That would be super easy if we only handled one type of call… but we literally support every system in the company.
i see your breakdown being in two areas. One you do not have a sturctured support flow in your tech help process and two your engineers suck.
Level 1 - basically secretaries… noobs that can write down case info while learning the system
Level 2 - Needs to consist of senior helpdesk people that have access to other systems to resolve at least 70% of the cases sent up by Level1
Level 3 - Engineers need to make sure there shit works all the time and is documented.
Ok so you need the levels, and your engineers need to step it up. They need to make sure they train the level 2 people to be pretty much as good as they can be. They need to worry about the high end matters and not about archiving that can be docuemented and work through by a level 2 tech. You definitely have problems inside your organziation. I say go to the top and point out the problems and provide solutions to those problems. It takes balls to do this, but I think you are frustrated enough and smart enough to get your point across.
Good luck and if you need any help let me know!
just to add to this, as I agree with all of it… do you have access to run reports from your helpdesk system, whether it be rt or remedy or whatever? Management loves “metrix” and if you can show that some people can solve X% of cases at first call, or whatever you deem important, it will only strengthen your case. Maybe show how many password resets you get in a given day and show that those should be handled over the phone, or through a web app. Just some thoughts.
sonny, lol “i just migrated and retired an NT 4.0 box on monday…” I don’t think migrated is the correct word. More like, “put out of it’s misery”…
so do all help desks! you have to get the call to the right people if you can’t do it yourself… it’s the nature of the beast!
i agree with whitey and chris… there are problems with every help desk but you have to start somewhere… i started on-site about 6 months back and in that time i sat and did a query of helpdesk tickets… 60% of which are quota increase requests for home directories…
i wrote one script to increase quota by username and send an email out and all of a sudden the helpdesk escalation volumes got cut in half.
one more script to reset NT account passwords cut that amount down in 1/2 again… the poeple here said that the help desk has NEVER run as smooth as it has now, because when they get a call to handle a quota or nt password, they type password %username% or quota %username% and it does the deed and emails the user… they close the ticket and it’s done… with two simple scripts that took me all of 2 days to complete…
so start with collecting data and pinpoint the hangups… then move from there, someone somewhere can help… and if not, send them my resume… i can do side jobs on the weekend…LOL-z
as these guys said, trending of cases would be an excellent idea! This will also help identify areas that more intense training could be used. Also look at your phone reports. See what the abandonment rate is, see where the abandonment happens, note the time the user spends in each queue. These are all things that the helpdesk manager should be working on!
You guys have given me great advice. I appreciate it.
Whitey,
Our abandoned rate is 1.X consistently. Which is great except i think we are routing more than solving. The routing is causing a bottleneck on the next level.
hey, thats what everyone has called that group before I got there. I havent seen an NT 4.0 box since i was in tech school in 99 :eek4dance
we still have a few!
Still have the one you were telling me everyone was afraid to touch?
yep… it still runs, 300 some days uptime cause everyone is afraid to reboot it.
the one mainframe here has been up for 5 years in the middle of this month… lol ibm>*
i donno why, but when i see NT i always thing NT 4.0 lol. Are there any of those still around?
Quote:
Originally Posted by 95V8TBird
bah…in two more years they will probably outsource your job to India anyways, and you wont have to worry about
I didn’t mean it to sound like that, but where i work, they just got rid of ALL our IT people, and now we have a helpdesk in India…it sucks. I actually start a new job on the 26th of this month as a Loan Processor for Washington Mutual in Bethel Park, and I’ll also be in training to be an Underwriter, so I wont have to worry about outsourcing of my job to another country, I just have to worry about getting through the yearly layoffs all these companies have.
I did helpdesk for a few year, Keenametal and a bank in Indiana, blah! I swear some people don’t even know what the power button is!
what do you do now?h
were you fired for not spelling kennametal correctly?
When were you Kennametal Helpdesk?
I restore classic mopars, something I did growing up, then got offered to do one, that one turned into 3. I have more waiting too… but no commitment to any because I have a 1-1/2 work as is!
Not bad spelling, but typing 
But thanks for pointing it out, love when people correct me on the net lol
Actuall when I think about it, I was in the operations at Kennametal. I didn’t do actual helpdesk there. We were the bottom of the bottom. It was the most boring job I ever had. The way they talked they were doing away with that section. Is it still even there? I was there back in 01! Long long time ago.
I was there in 01 too… at the helpdesk
Operations is still there but has been invaded by the indians as well.
I was there for like a month, I was through a temp service, got bs’ed by them… missed a day because I was sick and they gave me all kinds of crap. I said heck with that and was done. The one guy, I wish I remember his name, he did security before operations… I never heard one guy bitch so much in my life! Guess its the place to work if your in Latrobe, but I’m much happier away from it, not to mention I make much better money now!