Oct. 22, 2023, Post by Curtis
Help Desk can be a difficult and stressful job. Getting good at it not only makes it easier, but when you get really good, it starts to become fun. You'll look forward to the challenges. Anyone can get good at Help Desk, but it takes time and a systematic approach to make sure you get good at all aspects of the job.
Most Help Desk jobs, and most IT jobs for that matter, are given more work than they are able to do. It's normal and your boss most likely is aware of this, so they will understand if you don't get it all done. But there are plenty of things that you must get done.
Keep a "To Do" list and prioritize the items on the list with a numbering system. 1=high priority, 5=low priority. This will keep you in good standing with your superiors.
If your boss or a VIP asks you to do something, it's very important that you do it, and do it as soon as possible.
Don't rely on your memory for anything that you don't need to. It will fail you at the worst possible times.
Always be organizing and refining your notes. Help Desk professionals are IT generalists. They are expected to be able to solve a wide variety of problems. You might see a problem today, and then not see it again for a year. You probably won't remember what you did to solve it the first time. That is why you must take notes.
Make sure you are filling out the comments and resolution sections in all of your tickets. This makes it easy to search old tickets to find the solution to problems that have been seen before.
Not only explain what you did to solve the problem but include all the details about the problem. This will help you and your co-workers save time again and again and they will praise you for it.
Also. make sure you include the user's contact information and computer name in case someone else ends up taking the ticket.
Make documents about common configurations and procedures that will be helpful for your co-workers as well as future Help Desk employees. Keep them on a file share that your team has access to and send out a group email to everyone at Help Desk every time you make one of these.
Creating documentation has the added benefit of showing you what you actually know about something. When you write down how to do something, any gaps in your knowledge will be exposed. If you don't take the time to write it out you may not get the opportunity to discover these gaps.
Knowing who to go to when you get stuck will save you so much time. No one can know how to solve every problem and no one needs to. You are surrounded by people with individual expertise and skills.
Keep a list of your co-workers with a list of their specialized skills and always be adding to this list.
Don't just keep a list of the people in the IT department, any time someone from any department helps you or lets you know that they have experience in a certain area, write it down.
When someone calls you with a problem that they want you to solve, it's important to remember that you are in control of the situation. They will try to get you to solve their problem on their terms. They will say things like:
I'm not saying don't listen to them or consider what they are saying. What I am saying is to take their words with a grain of salt. If they said they restarted, you need to see it restart. If they say x happened before and y was the solution but you think z is the solution, do z.
It can be a delicate situation to tell the user what to do even if they think that they know better, but since you're the one that they asked to solve the problem, you ultimately have to do it on your terms.
I've solved so many problems by doing something that seemed ridiculous. When I have a problem in my personal life that I can't solve, I just start throwing everything at it. Often that does the trick. You never know what stupid little thing may be causing the problem until you've tried everything.
Often we think a problem is more difficult than it really is. You could spend a lot of time trying to figure out why an app isn't working when all you need to do is reinstall it.
It is also easy to forget something obvious now and again. I keep a checklist of general steps to run through when solving problems. It doesn't work for every situation but it works most of the time. It also helps me:
Read my article 13 Step Help Desk Problem Solving Guide.
Dealing with angry users is similar to dealing with stress, you need to compartmentalize. Separate yourself from any part of the situation that is not you actively solving the problem. Angry users are an opportunity for you to learn how to separate your emotions from your work. This is how you level up!
Some people will not calm down and if that's the case you just need to move forward working on the problem.
Often, once you've solved their problem, they realize how stupid it was to take it out on you. These angry users may then go too far in the other direction, becoming very apologetic and friendly. They then realize how good you are at your job, and might just let other people know about it.
Help Desk is not only a technical job but a customer service job. Showing your users that you care about their problems and want to solve them as much as they do will make the experience easier.
Ways that showing empathy will help are:
If you need the motivation to be empathetic, just renumber a time when you had to call customer service about something important. How did that go? No one wants to call Support, keep that in mind and do everything you can to be helpful.
Empathy is a must-have for every Help Desk employee. If you don't have it naturally, you must develop it.
Having a home lab will allow you to practice things in a safe environment. This is the best way to learn and you can learn just about anything using your home lab.
You can set up an Active Directory domain with domain-joined users, and computers. You can practice power shell scripts, group policy, DHPC, DNS, routing and switching, virtual machines, firewalls, Linux, containerization, network automation, you name it.
A home lab will also let you get hands-on experience with things that you may not be ready to use in a production environment.
For my home lab, I use EVE-NG, but GNS3 is also a popular option. These are virtual environments where you can spin up servers, workstations, routers, switches, etc.
You can set up your home lab either on a used server that you buy or by installing it on the cloud. Installing on the cloud will give you some experience setting up virtual machines in the cloud and you will only have to pay while your lab is running.
You can also buy used equipment to set up a lab using physical hardware, though this has many more limitations than a virtual lab as it becomes more expensive as you start wanting to add more lab equipment to build a bigger, more complex lab.
You need to stay in regular contact with all of your teammates. They can teach you a lot and they also need you to share your knowledge with them.
Staying in good standing with everyone in the IT department is crucial. No one person can know it all and everyone in IT needs help on a regular basis.
So much of Help Desk is non-technical. A large part of success is just showing up. Toss in some soft skills and you're well on your way, even if you have no technical skills.
It doesn't take any talent to :
Make sure you go for the easy points before focusing too much on the technical stuff.