Role of Help Desk in Stress Management - Essay Example

Help Desk A sole point from where problems s and requests about resolutions of problems are contacted is known as help desk. Help desk also provides such support services which are solution-oriented. Managing Stress at Help Desks Help desk is a stressful place where the agents are constantly dealing with different types of customers who are facing problems and demonstrating their frustration and anger. Before discussing the stress at help desk in a little more detail or how it can be dealt with and reduced, it is important to know what stress is and how it affect an individual. Stress It a strain, which is either emotional or physical, created as a result of a person's reaction to forces from the external environment. But stress can be a result of both external and internal issues. External issues can be about things like relationships, job, difficulties, confrontations or expectations whereas internal ones resolve the body's capacity act in response to the external factors. The frequent responses are irritation, tension, lack of concentration, headache and palpitation among others. .There is vital distinction in the way that people interact with their surroundings and as a result, it has extensive consequences in terms of survival. Stress is an implication that the pressures of the outside world are disturbing a person. The response to stress by an individual is often in such a way that it influences not only him/her but the surrounding as well. Due to the excessive stress in today's lifestyle, people usually perceive stress to be a harmful experience, whereas biologically, stress may be positive or neutral, not just negative. (Panzareno, 1) Effects of Stress It is a natural response from a human that upon encountering a danger, the body starts to gear up by handling it through 'Fight or flight' principle. As a result of this, certain purposeful modifications take place in the body. Consequently, these changes continue until the danger continues. After the threat is gone, the body resumes its normal state and functioning. Such instantaneous, transitory effects are the 'short term effects of stress'. But when stress is constant or recurring, the body continues to secrete pertinent hormones as a result of which, the blood level stays constantly at an above normal point and thus the related modifications continue. The body then goes through stress along with an overburden which is because of the side effects of the steadily high level of stress hormones. As a result of this mechanism, certain irretrievable physiological costs in the brain and relevant physical indications such as organ damage take place. The long term symptoms among others include chronic head ache, mood swings, anxiety disorder, memory disturbances, heart attack, stroke, weight loss and sleeplessness. After the stress factor vanishes, it often happens that the manifestations of stress continue till the time that treatment is done for it. (SF, 1) Stressful Environment in Support Centre Users contact support centre very now and then with their technical issues. The anger and irritation of the users' often find Help desk agents as their targets, where they are vented out. Due to experiencing technical issues, users require a channel for their stress since it can't be taken out on a computer or a software. As a result, either deliberately or subconsciously, users victimize those who are assigned the task of making efforts to find solutions for their problems. This makes the agents, recipient of the stress to which they are exposed to. This situation is worsened even more when the help desk agents objectify the user while finding a technical problem solution; agents forget the fact that usually a "difficult" user is behaving in such a manner due to the stress which they are facing, it may often be termed as temporary insanity. When faced with moments of stress arising due to technical breakdown, users turn impolite and misbehave with the agents, even though their anger is about the problem and not the agent himself/herself, in fact it is usually not concerned with the agent at all, what the user does is direct their anger relevant to their dilemma towards him/her since there is no other means for them other than destroying their machine. In such a mental state of the user, any objectivity directed towards them increases their anger and they argue and misbehave with the agent even more; exposing him to even more stress since majority of the comments and actions of the user stems from negative emotions instead of intellect. But the crux help desk agents become the receivers of the response of the users to complicated circumstances. Dealing with Stress at Help Desk Users tend to channel their irritations at the help desk agents which causes them stress. This makes it important for the agents to know how to deal with various situations that they face at work, so as to handle them efficiently. Help desk agents must keep it in mind that they should be transmitting their consideration towards handling the situation but not towards the angry user. As a result of this, the natural inclination of the agents to back fire at the agents will be alleviated, preventing the situation from growing worse. The agents have to recognize the basis of the frustration of a user, according to Chin (1-2) which can be any of the following or their combination: Lack of personal control: Users are not responsible for creation of the technical problems, which leaves them with no control, giving them a feeling that 'they're at the mercy of a third party'. Lack of attention and action: A user feels deserted in a situation where too much time is being taken by an agent in contacting them or in resolving the problem. Unmet expectations: When the