The first and most immediate interaction between your company and your customers will come at the service desk. In many organizations these positions are considered entry-level positions. While this may be true, given the importance of that first impression, it would be extremely valuable for your organization to consider a certification program for you helpdesk employees.

There are a number of routes organizations can take to getting their helpdesk employees certified. You should first and foremost research into what helpdesk certification actually is and means. In most cases, companies that provide helpdesk certification offer courses in Helpdesk Etiquette, technical etiquette, computer skills required for helpdesk operators, helpdesk terminology and best helpdesk practices. Or, some version of that skill-set. What is essential is that they also offer an exam that verifies the certification information learned and also adds some credibility to the entire process.

An avenue that I have consulted business in pursuing is a helpdesk certification train-the-trainer program. By that, I mean that your business choose your senior (or who will be your senior) helpdesk personnel to take part in a formal helpdesk certification course. They then come back and develop a helpdesk training program for the entire organization based on what they took part in and learned. What this gives you is an extremely cost effective helpdesk training program that is also tailored to meet the requirements of your organization. Also, having your own personnel develop and deliver the training re-enforces the material. In the end, this will develop very senior and knowledgeable helpdesk staff.

The benefit of having a helpdesk that is certified is many. First and foremost, you will have personnel that completely understand the helpdesk concept and how it should work and support the company. They will be shy to let you know when the company is straying away from the helpdesk mission, or if they don’t think the current structure is supporting that mission. Obliviously, having personnel certified ensures that they are qualified for the job they are doing and are thus, more confident in the job they are doing. Moreover, they will know what skill-sets it is that makes them better helpdesk professionals and, as a result, become aware of the need to constantly improve their active listening and problem solving skills.

You will see that the negotiating skills of you helpdesk staff drastically improve and you will have less and less high stress calls. Your customer – helpdesk interaction will become a more positive experience. Your customers will feel that they are interacting with a real professional that is focused on quickly and efficiently solving their particular problem. Thus, you will have folks that are not only experts in a certain technical aspect of the company but are also experts in being a proficient and valuable helpdesk specialist.

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While this is a good definition for someone who understands the vernacular of ITIL, it isn’t easily understood by the layman. Let’s dissect the definition and put it into terms the general population can understand. The IT Service provider is the organization that has been hired by the Customer to perform a service, for example, answer calls. The service level agreement is the document, which can be a few brief lines or it can be a hundreds of pages, which describes each service level target(s). These service targets are based on the customers business needs. For example, if Large Corp. sells their products worldwide, they may have a need to have a call center that is available 24×7. This one business objective, call center available 24×7, could produce multiple service level targets such as:

Call Center is available to take calls 99.99% of the time each month.

No more than 5% of calls will abandon each month.

99% of all incoming calls must be answered within 30 seconds.

All of the service level targets must be agreed upon by both parties. Once both parties agree to all of the service level targets, they are assembled into the Service Level Agreement document. The service level targets will each have a description that identifies the expectation, how it will be measured and penalties, if missed. For example:

Call center must answer all incoming calls within 30 seconds

Measurement period: 1 month

Report(s): ASA Report 101 – monthly

Penalty: $10,000

The SLA is a joint goal between the IT Service Provider and the Customer. Although penalties do reduce costs and they do send a strong signal to service providers to improve their service, neither you nor the service provider “win” if an SLA is missed. Think of an SLA as a shared goal.

It should be noted that the term Service Level Agreement is used in many companies when discussing agreements between two internal groups, such as the Procurement Department will process all purchase requests by the Engineering Department within 5 business days. Technically, per ITIL, this is not a Service Level Agreement, but instead an Operational Level Agreement.

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