Thursday, December 16, 2010

Help Desk Outsourcing: Pros And Cons



Help desk support is a unique information resource that assists a lot in troubleshooting all sorts of computer and network problems in an organization. The help desk could be in the form of in-house support for employees of a company. It can also be directed at the customers. Most companies make use of help desk to offer required support to their clients through various avenues such as websites, emails and toll-free numbers.

What is Help Desk Outsourcing?

In the recent times, help desk outsourcing seems to be the order of the day in most big companies. This is simply the idea of contracting an outside firm to provide the needed technical support for your company. The firm provides your company with help desk support software application and all it requires for effective functioning. However, help desk outsourcing has its pros and cons. You need to be aware of them before you go about requesting for such services. Let's examine them.

The Pros

Help desk outsourcing gives your company a financial leverage when it's working well. It reduces fixed costs thereby boosting your company profits and investment returns.

Secondly, help desk outsourcing minimizes human labor. The company management can now have enough time to invest in other areas in order to maximize company profits.

Again, help desk outsourcing also creates flexible avenues for handling call volumes and other changes that may occur in the process.

Furthermore, companies that have well installed help desks are better positioned to update their training programs for their employees. Customers are also well satisfied through an effective help desk.

The Cons

Help desk outsourcing may lead to loss of control over training as the provider company may likely control the process. Again, customers suffer a lot when company customer care representatives are not well trained regularly to respond to their problems.

Well, the above negative aspects could be properly managed when the company officials invest enough time and energy in making the help desk come up to standards.

Ways to Enhance Help Desk

In order to minimize the negative aspects of help desk outsourcing, the company involved can set up measurable goals that can enhance the use of the help desk. These may include the response time involved, customer care satisfaction, regulation of the length of calls and so on.

Locating Help Desk Support Providers

In order to outsource help desk successfully, companies should take time in locating the best help desk service providers. In the recent times, there are various firms providing such services online. You need to take time to search for them. It's often very advisable to go through various reviews written about these companies before you engage them to provide the services your company needs. Working hand-in-hand with well known and experienced help desk service providers is indeed the best approach to take.

Most of the foreign companies, with a few exceptions, do not charge their clients for online help. By outsourcing these technological calls to India, they save a good amount of money. The Indian Outsourcing Companies generally enter into a deal with these foreign companies for a pre-determined time period and hire people to outsource solutions from India.

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