which one a Technical Support or Help Desk
I am working for a new Small ISP and we are trying to establish a center for receiving technical calls and inquires from customers and the technicians in this center may do some basics troubleshooting. What is the suitable title for this center and what we should call this people who do this job? Technical Support, Helpdesk, or Call Center. does each term has a specific meaning? And is there any standard structure of this center? And what is the relation of this people with other network/software Engineers? Thanks in advance. -- Tarig Adam
You can always call it HelpDesk/Technical Support They both mean the same thing, but create a different feeling in the minds of the customers. Helpdesk is typically perceived to be gentler (more informal / more flexible) providing support on a wider range of technical issues. Technical Support is perceived to be more focused, a bit more formal, and possibly providing support on narrow set of technical issues. We operate in two geographies.... In Athens, Georgia (College Town about 50 mile NE of Atlanta) the support department is knows as the Helpdesk. (We acquired that operation, and previous owners had chosen that term, so we stayed with it). and in South Florida, we call it Tech Support. As you can see from my email signature, we often use those two terms interchangeably. Good Luck with your choice. Regards. Faisal Imtiaz Snappy Internet& Telecom 7266 SW 48 Street Miami, Fl 33155 Tel: 305 663 5518 x 232 Helpdesk: 305 663 5518 option 2 Email: Support@Snappydsl.net On 3/3/2012 2:46 AM, Tarig Adam wrote:
I am working for a new Small ISP and we are trying to establish a center for receiving technical calls and inquires from customers and the technicians in this center may do some basics troubleshooting.
What is the suitable title for this center and what we should call this people who do this job? Technical Support, Helpdesk, or Call Center. does each term has a specific meaning? And is there any standard structure of this center? And what is the relation of this people with other network/software Engineers?
Thanks in advance.
On Sat, Mar 3, 2012 at 2:46 AM, Tarig Adam <tariq198487@gmail.com> wrote:
I am working for a new Small ISP and we are trying to establish a center for receiving technical calls and inquires from customers and the technicians in this center may do some basics troubleshooting.
What is the suitable title for this center and what we should call this people who do this job? Technical Support, Helpdesk, or Call Center. does each term has a specific meaning?
Hi Tarig, For what it's work, I think of the terms this way: Help Desk: The place I call when I need my employer's IT department to fix my broken computer. Call Center: The place that wants to administer a telephone survey while I'm trying to eat dinner. Technical Support: The place I call when a technology product or service malfunctions.
And is there any standard structure of this center?
Varies with size. At one end of the spectrum you have 3 phones with call distribution from the tech support number. At the other you have a dedicated office building containing staff with product specialties.
And what is the relation of this people with other network/software Engineers?
The engineers are second or third tier support. When Tech Support can't solve the problem, Tech Support calls an engineer for help. Once the engineer does his magic, Tech Support verifies it and then responds to the customer. Regards, Bill Herrin -- William D. Herrin ................ herrin@dirtside.com bill@herrin.us 3005 Crane Dr. ...................... Web: <http://bill.herrin.us/> Falls Church, VA 22042-3004
Go with 'Technical Support' unless you want to take all sorts of calls with end users wanting help on operational training issues. THIS DOES HAPPEN! -- Thanks, Joe On Sat, Mar 3, 2012 at 6:56 AM, William Herrin <bill@herrin.us> wrote:
On Sat, Mar 3, 2012 at 2:46 AM, Tarig Adam <tariq198487@gmail.com> wrote:
I am working for a new Small ISP and we are trying to establish a center for receiving technical calls and inquires from customers and the technicians in this center may do some basics troubleshooting.
What is the suitable title for this center and what we should call this people who do this job? Technical Support, Helpdesk, or Call Center. does each term has a specific meaning?
Hi Tarig,
For what it's work, I think of the terms this way:
Help Desk: The place I call when I need my employer's IT department to fix my broken computer.
Call Center: The place that wants to administer a telephone survey while I'm trying to eat dinner.
Technical Support: The place I call when a technology product or service malfunctions.
And is there any standard structure of this center?
Varies with size. At one end of the spectrum you have 3 phones with call distribution from the tech support number. At the other you have a dedicated office building containing staff with product specialties.
And what is the relation of this people with other network/software Engineers?
The engineers are second or third tier support. When Tech Support can't solve the problem, Tech Support calls an engineer for help. Once the engineer does his magic, Tech Support verifies it and then responds to the customer.
Regards, Bill Herrin
-- William D. Herrin ................ herrin@dirtside.com bill@herrin.us 3005 Crane Dr. ...................... Web: <http://bill.herrin.us/> Falls Church, VA 22042-3004
On Sat, 03 Mar 2012 07:04:52 PST, JoeSox said:
Go with 'Technical Support' unless you want to take all sorts of calls with end users wanting help on operational training issues. THIS DOES HAPPEN!
