How To Lower Your Corporate IT Support Costs

• Why Outsource Level 1 Help Desk Support:

On the surface, it seems a no-brainer: Why pay extra to hire an outside company for Level 1 Help Desk support when the demand does not exist and or we handle it in -house with our current IT staff. There are several things to look at when considering Help Desk support. The first is the cost of call resolution, the second is how the support is being delivered, and the third is the structure for support.

• Your Real Cost For Call Resolution:

When you consider the cost to resolve a Level 1 service request you find in most companies they have their Level 2 IT staff taking the calls and providing the support. What I mean by Level 2 IT staff is a person who makes $100,000 per year, carries certifications in several areas and their primary job is Network Administration, Server Maintenance and Project Implementation. The latest metrics for providing service at this level is $66 dollars per incident. In comparison when you use a Level 1 service specialist making $36,000 per year, the latest metrics are $24 per incident. The savings is $42 per incident or 63%. If you multiply the number of incidents per year by this number, you get your annual savings.

• How Your Current Service Model Works:

How is the support being delivered? In a good service model a phone request is answered in 30 seconds,

an e-mail is responded to in 15 minutes and remote access for problem resolution takes place within 30

minutes. Statistics show that when these service metrics are not met people look elsewhere for support.

They look primarily in two places. One they do Self-Help by searching the internet, reviewing manuals

and using the help feature provide by the programs. The second is they seek Peer Support, which is

where Joe asks Mary for help. The cost for this type of support ranges from $48 to $196 per hour

depending on the salaries of the people involved.  The way to measure, how much Self-Help and or Peer

Support is taking place in your company is to use the latest metrics for user service requests. A Help

Desk should receive nine calls per day per 100 users and or three calls per user per month. If you’re Help Desk numbers fall below this then your service model is ineffective, they are looking elsewhere for support, and it is costing the company money in lost productivity.

• The Ideal Structure For Cost Effective Service Model:

There are several parts to a well-structured Help Desk, and the most important is call resolution. Current metrics state that 20% of all service requests are resolved on first call, 35% require a few days and 45% either take to long or sometimes never get resolved. The next generation Help Desk has first call resolution at 90% and all calls resolved with-in 24 hours. Better training and the use of the latest Help Desk software accomplishes this. The next most important area is ease of use and access. The latest Help Desk software's have Web Chat, Searchable Knowledgebase’s, E-mail Service Requests that are accessed from an icon on your desktop and Direct Dial phone support. To make all this possible the software has to have an efficient ticketing system with automatic escalation rules and a manager’s portal to make sure all calls are resolved within 24 hours