expectation of a user is not met by the solution of their problem, they feel dejected. Feelings of isolation: when a user has no one for relating himself to, he feels remote in calamitous situation. When facing with issues of disappointed users, the agents should try their best to recover their self-control and not be overcome by stress so that they can be more helpful in assisting with resolution of the problem. It is vital that the agents do not let the stress direct them to take user interaction personally as this will create problem for them in working in a front line support department as majority of the users are in a high level of stress which gives rise to frustrated behavior. (Chin, 1-2) Thus, we can see that the stressful environment at the help desk is due to the reason that their staff is concerned with roles dealing with front line customers due to which they are continuously facing problems and events which have to be resolved immediately. Besides, customers have the tendency to get anxious quickly when their services are down or broken, because of which they may over react with the Help Desk agents. Such potentially stressful situations have more chances of occurring when customer satisfaction is low or anger or frustration is being actively demonstrated by the customer. Reducing Stress In order to manage stress, sometimes all that is needed is extra training and enhanced communication as by talking to someone neutral permits the release of the stress.Besides, communication is also essential in averting stress from staling, getting out of control and harming money and business time in dealing with claims of worker compensation stress. Reduction in stress can be made by finding out its reason for existence and functioning on the factors of stress which are negative.Besides, positive job factors may contribute an important fraction in maintaining stress levels at normal. Management at help desk units can offer invaluable support to workers by teaching effective techniques of managing stress. Short breaks should be taken after a stressful event, this helps in preventing their performance from going below average. (IME) These techniques show that agents should be prepared and trained ahead of stressful situations and their possible outcomes. Customers should also be taught the basic self help tricks in case a problem arises rather than calling the help desk immediately. Agents should be empowered to take decisions when facing critical issues. They should not keep the customers waiting for too long and adopt good time-management techniques. Agents should be taught to take stressful situations as a challenge. There are exercises that can help with stress reduction at help desks specifically. Refreshers are easy movements which improve blood circulation and relieve tension in areas such as neck, jaw, wrists, taking a minute or less for each. Breathing is a part of foundation yoga, which shows how to employ calming breath for reducing stress. Concentrations exercises help divert the attention of agents away from stressful situations for a brief while. These exercises help the agents to experience more control when talking to customers and releases the tension in joints of the body, ear shoulders, neck, and lower back; they also relieve the impacts of repetitive motion tasks, and enhances concentration and awareness. (ACG, 1) Future of Help Desk Change is a part of life and this is applicable at all places including help desk. What is currently taking place at help desks was not there in the past and will change in the future but before projecting its future trends, an overlook at the current help desk environment will be informative. Current Help Desk Environments Information technology is a developing field which is changing constantly and therefore it is important to keep pace with it. In the past decade, great leaps have been made in the domain of technology but it is surprising to find that even now many of the organizations are using the outdated models when things were much simpler than it is now. (Frantz, 3-4) In the past, the trend followed at help desk was that after receiving complain from a user, an individual was sent to the user's address to solve the problem; as a result, the dilemma was solved for the user and the organization's cost was minimized. But this trend is not a wise approach in today's world where the networks are converged, making things more complicated. Another reason that adds up to the difficulties is the fact that there are chances for more things to go wrong due to the complex networks. It has therefore become necessary to change the old concept of help desks, where the primary reliance is on communicating by telephone and transform it by accommodating interactions of multiple forms like data, voice, instant messaging and e-mail; this is the current trend which is found in the best help desks these days. (Frantz, 3-4) The changed pattern from the past trend has emerged because of the understanding that by shifting over to things like self-assistance and remote incident resolutions for users, organization are reducing the operational costs at the desk by fifty percent, at the same time radically enhancing the value of the service provided. The key for deriving maximum worth from the IT infrastructure of an organization is employing the more recent options of the help desk; the maximum value is realized as quickly as the e-support tools enabling self-assisted incident resolution are successfully implemented. An efficient desk assists in continuously improving and accessing new developments when they are available, keeping in view that the price is competitive so as to ensure the organizations' agility and ability to quickly adapt inevitable changes that are constantly coming. (Frantz, 3-4) Tools