Tier 1 Help Desk
Launch Plan
In IT help desk since 2007, ScienceSoft is ready to take on L1 help desk function and ensure fast issue resolution and increased user satisfaction.
Tier 1 Help Desk: the Summary
Tier 1 help desk team:
- Handles all incoming requests from software users.
- Solves app usage issues and basic problems (help with logging in/out, password reset, etc.).
- Deals with customer inquiries concerning your product or service (e.g., product functionality, service description).
- Escalates technical issues to an L2 technical support team.
Lineup of a Tier 1 help desk team: a help desk team lead, L1 support agents, a system administrator.
L1 help desk outsourcing cost: $8 - $18 per ticket based on the scope of activities covered and the complexity of supported IT infrastructure.
ScienceSoft helps both IT and non-IT companies handle T1 help desk requests in line with mature ITSM processes and ITIL principles.
Level 1 Help Desk Setup Plan
When establishing Tier 1 IT help desk for employees, the setup plan depends on the maturity of your company’s IT infrastructure and IT landscape complexity. When creating T1 help desk for customers, you should take into account the complexity of products or services the help desk will deal with.
ScienceSoft outlines the following general setup steps for both options:
- Define the users your help desk will provide support to.
- Define the scope of your help desk, including the types of issues (e.g., software usage issues, service description inquiries) your help desk needs to process, the estimated number of monthly requests, and the number of required help desk team members.
- Identify the goals of your help desk (increasing user support cost-effectiveness, improving CSAT and user adoption rate, etc.).
- Calculate the budget and create a risk management plan.
Best practice: ScienceSoft’s consultants usually advise customers to consider introducing Level 2 help desk or outsourcing L2 support services, if they are likely to receive complex tech requests from users.
ScienceSoft
At this stage, ScienceSoft usually takes the following steps:
- Define help desk KPIs (including first response time, resolution rate, etc.).
- Draw up standard operating procedures (including standards for ticket resolution, reporting process, etc.).
- List communication channels you currently use for business communication in your company (e.g., phone, email, messengers) and decide on additional support channels relevant for your users.
ScienceSoft
3.1. If Tier 1 help desk is done in-house
Hiring and training help desk staff
Duration: 1-3 months
- Define the qualifications a help desk manager and L1 agents need to possess according to your user support needs.
- Conduct onboarding training with hired help desk staff to get them familiar with your company’s organizational structure and products or services you provide.
Best practice: ScienceSoft recommends establishing a mentoring program involving experienced help desk agents to help newcomers handle calls, use ticketing software, and master other user support skills.
Ticket management software selection and customization
Duration: from 1 week (for ready-made software)
- Choose between a free and functionally limited ready-to-use ticket management software, a paid solution with extended features (e.g., omnichannel support, AI-driven chatbots), or custom software completely fitting your case.
- Perform customization (for platform-based software) and integrate it with required IT systems (e.g., CRM, ERP).
Best practice: To increase the effectiveness of our help desk services, ScienceSoft’s L1 help desk teams implement feature-rich tools providing ticket management automation, omnichannel communication, monitoring functionality, a knowledge base for agents and users, integration and customization capabilities.
3.2. If Tier 1 help desk is outsourced
Vendor selection
Duration: ~3 months
If you want to get reduced costs for outsourced help desk, up to 24/7 service provision and an experienced support team, ScienceSoft’s consultants recommend adhering to the following vendor selection steps:
- Short-listing 3-5 vendors with experience in providing L1 help desk services.
- Requesting cost estimate and service presentation from the pre-selected vendors.
- Discussing KPIs, service provision protocols, reporting methods, and knowledge transfer terms.
- Negotiating SLA and L1 help desk costs.
- Deciding on the most appropriate help desk vendor and signing a collaboration contract.
Search for:
- Certified partners of providers of platforms/software you will employ in your help desk (e.g., Microsoft, AWS, IBM, Oracle, ServiceNow, etc.).
- L1 help desk providers that adhere to ITIL standards while providing their services.
- L1 help desk providers that ensure fluency of their help desk specialists in the languages required for your L1 help desk.
ScienceSoft
To launch Tier 1 help desk, either an in-house system administrator or an outsourced help desk team should check whether all help desk staff have access and the necessary permissions to help desk software accounts and functions, configure help desk infrastructure, set up communication channels for users, and perform a help desk demo run.
ScienceSoft
Consider Professional Level 1 Help Desk Services
ScienceSoft L1 help desk services are backed up with 33-year experience in IT and 15-year experience in help desk and application support.
Tier 1 help desk consulting
- Designing Tier 1 help desk.
- Drawing up Tier 1 help desk launch plan.
- Outlining human resources needed for a help desk setup.
- Defining an optimal help desk sourcing model.
- Selecting ticket management software.