Which is OK, if that's your business model. I know a few small ISPs that are making a comfortable living selling repackaged DSL plus handholding.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 3/3/2012 10:34 AM, Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:
On Sat, 03 Mar 2012 07:04:52 PST, JoeSox said:
Go with 'Technical Support' unless you want to take all sorts of calls with end users wanting help on operational training issues. THIS DOES HAPPEN!
Which is OK, if that's your business model. I know a few small ISPs that are making a comfortable living selling repackaged DSL plus handholding.
Especially if a human answers promptly without a horrible accent... Jeff -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.17 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAk9SPhMACgkQiwXJq373XhZTgwCg7ImBfYfyanvYaAA6PcIVQCRw Ti0AoKSNAmH7RXrT1J0x1Ss1CVhLa76R =HBJ+ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On 3/3/12 9:57 AM, "Faisal Imtiaz" <faisal@snappydsl.net> wrote:
Especially if a human answers promptly without a horrible accent...
Jeff Like a heavy Southern Drawl ?
Saah, Ah resemble that remahk! :^) I think no matter where you're located, having a tech support rep who speaks your language with an accent not too dissimilar to your own can be a huge help. I've had tech support calls go bad because of unintelligible accents when I was calling centers in India and in Ireland, but also in the US when I found the last of the Clampett clan answering phones for an ISP. (I've lived in Texas almost 16 years-- if you're so redneck that *I* can't understand you, you need a job where all your communication is in writing. Or pictures.) -- Dave Pooser Manager of Information Services Alford Media http://www.alfordmedia.com
Touche....! Being in South Florida, (heavy Latin & Spanish accents) and having customers in Alabama, Tennessee (Heavy Southern accents) etc, we have had to "Tune" our ears as well as our Accents, including carefully choosing our words... It is not uncommon for us to have a new support Rep. get on a call and start making strange facial expressions.. saying.. " I know the caller is speaking English, but I cannot make out a word of what they are saying !"... Which of-course goes both ways, a Southern English speaker has equally hard time understanding heavy Latin and Eastern European accents. The sad part but true reality is, that most folks when they hear a different accent, automatically equate accent with professional competency .. and that is the toughest thing to overcome for phone support work. City folks, will often equate Southern accent with someone who is less proficient and slow, while the Southern folks will equate the Northern Accent with someone trying to be slick and pulling a fast one on them.. And then of course we have our favorite New Yorkers, (Manhattan / Queens etc) who simply equate politeness as a sing of weakness and try to railroad you if you are too polite. It's all good, it's all fun, it's all part of life, and surprising to most, this is COMMON HUMAN behavior across ALL Parts of the World. Not just unique to USA and Indian Call Centers.. :) Regards Faisal Imtiaz Snappy Internet& Telecom 7266 SW 48 Street Miami, Fl 33155 Tel: 305 663 5518 x 232 Helpdesk: 305 663 5518 option 2 Email: Support@Snappydsl.net On 3/3/2012 11:26 AM, Dave Pooser wrote:
On 3/3/12 9:57 AM, "Faisal Imtiaz"<faisal@snappydsl.net> wrote:
Especially if a human answers promptly without a horrible accent...
Jeff Like a heavy Southern Drawl ? Saah, Ah resemble that remahk!
:^)
I think no matter where you're located, having a tech support rep who speaks your language with an accent not too dissimilar to your own can be a huge help. I've had tech support calls go bad because of unintelligible accents when I was calling centers in India and in Ireland, but also in the US when I found the last of the Clampett clan answering phones for an ISP. (I've lived in Texas almost 16 years-- if you're so redneck that *I* can't understand you, you need a job where all your communication is in writing. Or pictures.)
On 3/3/2012 11:48 AM, Faisal Imtiaz wrote:
Touche....!
Being in South Florida, (heavy Latin & Spanish accents) and having customers in Alabama, Tennessee (Heavy Southern accents) etc, we have had to "Tune" our ears as well as our Accents, including carefully choosing our words...
Yes, it goes both ways :) It would be very interesting to get some statistics/reports out of Apple's Siri project as to the "hardest cases". My cousin recently got an iPhone with Siri. She has a much worse drawl than mine :) She told it to "Call Jeff", and Siri says "I see no J F in your contacts". (Imagine a very heavily drawled "Jeff" more like "Jaaay-Yufff", decidedly two syllables there...) She's had mixed results with Siri :) It may be beneficial speech therapy for her, but hard to change decades of Southern :) Jeff
On 3/3/2012 10:57 AM, Faisal Imtiaz wrote:
Especially if a human answers promptly without a horrible accent...
Jeff Like a heavy Southern Drawl ?
