IT help desks are an essential part of our modern business environment. They are needed to resolve any IT problems our customers may have and they play a crucial role in maintaining high levels of customer satisfaction. This applies equally if you are proving IT help as an internal service or you are providing it as a service to your external customers.
Making the decision to outsource your IT help can be a tough one, especially if it means letting some of your valued IT staff go, however doing so has many benefits.
IT help demands high resources
If you have been running your own IT help desk you will be fully aware of the huge amount of resource that it takes, especially as you need to provide a service all through the day including lunch times and to provide cover for when staff are on holiday or on sick leave. If you don’t currently provide IT help and you are considering doing so, then you justifiably might be concerned about the costs that are involved in putting together and managing an IT help team. There are also the costs of capital equipment to consider.
Increasing demands mean increased costs
As the technology becomes more complex and varied, and customer expectations increase as they inevitably do, the difficulties of providing IT help along with the costs become even more expensive, and ever more organisations are finding that eventually they become prohibitively so and have no choice but to seek an economic alternative solution in outsourcing.
Improved service and customer satisfaction
Outsourced IT help isn’t only cheaper, often it is better. This is due simply to the economies of scale that IT help providers can leverage. Staff will have wide ranging expertise and will be able to provide extended hours of seamless operation which can only serve to increase your perceived value in the eyes of your customers. As far as they are concerned they are dealing directly with you, even if they are aware that you are providing then with an outsourced service. They simply need an answer to their problem, and when they do it is your organisation that will receive the credit.
Shed the management burden
In addition to reducing costs and improving service levels outsourcing also significantly reduces the management burden. IT managers have much better and more useful things to do than managing the help desk and all the related issues such as hiring appropriate staff. A good IT help service provider will deliver all of the appropriate management reports so that you can keep on the ball with all that is happening.
Improve the bottom line
Improved levels of customer satisfaction, an IT department that is doing really useful things rather than running a help desk, and reduced costs all feed directly to your bottom line increasing profits. Blue Chip can ensure everything is great for the bottom line.
Not for everyone?
Although outsourcing IT help makes sense for many organisations, it is not a panacea for everyone. Sometimes it is the personal touch that is important, and customers often prefer to be able to speak to a familiar voice rather than deal with someone different each time they make a call. However that model works only on a small scale; as IT help demands grow, the personal touch becomes increasingly less tenable.
Finally
The main benefits of outsourcing IT help are the cost savings from reduced staffing costs and reduced capital expenditure; improvised customer satisfaction as a result of improved efficiencies and extended expertise; round the clock cover; and freeing up IT resources in order to concentrate on core business needs.