IT asset management: too broad a term? With each new inquiry that comes to us via Google (usually…), our first challenge is always to get the inquirer to tell us what they are really looking for. Some are happy to open up and give us the background to their search, and explain their business needs … Continue reading Selecting ITAM / SAM tools: not a simple task
We were recently reviewing our investment options for our next business year. Having been lean enough to come through the crunch much better than many of our larger competitors, the discussion was proceeding along the lines of how to balance new spending on expanded development resource and expanded marketing and lead generation. Another option arose, … Continue reading Use the help desk to focus investment into your customers
Help desk automation – who benefits most? Many of our international customers have support centers in the UK, and from time to time we hear that the UK is experiencing a considerable backlash against call center automation. To callers, the automation appears to offer nothing except frustration and delay. A succession of multi-choice questions to … Continue reading The role of self-help in IT support
IT help desk software – essentials for the manager As a manager, you look to your help desk installation to provide you with actionable reporting that enables you to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of your support organization, while informing your management colleagues. You will need trend information, such as reductions or increases on average … Continue reading How does your IT Help Desk software motivate your support team?
This isn’t as simple a question as it might first seem. Let’s look at the issues which need to be factored in to your decision. IT help desk response times – average and worst case The number of check-out staff at the local supermarket varies throughout the day. Some marts will try hard to ensure … Continue reading Optimal staffing levels for the help desk
Feature creep in IT Asset and Software Asset Management It’s typical of a maturing market that competiting products offer many of the same capabilities. After all, how many ways are there of reporting your Adobe installations? To provide differentiation, products will also sprout unique capabilities, some of which may have been requested by particular customers and are … Continue reading Evolution in the ITAM/SAM industry
IT Help Desk: focussed on IT or Help? Ever since the mouse was invented, our industry has circulated jokes about users and mice, or users complaining about blank screens when the office cleaner unplugged their monitor to plug in the floor cleaner. It’s convenient to have the dumb user image to fall back on. Everything … Continue reading Customer Satisfaction: the ultimate help desk metric
Helpdesk Software – cornerstone of effective customer support Organizations’ reputations can be damaged more by their customer support performance than by problems with the performance of their products and services. We all know what it’s like to wrestle with an automated call routing system which after endless selections from menus of choices doesn’t in the … Continue reading Effective customer support may start with helpdesk software, but often needs more. . .
Well this has been something of a labor of love for everyone involved in it. The site was switched over on Sunday, and all credit to Philip John, our Web consultant, for the execution. I was monitoring progress from a friend’s birthday party (they’re used to it!) and saw only the briefest of maintenance messages … Continue reading Welcome to the new Web site
It’s apparent that many organizations are responding to the current climate by freezing capital spending, irrespective of the returns that might be available from specific projects. IT’s history of delivering uncertain, or hard-to-quantify, returns makes it difficult for those championing IT spending projects to win over their colleagues to making an exception to the freeze … Continue reading Crunch attitudes ignore RoI