What Is an Outsourced Help Desk?
An organization that hires a third party to handle its IT support needs is said to have an outsourced help desk. When a company has an internal help desk, the technical issues brought up by employees are logged and resolved by the company's own IT support staff. With an outsourced help desk, on the other hand, technical issues are handled by a third party business that specializes in offering help desk support.
Best Reasons to Outsource Help Desk Services
Reduced Wait Times at the Help Desk
Slow response times are one of the main problems with internal help desks. A poorly organized help desk that is overburdened by trying to balance several priorities may take longer to handle logged calls.
You will decide on a set of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) with your service provider when you outsource your help desk services. These SLAs enable you to specify the performance of the service provider and are based on crucial indicators like average speed to answer, average handling time, and first-call resolution rates.
More significantly, SLAs hold the outsourced service provider responsible, and meeting these criteria is in their best interest if they want to keep your business over the long run and maintain their reputation. Reduced response times and quicker technical problem resolution follow, which boost employee productivity and happiness.
More economical
Outsourcing your help desk is often more cost-effective, sometimes much more so, when you take into account the cost of employing (and replacing) help desk workers, training and professional development, IT equipment and software, and employee benefit packages. Plus, it's far simpler to manage your IT budget when there is a monthly subscription fee rather than variable, ad-hoc spending.
Specialization
IT support is the sole service that an outsourced IT support firm offers, and it serves as the foundation of their whole business model. They then repeatedly defined, created, and provided outsourced help desk solutions for various businesses. They've had the chance and time to test out what works best, decide which resources to use, train their personnel, etc. Because they have more diverse experience, they may provide greater levels of service than an internal help desk.
You are able to concentrate on your primary business function.
Thankfully, there are other ways to specialize. Your IT personnel may concentrate on the key business function of your firm by outsourcing the help desk. They may focus on tasks and initiatives that ultimately provide the greatest value to the organization instead of having their attention continually divided by incoming support queries.
Even better, this applies to any person that supports and manages your help desk, including HR, Finance, and members of your management team. Your employees can focus on what they do best with an outsourced help desk, increasing productivity and, ultimately, profitability for your business.
Additional Resources Available
The majority of businesses do not have the resources or the inclination to regularly invest in the newest IT tools, programs, or support services. The latest tools and technology are constantly being developed by outsourced service providers, and they will quickly implement them if doing so will help them meet or even exceed the SLAs that were previously set. This not only gives your business access to a larger range of support services, but it also future-proofs your help desk without putting you in a position where you have to put yourself in debt.
There is no requirement to recruit and train support personnel.
You won't need to hire and onboard help desk workers because outsourced help desks employ their own workforce. Additionally, you won't have to be concerned about personnel turnover. The best part is that your outsourced service provider will take care of the continuous professional development of the help desk employees and ensure that they are taught to use the newest technology. This will save your business money and, more crucially, time, which can then be used for other beneficial endeavors.
Complete Assistance Outside of Regular Business Hours
Providing your team with enough after-hours support when you have an internal help desk might be difficult. It's possible that you don't have the staff on hand to consistently provide the same level of assistance that you can during business hours. Small internal help desks in particular are particularly vulnerable when a team member becomes ill, takes a leave of absence, or departs the organization.
On the other side, an outsourced support desk can be accessible round-the-clock. This is particularly crucial in the post-COVID era, when flexible employment arrangements will only spread. Your employees will feel confident working their desired schedule knowing support personnel is available if they encounter any technological difficulties.
Reporting Can Help You Gain Better Insights
Measurement against important performance measures, such as average handling time and first-call resolution rates, is necessary for an outsourced service provider to determine whether it is achieving its SLAs. Outsourced help desk providers may then offer thorough reports that go into great depth about their performance and the nature of each call they log.
These reports have several advantages, the first of which is that they highlight areas for improvement for both you and the outsourced help desk provider. Second, reports will show you whatever technical issues your team keeps encountering. With the aid of these fresh perspectives, you are now able to identify the underlying causes of persistent technical issues and provide proactive rather than merely reactive help for your personnel.
Read More: How do you pick the finest inbound call centre services for your company?
A better corporate culture
Tension between the support personnel and the rest of the company might be brought on by a sluggish internal help desk. If allowed to fester, this might lead to a "us versus. them" mindset inside your organization, which would be horrible for the culture of your business. Such a problem is avoided by outsourcing your support desk. Your business culture will actually improve as a result of quicker reaction times and your IT staff's increased ability to focus on more engaging initiatives.
COVID and external help desks
In spite of the fact that an outsourced help desk is quite helpful in normal times, the COVID epidemic has made it even more essential.Remote employment is the primary cause of this. The likelihood of employees encountering technological issues has increased as a result of them no longer working at their desks on devices that have been specifically set up for their tasks.
Additionally, they are unable to ask their colleague who is seated next to them and is more technically aware for some assistance. Nor can they approach a nearby IT support employee who is resolving a technical problem and convince them to address the problem right now. Because of this, a support desk will log more calls than when everyone works remotely.
Your help desk must be as effective as possible in order to prevent backlogs, bottlenecks, and burned-out IT workers. In the post-pandemic environment, an external help desk is the ideal solution to these issues. In addition to having more employees and greater training, an outsourced service provider will also have procedures in place to better handle high call volumes.
You are protected from the labor scarcity brought on by the pandemic by outsourcing your help desk, which is a wise move for a second reason. You are in charge of hiring your own staff for an internal help desk, which will take more time and money than before given the shortage of skilled labor.
Your help desk has to be as effective as possible to minimize backlogs, bottlenecks, and burned-out IT employees. The best answer to these issues in the post-pandemic environment is an outsourced support desk. A company that outsources service will have more employees, better-trained workers, and call-handling procedures in place to better handle high call volumes.
The fact that it protects you from the labor shortage brought on by the pandemic is the second reason outsourcing your help desk is a wise move. With an in-house help desk, you're in charge of hiring your own staff, which will take longer and cost more than before given the shortage of skilled labor.