- Defining help desk process and team KPIs (first response time, resolution rate, etc.).
Outsourced Tier 1 help desk
- Defining a number of tickets per a required period.
- Calculating price per ticket.
- Defining help desk KPIs and service provision protocols.
- Performing knowledge transfer from your company to our help desk team.
- Delivering L1 help desk tech support according to SLA.
- Providing comprehensive reporting
- 33 years of entire experience in IT.
- 15 years of experience in help desk services.
- 14 years in IT service management (ITSM).
- Strategic partnerships with Microsoft, Amazon, ServiceNow, IBM.
- Serving worldwide 24/7: North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Australia.
- 700+ IT professionals on board.
- Quality-first approach based on a mature ISO 9001-certified quality management system.
- ISO 27001-certified security management based on comprehensive policies and processes, advanced security technology, and skilled professionals.
ScienceSoft’s Hallmark Help Desk Projects
Help Desk for End Users of Product Design Software
ScienceSoft provided 24/7 support to help end users solve troubles with running the product design application.
Application Support for a Global Provider of Loyalty and Advertising Solutions
ScienceSoft provides 8/5 support to end users that encompasses help desk, L2 and L3 support.
Data Capture Application Support for a UK Software Company
ScienceSoft carried out network operations center monitoring, multi-tier support (L1, L2, L3) and customization for the Customer’s structured data capture platform.
Help Desk Services for an Ecommerce Application
ScienceSoft provided a 12/5 helpdesk service, created a knowledge base of support and maintenance documentation, and helped develop training programs for the ecommerce app’s users.
Knowledge Management Software Support for a US Corporation
ScienceSoft adapted its automated IT support workflows to the Customer’s internal processes and ensured quick incident resolution and updates, which resulted in higher CSAT.
Image Management Application Support for a Global Provider of Photo Processing Solutions
ScienceSoft provides L1 and L2 support services to beta testers of the Customer’s applications, and manages the user forum.
ScienceSoft’s Level 1 help desk teams typically include:
Project manager
- Plans and manages the help desk budget.
- Decides on help desk staffing and/or outsourcing needs according to the number and types of issues the help desk deals with.
- Defines help desk project KPIs and oversees their achievement.
- Designs or approves Tier 1 help desk processes (such as escalation, reporting procedures).
Tier 1 help desk team lead
- Establishes goals and KPIs for the help desk team and manages their achievement.
- Plans agents’ work schedules to ensure sufficient support coverage during operating hours.
- Arranges and oversees help desk team professional development.
- Monitors help desk channels to collect help desk performance data.
L1 support agent
- Processes incoming user requests via phone, SMS, email, messengers, etc.
- Creates tickets for all reported issues and collects as much information about incidents as possible.
- Handles common user support cases (e.g., password reset, product usage guidance), and basic technical tasks (reinstalling basic software applications, etc.).
- Escalates complex tech issues to a higher-tier support team.
System administrator
- Installs, configures and monitors all necessary help desk software and hardware.
- Resolves arising help desk software and hardware issues to ensure stable help desk operations.
- Provides timely updates of help desk software.
All in-house
Pros:
- Complete control over the help desk infrastructure and resources.
- A help desk team has a deep understanding of your internal structure and processes, products and services you provide.
Cons:
- High help desk setup and management risks.
- Longer establishment period due to staff hiring and training, and help desk software selection and customization.
- A high turnover of L1 agents.
- Risk of underloaded agents (e.g., an agent can handle 400-500 tickets per month, so two agents are needed to cover 12/5. If an organization has less than 800 tickets, agents will be underloaded).
L1 help desk resources are partially outsourced
Pros:
- Augmented in-house L1 help desk team with experienced third-party L1 agents to quickly handle the increased number of support requests.
- Optimized L1 help desk costs by easily scaling up and down the number of L1 agents according to the volume of incoming inquiries.
Cons:
- May be challenging to synchronize in-house and outsourced teams’ work.
The entire L1 help desk is outsourced to a third-party vendor
Pros:
- Optimal L1 help desk costs.
- L1 help desk team scalability.
- Pre-vetted Tier 1 help desk team.
- Up to 24/7 service coverage.
Cons:
- Possible cooperation challenges with other departments of your company (e.g., data exchange between the help desk and a sales department in case of software product help desk), that can be mitigated by their data integration.
- Challenging communication with in-house L2 help desk should be well-established and carefully managed.
Benefits of Tier 1 Help Desk with ScienceSoft
Mature ITSM processes
Rely on our 14 years of experience with ITSM.
Self-management and service transparency
We deliver our services based on KPIs and SLOs set in the SLA.
Multiple communication languages
Our help desk team speaks 7+ languages.
Service coverage options
8/5, 12/5, 24/5, 24/7 – choose what’s best-suited to your business.
