Evaluating the Help Desk Service Providers: Your Essential Guide

When it comes to operating a business, a managed services provider (MSP) can be a game-changer. An MSP can provide scalable, efficient solutions that allow your business to operate seamlessly in a dynamic technology environment. At the heart of any MSP’s service delivery is the help desk—a critical feature of the service that warrants thorough evaluation. This blog will define the help desk, discuss key factors to evaluate, and even provide specific questions that you can ask a potential managed services provider to assess the quality of their help desk.

Front view of woman with headset on talking while looking at laptop

What Is a Help Desk at a Managed Services Provider?

A help desk is a core part of MSPs’ client service delivery. The help desk is a centralized system and supporting processes, designed to offer users efficient technology support, troubleshooting for issues, and providing solutions in real-time. A well-managed, effective help desk service provider is essential for keeping your staff productive and the wheels of your business turning smoothly.

How to Evaluate a Help Desk Service Provider: Factors to Consider & Key Questions to Ask

As you delve into the process of evaluating an MSP’s help desk, you’ll find several critical aspects to scrutinize, which we’ve elaborated below. During your discussions with prospective managed services providers, ensure to pose these highlighted queries.

More than just the specifics of their responses, keenly observe for swift, exhaustive, and comprehensive replies to your questions. Be aware, if a sense of improvisation permeates any of the responses from the MSP’s sales representative, it likely signifies a frailty in their established structure, help desk systems, or the corresponding procedures.

Shortcomings in their answers often suggest that the MSP may lack operational maturity in their help desk, potentially leading to erratic and underwhelming performance for your team. Here’s the first area to consider:

Responsiveness

A managed services provider’s best practices should exist to alleviate the burden of IT management for your business, which means that their responsiveness to your problems is important. Assess the responsiveness of the MSP and other factors that impact their responsiveness, and make sure that you understand how they prioritize issues.

Questions to Assess a MSP’s Responsiveness

Do you outsource any portion of the technical support from your help desk?
Is your help desk staffed with full-time staff?
Can you provide a breakdown, by level of experience (tier 1, 2, 3), of the help desk engineers who are on your team?
How many endpoints and users do you manage for MSP clients?
How many clients do you have?
What is your service request intake process?
What methods can our team use to submit service requests?
What are your service ticket best practices?
What are your Service Level Agreements (SLAs)?
Can you share some of your quality metrics/key performance indicators for your help desk?

Expertise

Speed is undeniably a crucial factor for a help desk, but it’s not the be-all and end-all. A lightning-fast but inept support team can result in unresolved tickets, recurrent issues, and dwindling confidence in the help desk service provider. The MSP’s help desk should also embody a robust level of expertise, capable of tackling issues efficiently and comprehending your distinct needs.

Be sure to gauge the training and qualifications of the help desk team, along with other factors outlined in the subsequent questions, to ensure they can provide not just swift, but also skillful support. Let’s get a closer look at what to ask.

Questions to Assess a MSP’s Expertise:

What certifications does your staff possess?
What industry groups is your company involved in?
What’s within the scope of your help desk service?
What is your technology education plan for engineers?
What industry standards does your organization follow?
What VoIP solutions can you support?
How do you handle VoIP phone system support?
What experience do you have with clients in our industry?

Communication

Unquestionably, strong communication skills underpin the effectiveness of a top-notch help desk service provider. It’s of paramount importance that the help desk team has the finesse to translate intricate IT issues into digestible, straightforward language for client staff who might lack technical expertise.

By doing this, they act as bridges, seamlessly connecting the technical and non-technical realms, thus ensuring a comprehensive understanding of the scenario among all parties. This not only aids in swift resolution, but also boosts overall efficiency and productivity by tackling issues at their core.

Questions to Assess a MSP’s Communication:

What access do our staff have to your ticketing system or online portal?
What are the biggest hurdles, in your experience, to a successful managed services partnership?
How do you work with internal IT staff (if applicable)?
How do you collaborate and exchange information with your clients?
What training do you offer to clients?
How do you handle cybersecurity training?
How do you handle client maintenance or outage notifications?
How do you handle support for low-skill users?

