Are you overworked, unappreciated and under-resourced? This book understands you, and provides years and years of User Support experience packed into one volume. The 'How To' book that every IT department needs, it will help turn your helpdesk into a company asset. How to be successful at probably the most stressful job in IT This book offers tools for measuring productivity and features ten key steps for successful support, while User Support successes and failures are revealed in true life case studies. This book gives you techniques for: *Justifying staff and other expenditure * Gaining senior management support * Getting the users on your side * Running a motivated and productive team * Designing and managing services and service levels The second edition of this popular book brings updates to several of the author's ideas, strategies and techniques with new material on: * Customer Relationship Management - definition and the role of the helpdesk * E-Support and the Internet * Contrasting the Call Center and the Helpdesk * first, second and third line support * Operational Level Agreements * Strategies for backlog management * Telephone technologies in user support In addition there is: * A new Template for a Service Level Agreement * An Improved cost justification model for the Internal Helpdesk * A New cost justification model for the External Helpdesk

All of today’s help desk support skills, in one easy-to-understand book The perfect beginner’s guide: No help desk or support experience necessary Covers both “soft” personal skills and “hard” technical skills Explains the changing role of help desk professionals in the modern support center Today, everyone depends on technology–and practically everyone needs help to use it well. Organizations deliver that assistance through help desks. This guide brings together all the knowledge you need to succeed in any help desk or technical support role, prepare for promotion, and succeed with the support-related parts of other IT jobs. Leading technology instructor Darril Gibson tours the modern help desk, explains what modern support professionals really do, and fully covers both of the skill sets you’ll need: technical and personal. In clear and simple language, he discusses everything from troubleshooting specific problems to working with difficult users. You’ll even learn how to manage a help desk, so it works better and delivers more value. Coverage includes: • How the modern help desk has evolved • Understanding your users’ needs, goals, and attitudes • Walking through the typical help desk call • Communicating well: listening actively and asking better questions • Improving interactions and handling difficult situations • Developing positive attitudes, and “owning” the problem • Managing your time and stress • Supporting computers, networks, smartphones, and tablets • Finding the technical product knowledge you need • Protecting the security of your users, information, and devices • Defining, diagnosing, and solving problems, step by step • Writing it up: from incident reports to documentation • Working in teams to meet the goals of the business • Using ITIL to improve the services you provide • Calculating help desk costs, benefits, value, and performance • Taking control of your support career Powerful features make it easier to learn about help desk careers! • Clear introductions describe the big ideas and show how they fit with what you’ve already learned • Specific chapter objectives tell you exactly what you need to learn • Key Terms lists help you identify important terms and a complete Glossary helps you understand them • Author’s Notes and On The Side features help you go deeper into the topic if you want to • Chapter Review tools and activities help you make sure you’ve learned the material Exclusive Mind Mapping activities! • Organize important ideas visually–in your mind, in your words • Learn more, remember more • Understand how different ideas fit together

This textbook is intended for students studying for AS degrees in computer information systems or information technology, or for secondary programs teaching vocational/technical programs, with varying degrees of computer knowledge who are training for jobs in desktop support and help desks.

The Service Desk Handbook - A guide to service desk implementation, management and support provides operational guidance for implementing, managing and supporting service desks in the enterprise. It will help service desk teams in adopting ITIL® to accomplish their tasks while making the necessary adaptations as per their organisation’s needs.

This volume came about as a result of the authors’ own practical experience in Help Desk operation and management and of hundreds of workshops the authors have conducted world-wide over the last fifteen years. It is intended to be a practical reference guide, but the suggestions, checklists and templates all need to be interpreted and amended in the light of the culture, technology, service maturity and constraints of each individual organization. Delegates frequently ask us: “What is the best Help Desk software package?” or “What is the best way to set up a Help Desk?” Our only response has to be “Best for whom? It all depends.” A key objective of this book is to show how and why “It all depends” and to provide readers with the best possible information on which to understand and evaluate options and to select the best - for them. If there is one thing we have learned over the last years, it is this: Good service has no history. Bad service has infinite history. Based on extensive feedback from delegates from most of the Fortune 1,000 companies who have attended courses presented through Frost & Sullivan (Europe), AIC (South Africa), Monadnock (UK), The Infomatics Resource Centre (UK), IIR (UK), Digital Equipment (UK), Logtel (South America), CEL (Asia Pacific), UPMOCL (Middle East), Finborough Seminars, as well as delegates of in-company training for organizations like Dow Europe (Switzerland), The Intervention Board, BP, Shell International Petroleum, Logica (UK), Arthur Andersen (UK), Rolls Royce (UK), Global One (Germany and USA), Caterpillar (Switzerland), GAK (Netherlands), European Commission (Belgium), Transnet (South Africa), Sun Valley (UK), Nikon Precision (UK).

Mark Copeman is a serial entrepreneur and was co-founder of Customer Thermometer, the customer satisfaction tool. He has spent two decades developing customer relationships, building a helpdesk and working with 100's of customer service organisations across the world. During this time, he has discovered the single most important ingredient to delivering exceptional customer service - habit creation and embedding. Mark's formula for success will not only transform how you work, but will also make you a happier and more successful customer service professional. Through his unique framework, he shows you how to create and embed 50 new habits, transforming how you deliver customer service, whether by phone, email or chat. Learn the importance of harnessing habits Develop the right attitude towards your role Understand the importance of human customer service Learn how to communicate effectively See how tiny adjustments in phrasing can win the day Become skilled in empathy and rapport Be assured it's OK to have a personality Read and implement with your team today and turn your helpdesk into a feature, not an overhead.

This detailed look at the "soft" skills needed to succeed as help desk professional will provide students with proven customer support techniques for the workplace.