{"id":43349,"date":"2023-06-11T19:53:35","date_gmt":"2023-06-11T15:53:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.msp360.com\/resources\/?p=43349"},"modified":"2024-01-23T19:47:03","modified_gmt":"2024-01-23T15:47:03","slug":"msp-help-desk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.msp360.com\/resources\/blog\/msp-help-desk\/","title":{"rendered":"Creating an Effective MSP Help Desk"},"content":{"rendered":"

As an MSP<\/a>, your goal is to provide customers with managed IT services that are so flawless that they never need to ask for help.<\/p>\n

In reality, of course, no MSP is perfect. Customer support issues will arise from time to time.<\/p>\n

Keep reading for tips on how to set up an effective MSP help desk and best practices that will keep your help desk as organized and efficient as possible.<\/p>\n

What Is an MSP Help Desk?<\/h2>\n

For MSPs, a help desk is a support service where clients can report issues and receive help.<\/p>\n

The purpose of an MSP help desk is to provide your clients with a way to notify your business when they are experiencing IT issues that require your attention. Ideally, the help desk will be available to them whenever a problem arises -- whether during business hours or after.<\/p>\n

A help desk provides customers with a clear place to go when they need support. It also allows you as the MSP to avoid having to contend with ad hoc emails or phone calls from your customers when something goes wrong.<\/p>\n

Creating an MSP Help Desk<\/h2>\n

The following are the major steps for setting up a help desk for your MSP business for the first time.<\/p>\n

1. Design Your Help Desk Goals and Procedures<\/h3>\n

Before you go about opening up a help desk, define the goals and procedures that will power it. This includes determining the scope of support operations you intend to provide (will you troubleshoot any type of IT issue, or will you limit help desk operations to certain domains?), as well as what the workflow will look like for customers to submit requests and for you to respond to them.<\/p>\n

Defining this information upfront will help ensure that you can implement your help desk in an efficient, purpose-driven way. Setting up a help desk first and trying to define your processes later is a mistake.<\/p>\n

Further reading<\/span> Guide to MSP Help Desk Structure<\/a><\/p>\n

2. Hire Support Engineers<\/h3>\n

You need IT support engineers to staff your help desk. Unless you already have spare engineers on staff, you\u2019ll need to hire new engineers to run the help desk.<\/p>\n

The number of engineers you assign to the help desk will vary depending on the periods of operation. You can start small and scale up as your overall MSP business grows.<\/p>\n

Do not try to create 24\/7 support, if you don't have enough human resources. According to Gartner and Milliman Research, it takes at least 8 support engineers to provide a full 24\/7 helpdesk.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Further reading<\/span> Hiring New Employees: 6 Essential Steps for MSPs<\/a><\/p>\n

3. Train Your Engineers<\/h3>\n

Even if the help desk staff you hire are experienced IT engineers, you\u2019ll need to train them in the procedures you\u2019ve defined for operating your help desk. They may also need time to learn any software tools that they will use in their help desk work.<\/p>\n

Be prepared, too, to retrain engineers whenever you change your business offerings or update your help desk operations.<\/p>\n

Further reading<\/span> Help Desk Certification: The Value for MSPs Explained<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

4. Create a Schedule<\/h3>\n

In order to run your help desk as efficiently as possible, you should tailor its schedule to your customers\u2019 needs. To the best of your ability, identify the times of day (and days of the week) when you are most likely to receive support requests, and make sure your help desk is open and most heavily staffed at those times.<\/p>\n

In general, you can expect most requests to come in during normal business hours but, depending on your customers\u2019 business operations and their own scheduling patterns, this may not be the case. A customer that performs certain types of business operations overnight may need support during that period, for instance.<\/p>\n

If you aren\u2019t yet sure when demand will peak, you can modify your schedule once you have started collected support requests and have data that you can analyze to identify trends regarding the timing of requests.<\/p>\n

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\"WP<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Creating SOPs for MSPs:
\nHandling Incoming Support Calls<\/div>\n
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Ensure consistent delivery of service for each case: use a standard operating procedure<\/strong> for handling incoming support calls.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\"CTA\"<\/a><\/span><\/span>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

5. Deploy a Ticketing System<\/h3>\n

Ticketing systems help you keep track of customer support requests. A ticket is created when a request comes in and is then used to store information about the request and your team\u2019s response. When the issue is resolved, the ticket is closed.<\/p>\n

There are a variety of ticketing systems (both open source and commercial) that you can implement.<\/p>\n

Further reading<\/span> Top 7 Free and Open-Source Ticketing Systems for MSPs<\/a><\/p>\n

6. Implement a Knowledge Base System<\/h3>\n

To scale the knowledge of your individual team members and their troubleshooting experiences across the entire team, you\u2019ll need a repository where support engineers can store knowledge base articles for all of the different issues related to all of your offerings for the future reference.<\/p>\n

Microsoft SharePoint, a general-purpose knowledge base system, is one popular platform for this purpose, but there are a variety of other knowledge base tools available that are tailored for technical support teams.<\/p>\n

Further reading<\/span> MSP Knowledge Management Guide<\/a><\/p>\n

7. Monitor Your Progress<\/h3>\n

Be sure to collect metrics about your help desk operations and analyze them on an ongoing basis in order to track your progress and find opportunities for improvement. Key metrics to track include how many requests you receive per day or week, how long the average ticket remains open, and how many staff hours are spent on average responding to requests.<\/p>\n

Surveying your customers is another way to collect valuable insight into how well your help desk is performing. For instance, you can deploy a rating system after each solved ticket - a small survey with three smiley faces (unhappy, neutral, and happy) representing how satisfied the customer is with your help desk performance.<\/p>\n

Further reading<\/span> Top Help Desk Metrics for MSPs<\/a><\/p>\n

8. Embrace Continuous Improvement<\/h3>\n

Don\u2019t think of your help desk as a set-it-and-forget-it affair. Even if you\u2019re satisfied with its current performance, you should strive constantly to find ways to make it better -- both for your customers (by improving metrics like response time) and for your business (by optimizing how much time staff spend on support, and how much the help desk costs you to run).<\/p>\n

Continuously improving your help desk ensures that it remains efficient and streamlined as your MSP business grows.<\/p>\n

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ITIL Incident and Problem Management Checklist<\/div>\n
Download to get the most important ITIL processes for streamlining and standardizing operations, and recommended questions to define gaps and make these processes more efficient.<\/div>\n
\n\"CTA\"<\/a><\/span><\/span>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

MSP Help Desk Best Practices<\/h2>\n

If you\u2019re looking to streamline your MSP business\u2019s help desk by making it as efficient and cost-effective as possible, consider the following best practices:<\/p>\n