What is IT Support?

As technology becomes embedded in virtually every business and aspect of daily life, support for the technology, known as IT support, becomes a critical need in virtually every organization. Internally, when support is provided well people are able to be more productive. Still, when technical services are provided to external customers, IT support becomes even more important as it forms the basis for overall satisfaction with the business providing the technology.

What does IT support do?

From swiftly resolving problems to ensuring system backups, you might find yourself asking — what is IT support? IT support covers a wide range of assistance for diverse technologies and associated products, encompassing networks and devices. This support can range from resolving technical issues and installing software to simpler tasks like resetting passwords. In-house IT support is essential for reducing disruptions in employees' workdays and addressing their technical needs. To enhance employee productivity and decrease frustration, IT support should ideally be available around the clock. Within your company, this may manifest as a helpdesk, technical assistance, or another form of IT support.

An IT support specialist often communicates with staff to troubleshoot IT issues, ensuring a clear understanding of the problem at hand. They also play a crucial role in training staff during the rollout of new software, guiding them through the new features and functionalities. Additionally, these specialists are responsible for upgrading systems to enhance performance and security. In critical situations, such as a server outage, they swiftly take action to resolve the issue, minimizing downtime and ensuring business continuity.

While IT support is generally viewed as the technical support activities provided to end users by IT personnel, many often ask, “What does IT support do?”. Essentially, IT support represents the warranty aspect of service delivery:

• Ensuring the service is available and performs well

• Performing day to day maintenance tasks

• Performing operational tasks related to the service

• Providing just in time training and support to end users

• Resolving product/service issues

• Keeping response times and resolution times low

Various IT support levels

Within the realm of IT support, it's important to recognize the distinction between two key roles: IT support specialists and technicians.

IT Support Specialist:

Operating at the forefront of technical assistance, IT support specialists are the initial point of contact for users facing a diverse array of issues. Their expertise lies in swiftly triaging and diagnosing problems, focusing on promptly resolving straightforward cases.

They provide immediate solutions, offer guidance on common issues, and play a pivotal role in escalating more complex problems. IT support specialists gather essential information before passing cases to the next tier, where specialized technicians take over.

Some tasks might include:

• Triaging requests going into the IT department.

• Acting as a front-line “service provider” and customer support contact along with IT support.

• Understanding business needs and how those translate to IT functions.

IT Technician:

Occupying the second-line support tier, IT technicians handle issues of greater complexity. Their responsibilities include addressing advanced challenges such as managing backups, troubleshooting database issues, and optimizing network services. Technicians possess specialized knowledge and skills, allowing them to delve deeper into intricate technical matters. 

As second-line support, IT technicians are instrumental in ensuring the stability and functionality of critical systems and services within an organization. Their role is crucial for dealing with more advanced technical issues and maintaining the overall integrity of IT infrastructure.

Some tasks might include:

• Providing technical support for operating systems (like Microsoft).

• Performing regular maintenance on computer systems.

• Installing antivirus software on business machines (like company laptops).

• Performing system upgrades and servicing business mobile devices.

How is IT support changing?

IT support is everywhere and part of every business. IT support is also an area that is currently transforming:

• Light-out operations mean that many of the day to day maintenance tasks and response to issues have become automated, leaving personnel available for more strategic and proactive work

• Chat bots are replacing IM, providing just in time support to end users, with more difficult issues being ticketed for support personnel or transferred to a staffed chat queue

• Predictive analytics are enabling the automation of responses based on patterns of past behavior: alerts can be responded to automatically or proper personnel engaged

As the IT support landscape changes, it’s important for organizations to be ready for the change and a thorough understanding of IT support can assist with this.

Help desk vs. service desk vs. technical support

Understanding the distinctions between a help desk, a service desk, and technical support is crucial for organizations aiming to provide effective assistance to their users in the realm of IT support.

Help Desk:

The help desk serves as the initial point of contact for users seeking swift assistance with basic technical problems. Its primary role is to offer rapid support, guide users through straightforward issues, and facilitate the prompt resolution of common problems. 

Help desk staff excel at addressing level 1 inquiries and requests, representing the frontline support for an organization's IT needs.

Service Desk:

The service desk is an evolved version of the help desk, characterized by a more strategic approach to IT support. It goes beyond resolving immediate technical issues and takes on a broader role in managing IT incidents and service requests directly with users. 

Service desk professionals handle a wide range of user needs, from troubleshooting technical problems to coordinating and overseeing IT service requests. Their focus is on optimizing IT service delivery and enhancing the overall user experience by aligning IT services with the organization's strategic goals.

