When dealing with hardware and software, it is essential to have a support team to which you can send service requests. Many companies find that outsourcing these services is the most beneficial. Both help desks and technical support are designed to assist end users with technical issues and problems. By the end of this article, you will understand the core differences between the help desk and technical support, so you can decide which is best suited to your needs.
What is a Help Desk?
A help desk is an individual or organization that an IT customer calls for problem-solving advice. A help desk can be as small as a single desk with one employee answering calls or as big as a global organization that accepts support requests from all over the world via phone, email, online chat, or even social media. A help desk provides quick solutions to individuals who are experiencing immediate problems and are trained to answer a wide range of questions about the service or product. A help desk may also be referred to as:
computer support center
customer support center
technical support center
resource center
IT response center
IT solutions center
information center
Speed and efficiency are extremely important within the help desk line of support because customers who contact the help desk are experiencing these problems in real-time. In the help desk line of support, speed and efficiency are extremely important because customers who contact the help desk are experiencing these problems in real-time. Help desks should serve as a single point of contact for IT support and improve user productivity. A help desk is an excellent resource for customers needing easy troubleshooting and quick solutions. A good help desk employs customer support specialists with extensive technical knowledge who provide a high level of support and quick problem-solving techniques. The help desk serves to ensure the customer experience is satisfactory and improves customer relationships.
What Does a Help Desk Do?
The main functions of a help desk are to answer any questions a customer may have about products or services as well as provide simple technical support and solutions to issues or problems. Help desk support staff is the first point of contact for a customer and is vital for customer satisfaction and retention. A help desk is responsible for responding to, creating, and managing tickets as well as escalation when the problem can’t be resolved immediately.
Response to Tickets
When a customer contacts the help desk, a member of the support staff is assigned to answer questions and solve simple technical issues. These members of the help desk team answer emails, phone calls, or online messages in real-time to ensure the customer’s questions are answered and that they get the technical support they need.
Creation of Tickets
When a customer contacts the help desk to resolve technical problems, the support staff tries to solve those technical issues while on the line. However, if an initial call can’t be resolved immediately or the problem is more technical than the help desk is trained to handle, the help desk support staff must create a ticket to ensure the issue is sent to the proper specialists and resolved in a timely manner.
Management of Tickets
Ticket management can be done by a person or by specially designed ticketing software. This person or software is designed to get the ticket to the correct help desk, so the customer’s technical problems are resolved quickly and efficiently.
Escalation
If a customer support specialist can’t resolve the technical issues, they must escalate it to the next level by routing it to a team member who can resolve the issue. The help desk is set up to ensure customer satisfaction. If the technical problems can’t be solved by the first member, escalation ensures that it moves up the tiers until it reaches someone who can assist the customer in solving their technical issues.
The Different Types of Help Desks
There are several different types of help desks with different functions. Every kind of help desk is different, but for the most part, they all fall into one of the four following categories:
Cloud Help Desk - This IT service is based entirely online, allowing help desk support to assist with customer needs from anywhere in the world, even if they aren’t in the office.
Enterprise Help Desks - These large help desks are used by bigger corporations or companies that have 1,000 or more employees. Enterprise help desks can include IT support as well as HR and asset management.
Open-source Help Desks - Open source refers to open source software, which is software designed to be publicly accessible, meaning anyone can use, modify, or distribute it. This is an alternative to help desks that utilize paywalls and other obstacles to limit who can access them.
On-premises Help Desk - This type of help desk refers to IT software and a technical support team that is housed on-premises or inside of the company or corporation. Rather than outsourcing the IT help desk, the technical support team is in-house.
Some help desks take advantage of automation software which allows them to try to streamline low-level self-service support. This free or low-cost automation software is used to answer common support questions, which helps facilitate workflow and increase productivity. Some help desk queries can be answered via email, chat, or social media, while others may require a phone call to assess the problem and route it to the proper channels.
What is Technical Support?
Technical support is a service provided by a software or hardware company designed to help registered users with help and advice about their products and assistance with asset management. Technical support focuses on assisting customers in using their products more effectively. Technical support utilizes technical support representatives with the technical expertise to troubleshoot, diagnose, and repair software and hardware issues and help companies tackle significant problems such as server breakdowns, power failures, and internet connection issues.
Functions of Technical Support
Technical support is designed to enhance user productivity, monitor potential risks, and provide quick and efficient resolutions to technical issues. The technical support staff is there to assist with any tickets related to IT, hardware, or software via phone, email, social media, a ticketing system, or real-time chat. Below you will find some of the most important functions of technical support.
