Help, I Need Someone

I suppose I&m thinking about this topic because I&ve recently found myself at the mercy of such aid. But I&ve also been motivated by all the talk about managed services. The fact is, the success or failure of your services function will, of course, come down to how your people engage with those we lovingly refer to as “end users.”

Seriously, how pleasant is it for someone to live through an incident being solved by your company? Does your help-desk team really listen to the problem being described? Do they have access to operational information that will help them make decisions more quickly? Do they take time to figure out who&s on the other end of the phone or staring at them wild-eyed across the desk as they perform triage on a computer? Later, how is information about the situation logged, analyzed and used to solve future problems? In short, is your strategy reactive or proactive?

CRN&s editorial team has been thinking a lot more about how to cover services lately since we&ve been fielding a study that should help us get a better grip on which services are generating real growth for solution providers and which are really table stakes at this point.

Let&s be realistic, with the notable exception of the CompuCom executives I met last week, few of you out there have raved to me about your help-desk capabilities. In fact, companies are more likely to outsource this sort of task to someone else to save money. I&m not saying that&s a bad strategy. Nor do I dispute the value of automating as much of this task as possible. Yet, if you think about it, the help desk is where you could really build grassroots support for your overall services agenda. It seems to me that this function doesn&t get the respect it deserves.

Help me to understand this issue. HEATHER CLANCY, Editor at CRN, welcomes your comments at [email protected].