Technical Support:

Technical support represents the highest level of technical expertise compared to both the help desk and service desk. This tier specializes in resolving problems that often extend beyond the scope of initial troubleshooting. 

When users encounter complex issues requiring specialized expertise, technical support professionals step in. With the necessary technical knowledge and skills, they delve into intricate technical challenges, resolving hardware or software issues, managing network configurations, addressing system integrations, and more.

How does IT support fit into your company?

Given that IT support covers two main areas, operations and support, understanding the essentials of each is important. Operational IT support is concerned with the ability to effectively operate systems and services and address issues when they arise. There are three primary areas of responsibility:

Production support:

Providing day to day support for routine tasks like monitoring batch jobs and printing as well as ensuring maintenance tasks like backups are properly performed and available via an off-site location. Much of this is now automated, with staff ensuring automated functions have been performed successfully. In a lights-out operation, IT support staff will monitor consoles, restarting jobs and addressing issues for a large number of systems, rather than performing the tasks themselves.

Operational support:

Managing issues as they arise, making repairs and ensuring systems and services operate effectively. IT support personnel will be engaged in incident management, by investigating issues and restoring service, but will also be heavily engaged in looking for the root cause of these issues or at operational patterns of issues, looking for areas that need to be addressed more permanently. This is problem management and is focused on proactively avoiding issues that affect performance and availability.

User support:

Providing IT support to end users of a system or service, answering questions and offering guidance on use, addressing issues the end users experience (as distinguished from system-wide issues) and supporting computing equipment and accessories they use is a key part of IT support.

When IT support is performed well and systems are stably operated, it is the end user support that is most visible and by which most organizations are judged, so it’s as critical to get end-user support done well as it is to be able to support the systems and services themselves. There are several key factors to providing successful IT support to end users:

• Ease of engagement and availability of multi-channel support

• Ensuring clear service expectations

• Recognizing and resolving common end-user issues quickly

• Providing knowledge self-service support

IT Support fundamentals

Getting these basics right is the first step of providing great IT support and the basics begin with end user support. Responsiveness and customer service are two of the most basic areas on which to focus, but these are dependent on the scalability of the IT support model. As systems and services grow and as companies expand, IT support organizations need to be able to scale without continually adding staff, while maintaining responsiveness and service. Automation is a key component to being able to do this, and the design of the IT support environment is critical. It begins with the channels used for IT support.

Ease of engagement and IT Support channels

At its most basic, customer satisfaction with IT support will begin with how easy IT makes it to engage IT support personnel. This is where support channels become important. Traditionally, IT support offered a single channel: phone. As email use grew, a second channel was added. Today, there are multiple support channels, each with its own benefits and disadvantages, as shown in the table below.

Of the options shown, chat, chat bots and the concierge desk offer more innovative options for delivering IT. They represent both an inexpensive and scalable option and a more expensive, but high-touch option. IT support options should be considered from the customer's viewpoint and the expected outcomes. For example, while the concierge desk approach may be more expensive than operating a service desk, it is an effective way to lower some desktop support costs by centralizing support in a building while increasing customer satisfaction (consider the success of the Apple genius bar and Best Buy’s Geek Squad walk up window and how they transformed home computer support).

Consider the following costs when looking at the financial viability of establishing concierge desks:

• When properly staffed and managed, a staff person can drop by on their lunch hour, before or after work, getting near-immediate resolution. This increases the end user's productivity.

• The concierge desk personnel combine the cost of a service desk analyst plus a desktop support analyst into a single role, while increasing end-user productivity. In a traditional setting, both a service desk analyst and a desktop support analyst would touch a single incident ticket and spend time working it.

It may seem like many of these channels are duplicative and effort should be made to consolidate, but that’s not the case. People of different ages and technical ability will opt into different support styles and the end user can choose what’s best for the situation and their comfort level that drives up satisfaction with the services provided by IT support.

Service expectations

When IT support cannot provide immediate service, managing customer expectations becomes crucial. It's essential to communicate the expected service time, whether it's for resolving issues or fulfilling requests. Service level agreements (SLAs) play a key role in this process. SLAs are formal agreements between IT support and customers, outlining expected service levels. They serve to set clear customer expectations and may prompt customers to escalate requests if they have strict deadlines. Without SLAs, customers may anticipate immediate service and express dissatisfaction when it's not met.