Availability

A highly efficient help desk service provider goes beyond just offering standard business hours support and has resources available to resolve issues expeditiously, commensurate to their severity. Being able to meet your staff’s support needs when they’re working ensures that you’re never left stranded during off-peak hours or during unexpected downtime.

However, it’s not just about the clock; it’s about the resource availability as well. The help desk should be equipped with not just sufficient staff, but also the right blend of technical expertise to handle every curveball thrown at them. This holistic approach to availability ensures unbroken business continuity and offers you peace of mind, knowing reliable assistance is always at hand.

Questions to Assess a MSP’s Availability:

What are your help desk hours?
What is covered vs. billable in terms of your help desk hours?
What’s your after-hours support process?
Can you support staff working at home?
What is your average same-day resolution?
What is your average first-touch resolution?

Ticket Management

An effective help desk is one that boasts a robust ticket tracking and management system, ensuring that no client issues are left unaddressed or overlooked. However, a great help desk takes it a step further by implementing comprehensive standard operating procedures (SOPs). These SOPs play a crucial role in streamlining the processes, delivering efficiency, and assuring quality. In conjunction with a reliable ticket management system, these processes help form a cohesive and efficient framework for problem-solving.

The alignment between SOPs and ticket management systems is vital, resulting in a seamless process that tracks, manages, and resolves issues effectively and systematically. This alignment not only guarantees an organized and transparent operation, but it also leads to stellar results for clients, delivering solutions that meet their needs and exceed their expectations.

Questions to Assess a MSP’s Ticket Management

What’s your escalation process?
What workflows do you use to ensure ticket management accountability?
Do you have Service Managers, and how do they enhance ticket management?
How do you handle onsite support?
- Does onsite support cost extra?

What’s your new user onboarding process?
What’s your user offboarding process?
What would our client account team look like?
How do you manage documentation for your clients?
Do you create network diagrams for clients?
What’s your standard operating procedure for client changes and improvements?
Do you have a client knowledge base?
How do you handle vendor support?
What is your patching process for computers?
What is your patching process for servers?
How do you handle disaster recovery testing?

Customer Satisfaction

The significance of customer satisfaction cannot be underestimated in the realm of a managed services provider’s (MSP) help desk. It’s imperative to explore the MSP’s customer satisfaction ratings and reviews, as they act as a crucial mirror, reflecting the help desk’s efficiency in the real-world scenario.

However, it doesn’t end at just evaluations—taking it a step further, the MSP’s proactive feedback processes should also be under scrutiny. An MSP committed to continuous improvement will have effective channels in place for capturing and addressing customer feedback.

Additionally, it’s pivotal to look at their success metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs). These will give you a tangible measure of their effectiveness and customer-centric approach, demonstrating their commitment not just to resolving issues, but to attaining the highest levels of customer satisfaction.

Questions to Assess a MSP’s Customer Satisfaction

What’s your client feedback process?
What happens if a client reports a poor experience on a service ticket?
What’s your customer satisfaction and quality assurance process?
What are your regular client reporting processes?
- Can we see examples of client reporting?

Can we speak to several client references?

Making an Informed Decision

In conclusion, identifying the right managed services provider is pivotal to the success of your business operations. At the center of this decision lies the evaluation of the MSP’s help desk, which plays a crucial role in delivering effective, efficient solutions to your technological needs.

By rigorously assessing the aspects of responsiveness, expertise, communication, availability, ticket management, and customer satisfaction, you’re primed to make an informed decision. It’s important to consider not just the immediate responses, but the depth, comprehensiveness, and promptness of these responses. Look for evidence of robust processes, qualified expertise, consistent availability, efficient ticket management systems, and high levels of customer satisfaction. Doing so will ensure the MSP you choose has a help desk poised to deliver exceptional, reliable service that aligns with your business’s needs and exceeds your expectations.

Remember, the best MSP help desk service provider is one that facilitates your growth, empowers your team, and seamlessly merges with your mission to drive your business towards unprecedented success.

Learn more about Framework IT’s award-winning help desk by speaking with a consultant today!