As an IT Director, you’re in control of all aspects of technology. From strategy to vendor management to help desk and printer issues, it’s all on you. You could use a little relief, but you don’t want an IT company to come in and completely phase you out. There are a lot of perks to bringing on a managed services provider, though. We blogged about how it makes an IT Director’s life easier. But right now I want to focus on what IT Directors really hate – help desk. It’s a world that can get pretty overwhelming and messy if not managed properly or managed by a single person. What do help desk nightmares look like to you?
Sammy Salesman.
You and I both know exactly who I’m talking about. He’s never in the office and when he is it’s all a fire drill. He needs it now. He can’t wait. Your priority issues don’t matter. He’s huffy and he doesn’t understand technology, but he knows everything. Things take longer when you’re helping him. He’s in a meeting. He’s on a sales call. He’s out networking and prospecting. Your personal hell would be troubleshooting an entire staff full of Sammy.
Amy the Admin.
Amy has been around since the organization got its start. She knows everything about everything and refuses to accept new technology. She doesn’t understand why any workflow should change and if it were up to her she would never use the company’s software application and refuses to use the office chat software. She often talks about how complicated technology makes everything and never responds to tickets that she opens.
Marty the Millennial.
Marty’s a nice guy and you really appreciate how much technology he uses, but you don’t appreciate his Google Guru mentality. He always seems to have the fix to any issue that he encounters, but actually ends up making things worse by applying makeshift fixes. He’s continually frustrated with the speed of the internet and network and doesn’t hesitate to let everyone around him know.
Charles the CEO.
You’re always a little scared when Charles needs something. It’s not that he’s needy, it’s just that you set the strategy meeting three different times and had to cancel it because of user issues and a server project. But it’s inevitably a request to help his wife with her laptop or remap his iTunes library to his latest iPhone. He wants to be first priority no matter what else is going on, even on Sunday morning or 11 o’clock at night.
Is some of this sounding familiar? If you’re struggling to keep up with the mountain of demands from your needy users, it might be time to outsource your help desk support. Find a managed services provider and explain the situation to them. Form a partnership rather than an adversary so that you can come out the hero rather than the person that dropped the ball. Because when you’re tasked with so much, you inevitably will. Being proactive will help keep the nightmare users away and release some of your already overstretched schedule to focus on more important things.
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