Quick resolution

Employees have high expectations when they seek IT support, desiring knowledgeable assistance. Achieving this involves utilizing a knowledge base and providing training or experience to support staff. While many IT support organizations are not as proficient in developing knowledge as they could be, this is an area with great potential. Effective knowledge management aids swift issue resolution by level-one technicians and serves as the foundation for chatbots and self-service options. Consequently, investing in knowledge-building not only enhances immediate customer satisfaction but also yields long-term benefits.

Providing knowledge and self-service

This investment in building knowledge supports the last key basis for IT support. Once knowledge articles are created for service desk use, they become available for self-service use via a service portal and support chat bot functionality. This investment pays off in multiple ways: it enhances IT support from the service desk for users who prefer assistance, and it empowers chatbots and self-service channels. Notably, well-designed chatbots can bridge the gap between utilizing knowledge and contacting the service desk, providing a reassuring human-like interaction for hesitant users.

Feedback loops for development and operations

Effective IT support requires a strong feedback system between front-line issues and back-end processes. This involves:

• Identifying usability and operational issues.

• Logging all issues in a service management tracking tool.

• Categorizing information for analysis.

It's crucial that all support channels integrate with the ITSM tool for efficient issue tracking. Additionally, a simplified categorization structure, typically with no more than 10 categories and 5 sub-categories each, helps in effective trend analysis without overwhelming complexity.

Benefits of IT Support

When virtually everything a business does is supported by technology, IT support is critical, providing the following benefits (at least):

• Increased employee/customer satisfaction

• Increased business productivity and/or revenue

• Proactive identification of issues

Increased satisfaction

Regardless of whether it is increased customer satisfaction, resulting in greater revenue, or employee satisfaction, resulting in greater retention, IT support’s ability to provide prompt and effective support does result in downstream benefits. While increased revenue is a benefit of the ability to provide excellent external support, employee retention is a great reason to focus heavily on excellent IT support internally. 

Personal satisfaction is a key factor in employee retention and unreliable systems and services combined with poor support impact productivity, which has an impact on personal satisfaction with the job. With millennial turnover costing $30.5 billion annually in the US (according to Gallup), and the cost of replacing employees ranging from 30% to 400% of annual salary (depending on their level) every activity that increases employee satisfaction provides a cost benefit to the organization.

Increased productivity

There is a cost associated with downtime, both at the system and employee level. With virtually every activity supported by desktop or device use, businesses cannot afford to have an employee off-line for any lengthy period of time. IT support is a critical asset in this respect. Organizations who focus only on system issues and put employee issues on the back burner are costing their companies money in terms of lost employee productivity, equal to the amount of revenue the employee could produce in a day or the cost of paying them to achieve few results while their equipment is unavailable. 

Even worse, when employees turn to personal devices to be productive when company-provided assets fail, they expose the company to cybersecurity risk. IT support must develop the ability to manage both system level and personal computing issues effectively. To be effective, IT support needs to find a balance between addressing critical system failures while still having time to address individual issues in a timely manner.

Identifying system/service issues:

The feedback a central IT support function provides to application and infrastructure teams is a priceless benefit of IT support. This feedback enables improvement efforts that are critical to effectively operating a service effectively over time.

It enables IT to proactively address system issues and improve availability and performance. Taken to the individual level, knowledge of the personal issues reported to IT support also enable teams to address issues with design and usability (or function). 

These are equally as important as system-level issues as they impact worker productivity. Poor performance related to design can slow down the use of a product, making workers less productive and lowering overall company revenue due to the lack of productivity.

Taken externally, the ability to provide a well-designed digital experience makes a product more competitive. Thus, IT support’s ability to identify customer issues with external services translates to higher customer satisfaction and revenue. The products that succeed in a fast-paced digital environment are both stable and usable.

Customer feedback provides critical information to improve usability, providing the IT support organization is able to distill it from the tickets logged by support personnel. Where they can, the business is at a distinct advantage over the competition.

How to build an IT support team

Building an effective IT support team involves thoughtful considerations to align the team's structure with your organization's specific requirements. Whether you're a global corporation with multiple locations or a small business with a single office, providing IT support is essential, but the optimal IT support team structure can vary significantly.

Key factors to consider when establishing your IT support team include:

• Geography/location coverage: The geographical spread of your organization plays a crucial role in defining the structure of your IT support team. A global enterprise may require a different setup than a smaller organization with a single corporate office.

• Hours/days of operation: Determining the hours and days during which your IT support team will be available is essential. Consider factors like time zones and business hours to ensure adequate coverage.

• Languages supported: If your organization operates in multiple regions with different languages, language support becomes a vital consideration. Ensure that your team can assist users in the languages they are comfortable with.

