Teach users not to call you
Jeff Davis
Published: 01 Apr 2003 09:08 BST
In many call centres, help desk analysts spend a lot of time explaining the same things over and over. For some analysts, those repetitive calls represent job security. They don't mind a bit explaining for the umpteenth time how to change a password. They like restoring files from backups for users who frequently lose important documents. But for other analysts, answering the same old questions gets boring and contributes to burnout.
So what can the help desk manager do to cut down on the number of these types of calls? First, identify the top 10 or 20 questions most often asked by end users. Second, publicise the answers to those questions by way of new-employee orientation, e-mail newsletters, or lessons posted on your intranet. However, putting computer literacy lessons in front of your end users doesn't necessarily guarantee that they'll pay attention to them -- but it's a good start.
Look for trends in time as well as topic
The end users who call your help desk are telling you something, but are you listening? If you're a help desk manager who can't name the top five most frequently asked questions, shame on you. You should be paying better attention to how your analysts are spending their time.
In most call centres, analysts are required to document each and every call in a database commonly known as the help desk log. If you maintain such a database, you should review the call records on a regular basis, looking for trends.
For every call, capture a keyword
The trends most easily spotted are calls for which the same keywords have been entered into the database. If your analysts are entering the information accurately and consistently, you should be able to count the number of calls having to do with a "password change" or "printer problem."
If your end users frequently forget their passwords after they change them, there may not be much you can do to lower the number of those calls. Some end users just never master the art of creating and remember passwords, no matter how much you train them or remind them.
On the other hand, if your database shows frequent calls about the same printer being jammed, out of toner, or out of paper, guess what? You can do something about that problem. There may be too many people using that printer and it's overworked, or maybe it just needs servicing. Either way, there's no reason your help desk should answer a dozen calls every week about the same printer. Just fix (or replace) the printer, and you should see a drop in the number of calls about it.
Look for rush hour in the help desk
The other trends in the help desk log have to do with timing of the calls. If your help desk routinely gets a rush of calls around the same time every day, on the same day of the week, or at the beginning or end of every month, you might be able to identify and prevent the underlying reason for those calls.
For example, when I was recently analyzing the records in a trouble ticket database for a national healthcare provider, I sorted all of the calls by time of day and subtotaled them within nearest half-hour. When I looked at the results, I noticed that a disproportionate number of calls came in between 5:00pm. and 6:00pm. -- the time when most employees are packing up and heading home for the day.
When I dug a little deeper, I learned that the majority of the calls were coming from users in facilities on the West Coast. It turned out that those users were being denied access to a particular production server. The number of calls always spiked on days when that server was being taken offline for maintenance -- between 5:00pm. and 6:00pm. eastern time, when users on the West Coast still had several hours of work to go.
In that case, it was a fairly simple matter to eliminate those calls about access to a server. The folks in the eastern time zone simply rescheduled the downtime for that server.
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