Proactive approach
We don’t just resolve issues, we perform root cause analysis to prevent them.
Help Desk Ticket Management Software Recommended by ScienceSoft
As L1 help desk provision usually requires dealing with a large number of user inquiries, you will need reliable ticket automation software. Here are ticketing management tools ScienceSoft’s professionals typically implement to streamline our L1 help desk services.
Jira Service Management
Description
Strong performer in The Forrester Wave: Enterprise Service Management, Q4 2019.
- Prioritizing, tracking, and assigning incoming requests from various sources (including Slack and Microsoft Teams) to suitable L1 agents.
- Issue root cause analysis to quickly document the root cause of an issue and optimize resolution guidance.
- Knowledge base for users’ self-service.
Best for:
Collaboration-focused IT help desk for small and medium-sized companies.
ServiceNow® ITSM Platform
Description
A 7-time Leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for ITSM Tools.
- Incident management functionality to classify tickets by impact and urgency and assign them to agents.
- Employee service center serves as a single source of information for your employees.
- Virtual Agent for personalized conversations with employees or customers to help resolve L1 issues automatically.
BEST FOR:
IT help desk for companies with 1000+ employees.
ServiceNow® CSM Platform
Description
Leader in the 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for the CRM Customer Engagement Center
- Automatically assigning tickets to L1 agents based on their availability.
- Predictive intelligence for analyzing case descriptions to automatically categorize tickets and recommend solutions to agents to resolve issues faster.
- AI-powered chatbots to resolve common customer issues without an L1 agent’s involvement. The interaction context can be transferred to an L1 agent when human help is needed.
- Self-service portal for customers with a knowledge base.
BEST FOR:
Proactive support of 1000+ customers.
Dynamics 365 Customer Service
Description
Leader in the 2020 Magic Quadrant for the CRM Customer Engagement Center.
- Automated ticket management functionality (creation, routing, escalation, etc.)
- Multiple communication channels (phone, email, web, chats, social networks, SMS).
- AI-driven recommendations of knowledge articles for agents.
- Customizable templates for user surveys to get feedback on the help desk agents’ work.
BEST FOR:
Ticket management requiring multiple integrations with business applications.
Salesforce Service Cloud
Description
Leader in Gartner CRM Customer Engagement Center Magic Quadrant for 12 consecutive years.
- An agent console with integrated telephony, digital channels, and a 360-degree customer view to resolve user issues faster.
- Trailhead (free online learning platform to increase help desk agent productivity and grow skills).
- AI-powered contextual recommendations for L1 agents to follow and provide a better customer experience.
- Einstein chatbots to handle routine requests and optimize your L1 agents’ workload.
BEST FOR:
Customer-oriented ticket management requiring extensive AI capabilities.
SharePoint
Description
Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice 2020 in Digital Experience Platforms.
Can serve as a ticketing system due to its customization and integration friendliness.
- Creating, prioritizing, and organizing L1 tickets into groups (new, important, etc.).
- Color-marking to highlight top priority tickets.
- Tools for building a knowledge base with articles and FAQ for users to handle simple and repetitive questions.
BEST FOR:
Cost-effective solution with basic ticketing capabilities.
Level 1 Help Desk Costs
ScienceSoft’s consultants note that help desk costs vary greatly from project to project. They outline the following essential Tier 1 help desk cost factors that will determine the actual cost of your L1 help desk setup:
General cost factors
- The number of L1 tickets (per month).
- Service time coverage - 24/7, 12/5, 8/5, etc.
- IT landscape complexity or product/service type (higher complexity implies more skilled staff or a higher price per ticket).
- Whether a knowledge base is to be maintained (although the maintenance incurs cost, the knowledge base may reduce the number of tickets).
Outsourced model cost factors
- SLA - response time, first contact resolution, etc. (a higher service level may cause a higher price per ticket).
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Note: Additional costs of in-house L1 help desk include ticketing software customization and licenses (usually charged per user) and maintenance of the ticketing software. |
ScienceSoft typically binds prices per L1 help desk ticket to the number of tickets per month. Here are sample dependencies to get the picture:
$8 per ticket
- Time coverage: 24/7
- 900+ L1 tickets per month
$12 per ticket
- Time coverage: 24/7
- 215-899 L1 tickets per month
$18 per ticket
- Time coverage: 24/7
- 75-214 L1 tickets per month
About ScienceSoft
ScienceSoft is a global IT consulting and IT services company headquartered in McKinney, TX, US. Since 2007, we provide help desk outsourcing services and application support services to help reduce our customers’ support costs and increase the user satisfaction score. Being ISO 9001 and ISO 27001-certified, we rely on a mature quality management system and guarantee cooperation with us does not pose any risks to our customers' data security.