Oh yeah, y'all :) The major point was a "human" answering, at least my home ISP (Charter) has this unbearable voice response... in annoyingly perfect English, although there is a Spanish option when it first starts :) If you have humans answering, you can call them anything you like, you're ahead of the curve. If not, "it" is going to be called all sorts of things, and Technical Support or Helpdesk is not among the options that come to mind... Jeff
Funny u mentioned Charter, had to call in a support ticket to them this morning. ( Cable down, due to yesterday's nasty storms). Having no accent is always preferred, but not possible. And as to Automated service... we see two kinds of folks... Ones who have a preference for self service, and another who wants human contact. I was actually impressed with the Charter Customer Service Phone front end. It recognized me by my Caller ID phone number, It was clean, crisp, and voice recognition was pretty good and it immediately told me that there was an outage in my area, and they are working on fixing it, plus it offered to call me back once the problem is resolved. After it gave me the info, I asked to speak to a Support Rep, and it transferred me to them. So far this is one the best Customer Service Phone system front end I have come across in a long time. Yes, humans are preferred, but if I can have the system give me updates quickly, vs. having to hold for 20 or 30 min for a human to give me the same info... I prefer the machine.... :) Faisal Imtiaz Snappy Internet& Telecom On 3/3/2012 11:36 AM, Jeff Kell wrote:
If you have humans answering, you can call them anything you like, you're ahead of the curve. If not, "it" is going to be called all sorts of things, and Technical Support or Helpdesk is not among the options that come to mind...
A newsgroup I used to read a decade back used to call it "helldesk" But seriously, live humans with whatever location or accent, answering an actual phone, are the costliest sort of ticket an ISP has to handle. The focus needs to be on providing the customer enough self help tools, wikis, user forums, email support, IVR .. before they even need to phone your helpdesk and have a human open or work a ticket for them. It is that or watch your margins get shredded due to spiraling support costs. --srs On 3/3/12, Jeff Kell <jeff-kell@utc.edu> wrote:
On 3/3/2012 10:57 AM, Faisal Imtiaz wrote:
Especially if a human answers promptly without a horrible accent...
Jeff Like a heavy Southern Drawl ?
Oh yeah, y'all :)
The major point was a "human" answering, at least my home ISP (Charter) has this unbearable voice response... in annoyingly perfect English, although there is a Spanish option when it first starts :)
If you have humans answering, you can call them anything you like, you're ahead of the curve. If not, "it" is going to be called all sorts of things, and Technical Support or Helpdesk is not among the options that come to mind...
Jeff
-- Suresh Ramasubramanian (ops.lists@gmail.com)
-----Original Message----- From: Faisal Imtiaz Sent: Saturday, March 03, 2012 7:58 AM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: which one a Technical Support or Help Desk
Especially if a human answers promptly without a horrible accent...
Jeff Like a heavy Southern Drawl ?
:)
Hope you realize that this list a Global list, and not everyone is talking about "US Only".
Well, it is a North American list. A "heavy Southern drawl" is perfectly fine in the Southeastern US, and might even be welcome by customers there. It's no worse than a thick New England accent. But there are plenty of places, particularly in the mountain West of the US, where such help is relatively inexpensive and the accent is neutral. A call center in Montana/Utah/Wyoming/Idaho or even the Dakotas/Nebraska/Kansas for a national player isn't a bad idea. Help is relatively inexpensive, the people can be understood nationally, and in Central or Mountain timezone give you decent national coverage without a bunch of overtime. The help center doesn't have to be physically located with your actual network operations infrastructure. In fact, there are good reasons why you don't want that. If your operations have experienced a catastrophic failure (power outage, lightning strike, cable cut), your customers could still reach a real live person. But having customer reps that speak in the same "accent" as the customers they are serving can be a nice touch, too. If most of your customers are in the Southeastern or Northeastern US, maybe you WANT reps that sound like your customers.
On Sat, Mar 3, 2012 at 7:34 AM, <Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu> wrote:
Which is OK, if that's your business model. I know a few small ISPs that are making a comfortable living selling repackaged DSL plus handholding.
In the case I was thinking of, a small Techsupport group answering questions about 'How does my customer get an account." These questions really needs to be answered by their supervisor. "But aren't you the 'HelpDesk' I call when I need help!?" That makes sense for the DSL business. -- Thanks, Joe
At a Small-to-Medium ISP I worked for, they went through structuring changes like this all the time. But the following seems to be the best setup: First was "Customer Support" which dealt with billing and basic instruction (setup mail clients, reset passwords, etc). Second tier was "Customer Data Support" or CDS, which covered troubleshooting connectivity and doing advanced instruction. Third tier support was the Network Operations Center. CDS escalated to them if there was a particularly difficult or CO Equipment related issue. The NOC could then escalate to the actual Engineering department or to the CO Repair staff as needed. -- The nice thing about this setup was that it grew with the company. Each of those departments started out as one or two people, but grew their own sub-tiers/sub-teams as systems grew and became more complicated. Also, the name didn't really matter too much to the customer. They chose the option for "Problems with your connection or if you need technical support" from the phone tree, and we just answered with the company's name. We never said "Customer Data Support, this is Brett", just "CompanyX, this is Brett" There are a couple of good System Administration guide books out there that give basic Help Desk structuring and reporting paths. They are usually geared more towards the enterprise, but some good information can be gleaned from them as well. Hope this helps, -Brett Lykins On Mar 3, 2012, at 2:46 AM, Tarig Adam wrote:
I am working for a new Small ISP and we are trying to establish a center for receiving technical calls and inquires from customers and the technicians in this center may do some basics troubleshooting.
