5 Geek Tips for Choosing the Right Help Desk Solution

5 Geek Tips for Choosing the
Right Help Desk Solution

Simplicity, Automation &
Affordability..!!!
© 2013, SolarWinds Worldwide, LLC. All rights reserved.

1

Agenda

» Face It – You do have a Help Desk Selection Challenge

» Here are 5 Geek Tips:
1. Simplify & Automate as Much as Possible

2. Look for Software with an Easy-to-Use Web Interface

3. Accommodate Old-School Email Service Requests

4. Save Your End-Users From Themselves

5. Reporting is Your Friend

» Learn How SolarWinds Web Help Desk Can Help!

5 GEEK TIPS FOR CHOOSING THE RIGHT HELP DESK SOLUTION
2

Face It – You do have a Help Desk Selection
Challenge
» Organizations of every size find themselves looking for the right
help desk solution to meet their IT and end-user requirements.
 Some have not implemented any solution yet
 Some are NOT satisfied with their current solution and are in search of
a better one.

» Whichever of these categories you belong to, you will certainly
find it demanding to make a choice given the plethora of help desk
tools and software storming the market.

» So, where do you start and how do you go about it?

» Let us give you some geek tips to help you find the right help desk
software

3

Simplify & Automate as Much as Possible 1

» At the end of the day, it’s all about resolution of help desk tickets for
an IT technician.

» The more you simplify the ticketing and management process, the
more time you gain for troubleshooting and problem resolution.

Look for a solution that makes ticket creation, assignment, escalation and
management simple, and doesn’t require much manual effort.

» Both the technicians and the end-users should feel comfortable using
the help desk.

» You need more options for creating tickets – quick tickets for
common IT tasks, special assignment, and priority based on specific
request conditions, running multi-stage tasks, etc.
4

Look for Software with an Easy-to-Use
2
Web Interface
» For overall familiarity and less ramp-up time, Web-based help desk software
is the best bet.

» The centralized Web interface gives the help desk support staff get more
control, and it makes the team’s jobs easier by being able to log into just a
single console to execute administrative tasks.

» A Web interface also makes a better end-user experience.

» With customizable ticket forms and dynamic ticket creation templates, it
becomes easier to
 create a ticket
 define priority and SLAs Easy-to-use &
Intuitive Web
 communicate with the assigned technician
Interface
 all from a single interface.

5

Accommodate Old-School Email
3
Service Requests
» Though it’s best to have an easy, consolidated Web interface for
ticket creation
 Your help desk software should still be able to receive users’ IT
requests via email and convert them into a service desk ticket
dynamically.

» So, look for a Web-based solution that also
 converts in-bound emails into help desk tickets
 and allows you to send outbound emails to end-users and other
support staff for status tracking and communication

6

Save Your End-Users From Themselves 4

» A built-in knowledge base (KB) is incredibly useful for providing self-
service options to the user who’s logging a ticket.

» Your help desk software should provide FAQs and tech tips at the
time of ticket creation to help them with self-resolution on simple
and common issues.

» KB content is also invaluable for help desk analysts when referring to
frequently faced problems and who need detailed but quick
resolution tips on-the-fly.
Help Desk Analysts
FAQs
Knowledge
Tech Tips
Base
Resolution Tips Clients / End-Users

7

Reporting is Your Friend 5

» If you are in charge of your organization’s IT help desk, you need to be able
to know
 how many tickets your technicians are handling
 how quickly they are being resolved
 how satisfied your end-customers are
 what common issues need more attention
 which problems often recur or cause additional issues, etc.

» By measuring the performance of the help desk staff’s performance with
reports and ticket resolution statistics, you’ll be able to
 identify strengths and weaknesses
 recognize patterns in help desk service issues
 carve out plans for process improvements
 improve your help desk’s service quality
 and better manage your help desk team overall.

8

Quick Checklist

» Here’s a quick checklist to help you make your decision on the right
help desk software.

» Look for:
1. Easy-to-use help desk software with ticketing automation to reduce manual
efforts and simplify ticketing management
2. Simple and intuitive Web help desk interface for both technicians and end-
users
3. Automatic conversion of email service requests to help desk tickets
4. Built-in Knowledge Base to provide self-resolution options to your users
5. Robust performance reporting to monitor technician performance and
overall help desk management

» And remember to try before you buy. Evaluation will prove worthy
for making the right choice.
9

Learn How SolarWinds
Web Help Desk Can Help..!!

10

Simple & Easy-to-use Help Desk Software

» SolarWinds Web Help Desk offers affordable yet powerful IT help desk
ticketing software with simplicity and automation to help you quickly
resolve problems, escalate issues, and isolate root causes.

» With built-in reporting tools to customize, schedule, export, and email
reports, Web Help Desk gives you complete control of your ticketing
process.

11

How Web Help Desk Helps You…

» Email-to-Ticket Automation – Emails and file attachments sent to your
help desk email inbox will be automatically converted into a ticket.
» Ticket Action Rules – Automatically assign a ticket at any stage in its life to
the individual IT tech or group with easy-to-configure cascading rules using
granular or general criteria as defined by your needs.
» Asset Management – Manage client assignments, build parent/child
relationships between assets, and integrate with your favorite asset
discovery software for instant accessibility within your help desk
application.
» Built-in Knowledge Base – External knowledge bases empower your users
to easily find important information for self-resolution, while internal
knowledge bases conveniently centralize FAQs and tech tips.
» Built-In Performance Reporting – Get direct insight into technician
performance, areas for improvement in customer service, real-time billing
data, and bottleneck problems.

12

Web Help Desk Ticketing Dashboard

» SolarWinds Web Help Desk’s intuitive interface and graphical reporting dashboards increase the
visibility of real-time business operations for faster, more informed decisions that improve help
desk performance and efficiency

13

Web Help Desk Ticket Details

» SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD) allows quick and easy capture of service ticket information. WHD
offers a rich set of flexible and customizable input fields for capturing ticket creation and assignment
details, customer information, associated asset details, and parts and billing information.

14

Web Help Desk Client Login

» SolarWinds Web Help Desk dynamically displays relevant knowledge base articles and FAQs
when clients enter their service request into the Web portal. This promotes self-resolution of
common IT tickets and service requests by the clients.

15

Web Help Desk Change Management &
Approval Workflow

» SolarWinds Web Help Desk associates IT service request types with Approval/Change
processes. Clients see a notification when creating a ticket if approval is required. Approvers
receive an email notifying them of the pending request. Approvers can approve or deny directly
from email or via the Web interface..
16

Web Help Desk Free 30-day FREE TRIAL

17

5 Geek Tips for Choosing the Right Help Desk Solution

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Viewers also liked

Viewers also liked (13)

More from SolarWinds

More from SolarWinds (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

5 Geek Tips for Choosing the Right Help Desk Solution