Enhance User Productivity by Streamlining Functionality
Technical support is vital in enhancing user productivity. The technical support service desk is designed to research, diagnose, troubleshoot and identify resolutions for any system issues. Whether a user needs desktop support and can't log in to their account or needs help with the company’s service provider, technical support can help. When there are a lot of unresolved technical issues, productivity suffers. The technical support team is there to streamline functionality by quickly and efficiently troubleshooting, diagnosing, and solving technical problems so the user can get back to work. A member of the technical support team will assess the technical problem to determine if it is a user error, a bug, or other technical issues. After diagnosing the problem, they will do what is needed to resolve the issue.
Monitor Potential Risks & Vulnerabilities
The technical support team isn’t just for resolving technical issues. They also conduct vulnerability scans to identify software flaws, malware, misconfigurations, and other underlying issues that may pose a threat to security or make the product vulnerable to bugs. This aspect of technical support is an ongoing process that ensures the product is working as well as it can and helps identify any cybersecurity issues.
Helps Businesses Compete
Technical support helps businesses compete by helping execute business processes quickly and efficiently, which in turn increases profitability. In other words, having an efficient IT department with a wide knowledge base can help resolve any technical issues that can stop business processes in their tracks. This is done through troubleshooting, replacing and repairing computer equipment, testing new technology, and training end users on the hardware or software being used.
Main Differences Between Help Desk and Technical Support
While a help desk and technical support are both designed to assist with software and hardware in a quick and cost-effective way, there are a few main differences. A help desk is more inclined to answer customer questions and address customer issues while providing excellent customer service. Technical support’s primary goal is to resolve any technical problems.
Different Approach
The approach is vastly different between a help desk and technical support. A help desk is very customer-centric and focuses on addressing customer issues in a friendly, helpful way. The support staff at the help desk must listen to customer issues with empathy and respond in a way that makes the customer feel heard and supported.
Technical support is designed to address technical issues and problems. Their main goal is to fix the issue and approach the situation in a much more technical way. Their approach is less customer-centric. The purpose of technical support is to listen to the issue and provide efficient and effective ways to fix the technical problems.
Different Goals and Perspectives
A help desk is a more general hub where customers can submit any type of query, request, or issue. The help desk is designed to route tickets to the correct place, whether they be general or technical. Since the support staff at the help desk are the first point of contact for a customer looking for assistance, their goal is to ensure customer satisfaction.
Alternatively, technical support has the required knowledge and certifications to help with more extensive technical issues. The goal of technical support is to tackle the problem head-on, diagnose it, and resolve the issue. The technical support staff aims to resolve the issue as quickly as possible and in a way that the customer does not have to contact the help desk again for the same issue.
Comprehensive vs Targeted Problem-Solving
The help desk support staff have more general knowledge of the products and services the company offers. They are not required to have in-depth technological knowledge, though that level of knowledge is helpful. The help desk may utilize help desk software to help manage tickets and track metrics to ensure the customer issues reach the proper channels and are resolved as quickly as possible.
The technical support staff has in-depth technical knowledge so they can target the problem and solve it quickly and efficiently. They can help with various issues with the software, hardware, network, system, and more. The technical support staff can provide highly specialized solutions for technical problems, while the help desk offers more generalized solutions.
Conclusion
Help desks and technical support are both helpful tools for customers to get the assistance they need. A help desk is a great way to keep customer satisfaction ratings high and provide a broad range of customer assistance. Technical support helps keep business processes running smoothly by providing quick and efficient resolutions and scanning for potential risks and vulnerabilities.
Both desks and technical support staff can be outsourced to third parties. This is often the case because outsourcing helps keep costs low. Outsourcing your help desk or technical support staff can help protect your company’s brand by providing a broader coverage area and round-the-clock support. Outsourcing is also a great way to provide support in other languages when needed. If you do decide to outsource your help desk or technical support staff, finding a high-quality, reliable outsourcing partner like TDS Global Solutions is crucial.
TDS Global Solutions has been providing support to some of the largest and most recognizable brands for over 30 years. TDS Global Solutions provides practical and executable solutions to support business growth through Operations Business Growth Consulting, Training, Merger and Acquisition help and more. Whether you need help desk or technical support, TDS Global Solutions has outsourcing options for you.
Through Customer Support Outsourcing, TDS Global Solutions provides top-of-the-line customer service and support. Outsourcing your customer support through TDS Global Solutions makes call center operations simple, exceptional, and affordable. Having an outstanding help desk staff will attract and keep customers, and those customers will likely need customer support at some point. From email and chat support to inbound and outbound calling, TDS Global Solutions has the outsourced team for the job.
Technical Support Outsourcing with TDS Global Solutions is a cost-effective solution to providing technical support services to your customers. Many customers have general questions that are easy to resolve with a help desk, while others have issues that require expert-level troubleshooting and technical support. Outsourcing your help desk and technical support needs with TDS Global Solutions helps streamline the process. When you outsource technical support with TDS Global Solutions, all initial calls are routed to our team of trained professionals to resolve simple issues or reroute the call to your in-house technical support team as needed. Your in-house technical support staff can focus on clients with the most complex or sophisticated needs while saving you money.