During these times when COVID-19 has forced organizations to find ways to reduce their budgets and improve their bottom lines, many organizations are hiring outsourced help desk teams to help save money, time and improve processes. Failure to properly select the right team can be the difference between the success and failure of your IT organization, but do you know what traits to look for in an outsourced help desk team? If your organization is looking to hire an outsourced help desk team, here are 5 essential traits you should look for.
1. Knowledge & Expertise
The right outsourced help desk team should come with a lot of knowledge and expertise. In an increasingly competitive business world, hiring the wrong team could mean missing out on key trends and opportunities that could help advance your organization. You'll want a team that focuses on continuous improvement and finding ways to shift more resolutions to the help desk, which will result in faster resolutions and happier clients. Look for a team that is agile, able to adapt rapidly, and able to work closely with you, because their experience can be highly advantageous both in the short and long term.
2. Good Reputation
All organizations want to have a good reputation, and for the clients you support, the help desk is often the face of IT and the organization. This means taking your reputation into account when hiring an outsourced help desk team. Is the help desk team as reputable as your organization? If yes, there will be no disconnect or backlash from your clients. Remember, having to rebuild a tarnished reputation will be more costly than outsourcing.
3. Quality Service
Hiring the right outsourced help desk team should result in better quality service to your clients. Good outsourcing teams have access to technological advancements that ensure quality and a process to measure their agents’ service quality. They should come with a level of excellence that is driven by predictable, repeatable processes that allows your clients to know what to expect when they engage the help desk and your IT teams will know what to expect when they engage the help desk. In the end, both groups should feel comfortable and confident they will be taken care of by the help desk.
4. Cost Effective
The reason for outsourcing, other than to improve processes and efficiencies, is to also improve the bottom line. However, if the outsourced help desk team you hire can't handle simple processes, the whole idea of cost saving can be lost. Usually, organizations outsource their help desk to resolve more issues at the help desk, at a lower cost. This returns clients back to work quicker and also frees up higher paid staff to focus on more strategic areas of the organization. It's important to ensure you find an outsourced help desk team that is not only affordable, but brings value to the organization.
5. Communication
When communication is lacking or limited in an organization, it impacts quality and results in unnecessarily long wait times for your employees or clients. With that being said, cultural differences and time zone barriers should not be overlooked. It's important to find an outsourced help desk team that has a reputation of communicating clearly with the people they support as well as other support teams. It’s also important that they can help with any foreign language requirements and can communicate with and support your employees and clients around the globe. Continuous communication is always at the heart of success, which is why you should hire an outsourced help desk team that you can easily communicate with.
Having the right outsourced help desk team in place can help your team deliver value, and establish your team as an important and strategic player within your organization. If you put in the effort to do your research and consider the above 5 essential traits during the hiring process, you can ensure that you’ll be hiring the right outsourced help desk team for your organization.
Are you looking to hire an outsourced help desk support team to help improve the processes and efficiencies in your organization? Simply click here to schedule a consultation with our team of help desk experts.
