A question from a 1st Line support guy to Deskside / 2nd line support guys

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Not to sure where to place this topic, so hopefully it fits in here....

Ok, my situation is,........

In April I moved across to a new Helpdesk support role, one where we can actually remote into users PC's and cause havoc:P The desk I worked on before, was relating to NHS work, and with patient confidentiality and such, all issues pretty much had to be resolved by guiding the user through the resolution steps.


Well with remote support, now at my hands, I gotta be honest, I feel like a kid in a sweetshop...............

Now whilst the people i work with on the desk are great and have good knowledge on the issues that come to the desk..It just seems most of them, confine themselves, just resolving issues the way they have been taught on the desk, and not trying a different approach when that the resolution dosnt work. Never really thinking "out of the box" to suse a cliche.

A great example, was when I was talking about restarting a print spooler from Services.msc to try and resolve a printer issue......and the girl next to me replied, "if that had a chance of working we would have been taught it in the past wouldnt we"

To be honest I was a bit gobsmacked, and still am at a few issues. There is one guy who is considered the lead technical guy on the desk...........but when he dosnt know, panic seems to set in on the desk, and he sort of shrugs his shoulders if he dosnt know.............awesome

Anyway Im waffling.....................so onto my query


The scenario

I get a email regarding a user who is constantly receiving the chkdsk "checking errors screen" as the laptop is booting up. I have an hunch, on how to fix this, using fsutil, and chkdsk commands in the cmd line and stuff.

So I turn round to the head tech guy on the desk Hey bob, I know some features are disabled on these laptops for example.......the "run" feature, but if i can get round that, do you think the user will be able to do this and that to resolve the issue.............or are those features disabled as well?

to which I get the reply............uuuuuuuuh I dunno, .....uuhuhhh Id just send it to deskside, they will sort it....btw theres a call queuing


So with a sigh, I send it the call to deskside, but for my own future reference and to help everyone out in future. I stick in a little query

Hey Fred, can you look at this issue......the problem is blah, blah

Oh and fred, if you get a chance, just out of interest and to take some workload off you guys, .......if we on the helpdesk tried to do this and that with the user....would that be something that would be a possible 1st time fix? or would that feature be disabled? If its a firts time fix, ill relay it onto the guys on the desk......


Cheers




And so on to the subject of my question to you guys, the next line of support teams...........

If something like the query above was posed to you by a helpdesk guy, a guy who was just trying to make life slightly easier for everyone and resolve the issue 1st time for users. Would you have a problem with that? would you ignore the query and just fix the issue? or just supply a brief answer, even something along the lines of yeah thats possible give it a whirl.......or perhaps nah, sorry it cant be done by you guys...


I just ask because its been one of my frustrations on this desk, Ive asked a few queries similar to that, and ive got nothing back. Issue resolved and thats it. I feel as if Im actually perhaps bothering the deskside guys Although the queries Im putting, Im sure a yes or no would do




Wow thats a long post............sorrrrrrrrrrrry

 

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I can see the situation from both sides of the fence. On the one side you're working in a call centre environment where quite often the emphasis is placed on getting the tickets logged rather than fixed. Your manager has to concern himself with AHT and AAT just as much (if not more) than first time fix rates.

On the other hand a more technical service desk can provide increased first time fix, which in turn reduces followup calls to the desk and generally improves customer satisfaction.

Which approach is best? It depends on the environment your working in. If you happen to work for a service desk that focuses more on call centre statistics than fault resolution then you have to accept that and get what you can from the role before moving on. Learn what you can, study hard and use it as a stepping stone in to a more technical role.

 

Colloghi I been same kind of place were if you stick your head up parr pit start to fix 2nd line this will P!ss off your co works. Also found that I cleared lots of job this would P off co worker as it make them look bad.

Woman next to you sound like a lemming

Unfortunately there is a 2nd line snobbery in most place not having a 1st line tell me how to fix, not forgetting most 2nd lines were 1st lines support.

This is hard your got to find the happy medium, I would drop comments in your call logging software.
and try not to show up head tech guy well only now and then.

 

Regarding our targets for calls being logged. We are quite lucky that whilst we do have targets to meet, i.e 90% of calls to be answered within 10 seconds etc. The team manager on the desk has a really good positive attitube of "hey if you think you can fix the users PC by chucking it out of the window...go for it"

Im more of the attitude lately, of sod it Ill try anyway, if it dosnt work.................well nothing has been messed up, it just didnt fix the issue

In regards to our main tech guy on the desk, its just frustrating that we seem to hit a wall with some issues...and when you triy to suggest something , like restarting a service with services.msc..........he is like, ahh too complicated, dont bother, send it to Deskside.


Maybe I am being awkward

 

Speaking as someone who forms both 1st and 2nd line of support in my job, I'm always in favour of first time fixes and your deskside guys should be to. First time fix relieves the pressure on 2nd line and gets the user back up and running faster. It also makes it look like the company are employing IT staff with a brain (I get the feeling that apart from you your outfit might not do that...)

The problem is, desktop support guys suffer from an overwhelming fear that if the guys on the phone start getting ambitious then they are only ever going to get called when there is a hardware failure, this of course is not as regular an occurence as software balls ups and therefore you shouldn't need as many guys on the 2nd line...

There are those who get past this and grow to understand that all the guys on the desk are really aiming to do is a)learn and b)move to desktop support!