Help Desk Offerings - The Race to the Bottom...

Running the Help Desk at Do IT Smarter is a thankless job. Rarely do you have someone simply calling to wish you well or checking in to see how the family is doing. People call because they need help... and they need it right now. They need you to understand their environment, the technology space that they live in, and the procedures for making changes/requests/fixes that are required by the company he/she works for. It is a tightrope that can be very enjoyable for those MSPs that are up to the challange and altogether unforgiving when a mistake is made. It also assumes that the Help Desk representative has documentation in place that covers the items mentioned above to allow for a consistent, effective process that falls within the user's company guidelines.

Within the last six months, there have been mounting pressures to drive down the pricing of Help Desk services to make the offering as agressive as possible. This is in light of some very large companies launching (or getting ready to launch) Help Desk offerings in the managed services space. In reviewing the offerings and the assoicated pricing, I have found it increasingly difficult to differentiate services and make a true "apples to apples" comparison. More and more large providers are coming online with seemingly amazing Help Desk offerings for end users at incredibly low costs for unlimited usage.

So, what gives? How can you compare? Here are my thoughts...

1) Most Help Desk providers don't care about your company process. You will receive help with your standard Windows applications and basic troubleshooting, but don't expect to get a consistent process or expect your issue to be resolved to company specific standards. How would you expect a third party Help Desk to understand the requirements of your Outlook configuration or how your new user accounts should be set up? Expect what you would expect from a consumer Help Desk - script reading and basic Windows troubleshooting. You are getting what you pay for.

2) Documentation is critical - in the Help Desk world at Do IT Smarter, documentation is critical. Proper documentation allows for issues (including support for proprietary third party applications) to be verified at a basic level and escalated to the appropriate parties as required. I truly believe that even the most advanced applications have a set of "easily repeatable" troubleshooting/administration procedures that can be followed to remove the noise from the Network Administrator / Application Developer that historically has to support all the requests surrounding the application. The documentation then identifies who the issue should be escalated to in the event that it's not something that can be resolved by the Help Desk team. It's the perfect blend of "1st level support" and "vendor management". Personalization of troubleshooting and alignment with businesss process is a critical point that can only be addressed with the appropriate documentation in place. Check to see what sort of company-specific documentation requirements are needed to turn on a Help Desk customer before partnering.

3) Governance is key - as network environments, support personnel, and applications evolve it is critical that the documentation and Help Desk team adapt to the changes. At Do IT Smarter, we firmly believe that the documentation in place must be constantly honed and modified to ensure the most streamlined, effective process for the customer. This requires the customer/reseller to be actively engaged, but also requires that they have someone they can call on to make process modifications on the fly. Without this two-way communication between the customer/reseller and the Help Desk, it becomes very difficult to implement changes and act effectively. This relationship is critical and isn't available everywhere, so be careful when partnering. Also - don't forget the importance of *reporting* in this role - without appropriate trending and presentation of monthly/quarterly results, you never know what you're missing.

In closing, I feel that we are truly at a place where Help Desk services are beginning a "race to the bottom" and that the words "Help Desk Support" mean different things to different providers. As such, it is critical that managed service providers seeking Help Desk partners are looking at both *price* and *process* to ensure that their customer needs are being met.