for Improving Help Desk It is expected by customers that today's technical support should be able to reply to them within a few seconds irrespective of the fact that the contact has been done wither through e-mail, voice or chat, and that it should be capable of resolving the problems of the customers' quickly for the period of the initial contact or, at least, be have the ability of gathering and analyzing sufficient data for diagnosing the problem and submitting it to the appropriate support person who can actually provide a solution. Thus, it is expected from the Help Desks that they be capable of providing business value by distinguishing the trends of issues and removing problems that recur and learning and using latest technology for purpose of streamlining the entire process of support. (Christensen, 5-6) Keeping in view the requirements of the customers, various options of designs for help desks are available which are an important tool for matching suitability; attention has to be given to the budgeting and the existing culture of the corporation, the customers and the various services that are to be provided. When more expectations have to be met, Help Desks needs such a support structure that enables it to manage tasks like trailing the trends for problems, analyzing root-cause and resolving problems, designing and carrying out contents for knowledge-management, assembling data and providing report about service level metrics. (Christensen, 5-6) On a less technical side, the tools that can be used for improving help desks are related to help desk agents and include training programs, participation in activities related to change management, implementation and supporting of technologies being used at Help Desks and providing them with tools like knowledge management and self-help. Even with availability of such tools for improvement, there are even now choices available like traditional walk-up and phone, support portal, fax, e-mail, mail and Web chat. (Christensen, 5-6) Another important tool that can be employed and falls under the category of support portal is E-Support. These portals assimilate technology of self-help like resetting passwords and knowledge bases, providing an easy way in which users may find solution to their problems. Besides, these portals offer an added advantage by making it convenient for users for contacting the Help Desk by either permitting them a submittal of request for support from here, or by having the capability of initiating a call for support or chat session. This way every agent present on the Help Desk is a means of staying in contact with the customer but these agents must be empowered for resolving problems swiftly and effectively and at the same time they should present both a polite and professional face to customers by keeping themselves updated with all the information which effects their capacity of providing support. (Christensen, 5-6) Impact of remote support on help desk: There is a recent trend in the international enterprise IT market of using remote support to monitor, remediate and automate the Help desk. Companies are becoming more conscious about costs and are seeking to decrease it even more in all departments including IT operations in any probable way; as a result, the best practices and efficient use of remote support will become more important than before. (Gardener, 1) The purpose of remote support is to ease the on-premises IT personnel so to enable them to concentrate more on their core tasks and divest daily chores, this way organizations can influence the Help Desks remotely with more competence and reduced cost. There are a number of problems often faced by customers like efforts to find out where the failure has exactly taken place in the system when there is a hardware failure, call for more memory or space in the hard drive; such usual problems occurring with customers are the ones which can be made convenient for solving by automating the identification process about the type of problem and its probable solution. (Gardener, 1) There is a move in enterprises from customary phone-in help desk to automated reporting. These are also known as capabilities of "phone home". Such automated processes add to manageability solutions of the customer, the capability of monitoring the entire environment of the enterprise by mechanically presenting occurrences to the provider of the remote support to boost the service level, which consequently develops the accessibility to solutions by means like self help and decreases service cost as well; besides it also assists in managing personnel as there is constant observation 24/7. When the staff leaves the help desk after the day ends, the system continues to monitor and assists in filtering the occurrences that come afterwards, this enables the help desk staff to later precede those complains which are more important and require urgent action. This way the routine chore of prioritizing the incidents is removed, basic troubleshooting is decreased and the time spent in it is reduced by 20 percent and the accurateness of the diagnosis increases by 99 percent resulting in speeding up the troubleshooting procedure and isolation of the problem. (Gardener, 1) Impact of Outsourcing on Help Desk Many of the functions in organizations are being outsourced in various places; a increasing drift in today's world is the outsourcing of individual help desk function or of the entire IT operation including the help desk. Outsourcing of help desk may not be suitable for all types and sizes of enterprises but to some it brings significant benefits. The major benefits are related to the concept of economies of scale and of exploiting a provider who an expert and is focused, but it should be kept in mind that the help desk management through