What is the suitable title for this center and what we should call this people who do this job? Technical Support, Helpdesk, or Call Center. does each term has a specific meaning? And is there any standard structure of this center? And what is the relation of this people with other network/software Engineers?
Thanks in advance.
-- Tarig Adam
On Sat, Mar 3, 2012 at 10:46 AM, Tarig Adam <tariq198487@gmail.com> wrote:
I am working for a new Small ISP and we are trying to establish a center for receiving technical calls and inquires from customers and the technicians in this center may do some basics troubleshooting.
What is the suitable title for this center and what we should call this people who do this job? Technical Support, Helpdesk, or Call Center. does each term has a specific meaning? And is there any standard structure of this center? And what is the relation of this people with other network/software Engineers?
Is your organization adopting any governance frameworks? In ITIL-speak, the function you are describing is called the Service Desk (but could actually be called anything you'd like-- i.e, The Genius Brothel, etc)
From the ITIL description of the Service Desk function:
"The Service Desk acts as the central point of contact between service providers and users on a day to day basis. It is also a focal point for reporting incidents and for service requests. It can also provide an interface, for other service management activities (such as change, problem, configuration, release and continuity management)." I'd add to this description that it's a single point of contact (first in, last out) for any and all types of requests, including change management and internal requests. They also recognize that some organizations would also have local premises service desks where people could actually walk up to or be helped in a matter of minutes-- and that this function would be considered a "help desk", but only as *part* of a larger service desk. For more details on how ITIL structures this function, check the wikipedia page- they have some basic info that can get you started. -Dan
On Sun, 04 Mar 2012 09:41:58 +0300, Daniel Rohan said:
Is your organization adopting any governance frameworks?
I certainly hope not - any organization that needs that many buzzwords in a seven word sentence has probably jumped the shark so far that it needs more than a governance framework to cure the dysfunction. http://www.itgovernanceusa.com/itil.aspx "ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) is a best practice methodology for managing IT as a service. Developed by the UK's Office of Government Commerce (OGC), ITIL is the most widely used approach for IT Service Management in the world and is used by companies including Disney, NASA, HSBC and HP. Organizations cannot be certified against ITIL, however it is widely used as a method of preparation for achieving ISO20000 certification. Individuals can be certified against ITIL, and you can read about ITIL qualifications below. ITIL provides a clear framework for the identification, planning, delivery and support of IT services to an organisation. ITIL's core principle is that IT services must be aligned with the requirements of the business and underpin all processes within the business. IT services should be a business driver, facilitating change, growth and meeting business goals. There are five core titles in the ITIL publication suite which cover:" Ouch. "IT services must be aligned with the requirements"??!? I've always wondered how companies stay in business if they're so dysfunctional that they need a framework to recognize stuff like that. Does deploying this stuff in functional organizations actually work? Does it do any good? (OK.. I'll admit there's a one-sentence throw-away about SLA's at the very bottom of that page - though we don't use them for "governance", just making sure that everybody's on the same page about stuff like who calls who when stuff breaks. Usually ends up including lots of clauses like "If you want us to fix the router you wanted installed in your building, you have to make sure our techs can get into the building..")
At least to the extent of providing clear, auditable metrics on change management and SLA, making sure all support and ops cases are actually covered (again, so it can be subject to an audit) etc ... You probably fulfil every single requirement of ITIL already, except for the piles of paperwork required to pass an ISO2700x audit :) On Sun, Mar 4, 2012 at 11:56 PM, <Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu> wrote:
"IT services must be aligned with the requirements"??!? I've always wondered how companies stay in business if they're so dysfunctional that they need a framework to recognize stuff like that. Does deploying this stuff in functional organizations actually work? Does it do any good?
-- Suresh Ramasubramanian (ops.lists@gmail.com)
participants (12)
-
Brett Lykins -
Daniel Rohan -
Dave Pooser -
Faisal Imtiaz -
George Bonser -
Jeff Kell -
JoeSox -
Randy Bush -
Suresh Ramasubramanian -
Tarig Adam -
Valdis.Kletnieks＠vt.edu -
William Herrin