 11 Feb 2007 16:38 
I think the Karen reply makes a lot of sense. My take on it is that there is a value (time-saver) in having staff all be knowledgeable of the outcome of situations and have access to the same info and procedures.

If I had to pick one thing that has been an essential ingredient to my successful moments as a manager, I think it has to do with always capitalizing on opportunities for people to cross-train and share knowledge and to build on that. By getting them to see teaching and learning from each other as a personal investment for each individual, I am setting up a culture that means everyone's experiences count and there is an increased opportunity for customers to benefit. I don't just identify these as team values, I even bake this into performance goals/reviews.

For the original poster: why do you ask how to use less staff to cover more issues? What are you finding is happening? Are people documenting their troubleshoot calls in the same/basically similar manner, is that referenceable to others? What are the reasons you want less staff to cover more users, are you just looking for ways to create efficiencies or is there a budgetary need to reduce headcount?

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 Hello from Omaha, NE

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