6 Reasons You Should Outsource Your IT Support Helpdesk
Having a professional IT Support infrastructure in place is essential for the modern business. The first point of contact for support is the IT helpdesk, yet for many businesses the cost of maintaining a full-time helpdesk team is prohibitive. Here are the most common reasons for outsourcing your helpdesk:
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- FOCUS ON INCOME GENERATING ACTIVITIES: By outsourcing your helpdesk to a managed service provider (MSP) you will be able to ensure, among other things, that your own IT staff are kept busy dealing with mission critical technology issues and focusing on income generation, while still ensuring users are receiving the best support available from a professional helpdesk staff.
- INCREASED CALL HOURS: Another advantage of outsourcing your IT helpdesk service is increased contact times. It is still the norm for many companies to work traditional working hours, yet more and more customers wish to contact their service providers for advice outside of regular hours. By using an outsourced helpdesk you can often provide seamless 24-hour service, with your customers able to speak to a real person no matter what time they make the call.
- IMPROVED RESOLUTION STATISTICS: First-time call resolution and managing key performance indicators are also much easier when you’re using an MSP, as they will be employing call-center-trained staff who know how to bring calls to a successful conclusion, but are also used to working in a target-driven call center environment.
- IMPROVED RESPONSE TIME: Your client or customer will also be happy by the increased performance in terms of response time. An outsourced helpdesk will always have sufficient staffing levels, so they can access systems in real time and reduce potentially costly downtime. When employing your own helpdesk staff, they may be busy dealing with other customers, which means a longer wait time.
- BETTER TRAINING: Outsourcing your IT support to a managed service provider can also deliver the benefit of better training and a higher level of expertise. With higher staffing levels, your MSP can focus on ensuring that all their staff members are kept up to date with industry specialization and new training without any impact on service levels, meaning you can benefit from industry leading knowledge and high service levels.
- MANAGE YOUR COSTS MORE EFFICIENTLY: Finally, it’s easier to manage the costs of outsourcing since you’ll be paying an agreed upon fixed price, so there’s no need to hire new staff if your service levels change. The flexibility will be built into the contract, and the savings created means you can invest that money into more profitable areas of the business.
Using an MSP allows you to maintain the highest service levels for your clients while enabling you to invest more time and money into other areas of your business.
Read our case study on how Great Lakes Computer helped ALL PRO Freight Systems increase customer service support while decreasing the time it took to solve customer problems.
Learn more about the author Bob Martin