outsourcing does not eliminate the eventual responsibilities of the in-house IT staff as a poor provision for help desk negatively impacts both the outsourcing firm and the help desk provider. Due to this reason, organizing the help desk holds significant value and the decision to outsource must be based on the right structure of the management and agreements that are to firmly in place. The arrangement of outsourcing has to be controlled and acknowledged in such a way that the service is defined in a clear and strict manner; an official agreement of service is ready along with a legal contract. This means that the help desk operation has to be vigilantly planned along with formally prepared transition plan and available full audit capabilities whether its being done by organization itself or it has been outsourced. (HDW, 1) Soft Skills and Telephone Skills Analysis For people working at the help desk, not only technical skills are important but soft skills are equally vital. The following discusses what is meant by soft skills. Soft Skills These skills are also called emotional intelligence, and it is these skills that create a distinction between those employees who merely perform a job and those who perform it well. Examples of soft skills are interpersonal skills, written and verbal communication, motivation, leadership, problem solving and creativity. These skills are independent of technical abilities and can easily be transferred to employee at any level of the organization when a need arises. Traits like teamwork, flexibility and integrity are wanted by employers these days because they acknowledge the fact that those who are good at communicating and possess a strong work ethic constitute a good employee. Consequently, incorporation of the soft skills makes a great difference in performance and chances of future growth by increasing efficiency and creating significant gains for the organization. (Keppie, 1) Soft Skill Needed by Help Desk Agents Help desk agents also require soft skills training in order to groom their performance. Technical support agents mostly target customer service training and improvement as their major goal in soft skills training. There are a lot of alternatives available for improving technical skills by obtaining different types of certifications and trainings, but with respect to soft skills specially customer service, the options are either restricted or they are very costly or obsolete. More examples of soft skills are expertise in communicating, listening, problem solving and managing stressful situations. The Best Practices survey of 2002 shows that these are the skills which are graded among the most important list of training needs for the help desk agents. It has been indicated by agents that even though they want to do a greater number of soft-skills training, conventional means of doing so often fail due to lack of budgetary and informational resources. Most of the training courses which are provided off-site are expensive; besides they also divert the agents from the help desk for a long period of time, and bring upon travel expenses. There are options like video, audio and web training but they do not have the personal worth that are found in instructor-led training, have less chances of being completed, quickly gets obsolete and can be costly specially for small and medium sized supports. The soft skills are important for help desk agents for various reasons but the most important reasons are that people have to perform their tasks more efficiently, enjoy job satisfaction and stay away from annoyance or burn out and acquiring these skills enhance the ability of agents to be organized and constantly learn new skills (insight). Good and Bad Telephone Skills A person who communicates through telephone with sources like suppliers, business partners or customers is required to have good telephone skills at the most fundamental level at least. The telephone is a crucial source of entering into different types of business, specially a help desk. It is therefore vital to bear in mind the various benefits that are a consequence of improving customer service telephone skills; like presenting an image of company which is more professional, making calls more efficient and directed, reducing the period of the call because of better skills and services, reduction in stress by employing the right skills and techniques and increasing the level of satisfaction for both parties. It is essential to acknowledge the fact that those who are contacting the helpdesk service are expecting certain things from them like good service because they make calls due to some reason, on time response without having the phone ring on forever, a welcoming attitude, polite but professional outlook, given the reverence and attention. Some of the most basic good telephone skills include: The art of answering a call like attending it on second ring, clarity in voice tone and offering to help. Getting the name of the caller for use while on the call. Regain control and direct people for coming to the point by leading with a question or offering a solution in a firm but polite manner. Explain to the caller when putting them on hold and if possible, check back every 30-40 seconds and eventually thank them for holding Dealing with persistent callers by being proactive and giving them a call rather than wait for their call as it keeps them informed, saves time and lets the caller know that they have not been forgotten When ending the conversation, make a summary of the important points and restate any promises, finally permit them to hang up first. On a more advanced level, there are more skills to refine. When users call, remember that they are having a problem and require solution rather than a lecture about software or