When you think you've seen it all life has a way of letting you know different.
Expect the unexpected
- Date: May 9th, 2008
- Author: Jeff Dray
- Category: General, Customer Relations, Help, support
- Tags: Board, Coin, Printers, Corporate Governance, Hardware, Peripherals, Business Operations, Corporate Law, Jeff Dray
Choosing a free alternative to Microsoft Office
- Date: May 9th, 2008
- Author: Tricia Liebert
- Category: Office, support, News
- Tags: Information Technology, Environment, Microsoft Corp., Microsoft Office, OpenOffice, Office Suites, Software, Tricia Liebert
Microsoft Office is no longer the only game in town for users that are looking for office productivity tools. Players like Open Office, Google Docs, and Symphony are gaining an important foothold in the average end user's computing experience. These alternatives are fine, but are they ready to move to the enterprise?
Assigning priorities: Which really is top priority?
- Date: May 6th, 2008
- Author: Joe Rosberg
- Category: General
- Tags: Priority, Request, Productivity, Operational Accounting, Finance, Joe Rosberg
How do you establish what gets priority status among competing requests? Joe Rosberg believes that there is always a logical way to classify requests according to their actual importance. Here are his guidelines for assigning priorities.
Being part of a team
- Date: May 2nd, 2008
- Author: Jeff Dray
- Category: General, Customer Relations, Training, Help, support, Blogroll
- Tags: Team, Call, Team Management, Recruitment & Selection, Management, Human Resources, Workforce Management, Jeff Dray
When you're overwhelmed by work requests, deadlines are piling up, and the phone won't stop ringing, don't forget that you have other team members to ask for help.
What if business buys a Mac?
- Date: May 2nd, 2008
- Author: Tricia Liebert
- Category: General, support, News
- Tags: Apple Macintosh, Apple Inc., Desktops, Hardware, Tricia Liebert
Apple has shown strong sales, going 51% beyond the previous year. Some of that sales strength has come from the corporate market. What does an increase in corporate Mac use mean for support staff?
Don’t waste your time supporting problems that don’t exist
- Date: April 30th, 2008
- Author: William Jones
- Category: General, Customer Relations, support
- Tags: identifying need, problem solving, William Jones
Anticipating your users' problems is great, but make sure you're addressing a real need. A recent encounter I had with a vendor serves as a cautionary tale against make-work.
What’s more important at the entry-level, a service attitude or technical aptitude?
- Date: April 29th, 2008
- Author: William Jones
- Category: Customer Relations, Help desk, support
- Tags: entry-level hiring, skills, William Jones
Lots of IT pros get their start behind the help desk. What's the most valuable quality to look for when hiring a support newbie?
Use asset tracking to provide better support
- Date: April 29th, 2008
- Author: William Jones
- Category: General, Help desk, support
- Tags: asset management, inventory, William Jones
Noticing patterns in your support work can put you out in front of problems. Make sure you know what's going on with your hardware as well as your users.
Treating users equally, but differently
- Date: April 28th, 2008
- Author: Joe Rosberg
- Category: General
- Tags: Recruitment & Selection, Human Resources, Workforce Management, Joe Rosberg
I try to treat all my users with equality, but sometimes equal doesn’t exactly mean equal. What I mean is that I treat them all equally depending on the level of support required. One type of person, for example, might approach me and describe a problem or issue, and I can simply tell them what [...]
How much do you use role play in training?
- Date: April 25th, 2008
- Author: Jeff Dray
- Category: General, Customer Relations, Training, Help, Help desk
- Tags: Role, Board, Student, Training, Corporate Governance, Workforce Management, Telecom & Utilities, Business Operations, Corporate Law, Human Resources
Getting your students to squeal at each other across the room may make more sense than you might think
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