Most of the help desks in IT that we come across are still built to an older model of what the end user would require in the way of help. Slowly some of these assumptions are changing — however, judging by the specifications we see put forward in requests for proposal for sourcing services in this area, not nearly fast enough. (The sourcing market tends to deliver what it has been asked to: if the vendors are not being asked to deliver something other than the “same old, same old”, it’s a sign the buyer is about to get something they probably won’t want, but did ask for.)

So what has changed?

1. Most help desks are still using a metric to look at phone queueing time (this is useful) and then one for length of time to resolution (this used to be, but isn’t any more).
   
   The average call used to be about simple things: the printer won’t print, can you reset my password, etc. These could be dispatched in short order. But most organizations have an automated password reset utility now, operating systems are somewhat more willing to print (and keep printing) and, frankly, end users are no longer computer novices.
   
   New hires, in particular, do know how to look after a computer — often, the equal to or better than anyone in help services.
   
   On the other hand, what people do want help with is how to do something difficult. We heard one question recently, where the caller explained what analysis they wanted to do, and what they wanted to know was where to find the data, how to extract it, and, oh, by the way, could you explain this whole “pivoting table” concept again? More and more people are doing tasks like this, yet aren’t regular users of the tools involved — and almost universally the help desks we looked at were incapable of providing any help (other than the promise to have someone else call back).
   
   

2. There’s an increasing expectation that somewhere in the firm there should be a clearing house for information — in other words, an “if you don’t know, ask here” facility. This is a spontaneous upwelling that we have observed. A decade ago, this was the hope for knowledge management systems. It’s not that people expect the help desk to do this (although they do criticize it for not being able to, and once a help desk function is outsourced the sourcing partner definitely is expected to perform at this level by end users).
   
   We are seeing some companies establish this sort of call centre functionality — on one of our site visits last year, in fact, it was used by our hosts to verify the time the business park’s shuttle bus back to the local rail station ran so that we could make sure to meet it — and in a growing number of firms this sort of call centre and the IT help desk are being combined. What this does is give the combined centre a binomial distribution of calls: some extremely short and quick, and some extensive, almost tutorial in nature.
   
   

3. Other areas — the ones who have “the people who will call back” — in the meantime are slowing down in their responses. Partly this is due to workloads, and partly it is because the same questions are being answered repeatedly. (We see the same fatigue in a Forum in a collaboration toolset, although there a question can be answered with a link to the previous full answer.)
   
   The problem is this. The subject-matter experts are willing to help, but don’t want to be bored. The help desk therefore needs to be able to capture their knowledge and use it themselves. We’ve seen some companies who’ve been interested in building little podcasts complete with a slide show to push out at a person with a “how to” question: get the information once, record it, and you’ve got a reusable answer. These have all been “skunkworks” operations, however, as in all the companies we’ve visited so far the help desk staff was expected to answer calls — not build intellectual property.
   
   

In today’s world, helping people do their work better is the real role of the help desk. Oddly enough, diversifying the technology doesn’t raise the cost of ownership, nor raise (for long, anyway) the number of simple questions. Using the help desk as a hub for knowledge capture and dissemination and measuring use and growth of that kind of library is closer to the model being sought. Let the calls take the time they need. Raise the quality of the information that can be given. That’s the new direction in help desks.