hardware. Thus, the operator has to think about the problem and its available solution to themselves. This has a constructive effect on the efficiency of the help desk by swifter resolving of the caller's problem and improving their satisfaction. It is important to remember that the language communicates strongly to the listener as voice tones are expressive about things like the mood of the caller and their volume and expressions may supplement or hinder from effectively communicating. Help desk agents can often cast the user as their victim by seeing the person as the problem instead of the technology, thereby using language in a more convicting manner. A language used by agents after perceiving the user to be their victim results in tension yielding a patronizing attitude which can make the situation worse, decrease the efficiency of a help desk and negatively impacts customer satisfaction and service quality. Besides, expression and words which are weak should be avoided; as they convey the message that a preferred outcome is not certain and that the agents are not really competent and professional. It is essential that the promises made to callers are not left unfulfilled and if an unexpected problem delays the result, user should be informed at the earliest upon receipt of the needed information. Agents should be trained for not implicating that something is impossible, rather they should hand over the problem to a more capable person if such situation arises. By making use of correct questioning, effectual communication and resolving of problems often promoted at the help desk. When a question is appropriate and is constructed prudently, it often determines the caller's requirement in less time and minimizes difficulties. By making use of open ended as well as close ended questions appropriately, a proper balance can be reached and the help desk call can be transformed from a caller directed to one which is in control by the help desk operator in a cooperative and efficient style. (PRD, 1) Developing Good Soft Skills for Support Rep It is realized today by the Help Desk professionals that in order to achieve excellence, what is required is not just technical knowledge as mere resolving of technical issues can still leave an unhappy customer.What is needed is training in not just the technical things but in soft skills as well specially customer service which includes problem solving, communication, process management and analytical skills. Both of these are considered to be necessary for successful help desk agents. (Stephens, 1-4) What is important is to first understand the required soft skills for the support reps. Secondly, a skill profile should be developed for providing support managers with a list of what is required to define and provide training in order to enhance the skill if the present staff, enabling them to fulfill the demands of the present and future customer and communicating the objective requirements to the staff which are needed for progressing in the organization. The skills needed for the support rep in the organizations are mostly customer service, knowledge in the specific domain, operation of a certain product and knowledge of using those tools and processes which are needed to deliver services to users. The type and weightage of each mentioned skills varies depending upon the kind of product being used and the supported customers. The most important sills that have to be developed by support staff are customer service and administrative ones as these are most of the time employed in a support environment. (Stephens, 1-4) Now that it has been found which soft skill is most important for the support reps, there are ways in which these skills can be developed. A rep should be aware of the different achievement levels which are needed; they may be simple or difficult, depending on the role of the staff. The skills which have been determined through different methods like assignments or tasks should be valued according to their importance for each person; this gives a method for analyzing the shortfalls and for clearly defining the skills that have to be developed. It is sometimes advisable to benchmark the skills with other professionals and then plan on finalizing which skills are needed the most. Some of the most important soft skills for the support reps can be certifications related to customer service skills, help desk and support programs and training for customer service representative. (Stephens, 1-4) Works Cited ACG "New Guide Helps Customer Service Reps Reduce Stress and Relieve the Effects of Repetitive Motion: Timeless Yoga Techniques Updated for the Modern Office" Alexander Communications Group .Press release. 25th October 2005. 14th February 2009 Chin, P. "Dealing with Difficult Users (Help Desk, Part 3)" 24th October 2006. 14th February 2009. Christensen, P. "Organizing the help desk" n.d. 16th February 2009 Frantz, M.G. "The Evolution of the IT Help Desk to the Service Desk-An Examination of Current and Future Trends" January 2006. 16th February 2009 Gardener, D. "HP Explains Advantages of Remote Support for Enterprises" 10th December 2008. 16th February 2009 HDW. "Help Desk Outsourcing and IT Outsourcing" 2003. 16th February 2009 IME. "Reducing Stress in the Workplace". Online newsletter. October 2002. 14th February 2009. Insight. "Soft Skills Training For Agents" 5th September 2003. 16th February 2009 Keppie. "What are "Soft" Skills" n.d. 14th February 2009 Panzareno, P.J. "What is stress" n.d. 14th February 2009 PRD. "Helpdesk Spotlight -Telephone Skills" n.d. 14th February 2009 SF. "Beware! Stress Could Cause Serious Long-Term Effects" n.d. 14th February 2009 Stephens, B. "Five Steps to Building a Skill and Knowledge Profile for Your Support Center"n.d. 16th February 2009 Read More