• Level of support provided: Define the level of IT support your organization needs. This can range from basic helpdesk services to more advanced support involving desktop support, application support, and technical troubleshooting.

How to build an IT support team

Define Roles and Responsibilities: Clearly outline the roles and responsibilities of each team member. This includes specifying areas of expertise, support coverage, and any specialized skills required.

Recruitment and Hiring: Identify and recruit individuals with a mix of technical skills and strong interpersonal abilities. Look for candidates with relevant certifications and experience in IT support. Conduct thorough interviews to assess both technical and soft skills.

Training and Development: Provide comprehensive training to the team to ensure they are well-versed in the organization's IT infrastructure, systems, and processes. Continuous learning opportunities and skill development programs can keep the team updated with the latest technologies.

Communication Skills: Emphasize the importance of effective communication skills. IT support involves interacting with users who may not have technical backgrounds. Clear communication is essential for understanding issues, explaining solutions, and maintaining positive interactions.

Implement Service Desk Tools: Invest in service desk tools and systems that streamline ticketing, tracking, and resolution processes. These tools help in managing workflows efficiently and provide insights into support performance.

Establish Processes and Workflows: Develop standardized processes and workflows for issue resolution. This ensures consistency in handling different types of IT problems and helps in measuring team performance.

Encourage Collaboration: Foster a collaborative environment within the team. Encourage knowledge sharing, regular team meetings, and collaboration on complex issues. This enhances the collective expertise of the team.

Customer-Centric Approach: Instill a customer-centric approach in the team. Emphasize the importance of empathy, patience, and positive communication when dealing with end-users. A focus on customer satisfaction contributes to the overall success of the IT support team.

Performance Monitoring and Feedback: Implement performance metrics and regularly monitor the team's performance. Provide constructive feedback to help team members improve and recognize achievements. This ensures a continuous improvement cycle.

Adaptability and Flexibility: IT environments are dynamic, and the team should be adaptable to changes. Encourage a culture of flexibility, innovation, and a proactive approach to problem-solving.

Security Awareness: Ensure that the team is well-versed in cybersecurity best practices. Security is a critical aspect of IT support, and team members should be trained to identify and address potential security threats.

When hiring IT Support managers, consider:

• Technical proficiency.

• Innovative thinking and openness to new technologies.

• Proactive problem-solving.

• Strong leadership.

• Analytical skills.

• Exceptional customer service.

• High energy and stress management.

• Skill development focus for their team.

Skillsets required for IT Support:

Roles in IT support demand a combination of technical proficiency, effective communication skills, the ability to follow written instructions, strong writing and documentation abilities, empathy, good customer service skills, and quick learning capabilities. While technical skills can be acquired through training, the importance of soft skills such as communication and customer service cannot be overstated. These qualities are intrinsic to providing exceptional IT support and are often more challenging to teach. Successful IT support professionals excel in both the technical and interpersonal aspects of their roles, ensuring not only the resolution of technical issues but also a positive and supportive interaction with users.

How to hire for IT support

A quick tip for hiring in IT support is to prioritize candidates with a strong combination of technical expertise and excellent communication skills. While technical proficiency is crucial for problem-solving, effective communication is equally important for interacting with end-users who may not have a technical background. Look for candidates who can convey complex information in a clear and understandable manner, as this is essential for providing efficient and user-friendly IT support.

How can Freshservice improve your IT Support?

In today's digital age, effective IT support is paramount for businesses to maintain smooth operations and ensure employee productivity. Managing IT requests and operations can be complex, often involving multiple departments and collaboration tools. To streamline and enhance IT support, businesses require a comprehensive tool that can centralize their efforts.

Freshservice offers a comprehensive suite of IT service management capabilities designed to enhance the efficiency of modern businesses. With its powerful features, it empowers employees to seamlessly handle IT requests within their existing workflows. 

In the realm of IT operations management, Freshservice bridges the gap between service and operations seamlessly. It offers features such as automated alert grouping, on-call management, and intelligent alert management rules. These functionalities are instrumental in ensuring that your business operations run smoothly, with incidents being addressed promptly and effectively.

Freshservice's IT asset management capabilities provide real-time visibility into your IT infrastructure, simplifying the creation and maintenance of an auto-updating CMDB (Configuration Management Database). This feature streamlines the management of hardware, software, and SaaS assets, enabling you to effortlessly keep track of your valuable resources.

By incorporating Freshservice into your IT support ecosystem, your organization can achieve improved efficiency, enhanced incident management, streamlined operations, and overall better service delivery. It provides a centralized platform that aligns with the needs of modern businesses seeking to optimize their IT support processes.