Outsourcing Helpdesk Operations, Does It Actually Save Money?

Outsourcing IT can mean moving some or all of IT operations to an external company. This article will focus on outsourcing to a US based service provider.

Is Outsourcing worth it? Under very specific circumstances, yes. Under most others, no.

Outsourcing to a company within the US, with US based employees

Outsourcing to a US company can improve your helpdesk and IT operations IF the current support teams are not experienced with professional levels of support and service. Outsourcing companies do this for a living, and know how to do it correctly.

The problems with outsourcing to a US company is related to expense. Outsourcing companies typically get contracts signed by showing how money can be saved. They will be able to operate IT functions that are not 'core competencies' of your business. They can also save you money because they can leverage tools and employees that they already have in place and are sharing the expense of these tools and resources between multiple other 'customers' who are already outsourced. Sounds great, doesn't it! So where is the catch?

SLA's are typically the main mistake companies make when executing a contract with an outsourced helpdesk company. SLA's (or Service Level Agreements) are the agreed upon minimum requirements of service delivery that the business and the outsourcer agree on, which also sets the price of the contract. Some examples of SLA's you will want to review: how long can issues on average take to resolve, how long callers can remain on hold prior to getting a tech, how long can a caller expect to wait for a new P.C. setup if theirs breaks, etc. SLA's directly relate to the number of staff the outsourcer will need to hire to maintain their contractual commitments (which is part of their cost they will need to cover with their charge to you), and what service levels your business will receive. The problem is, what sounds good on paper may be horrible for your business. With your 'in-sourced' team, do you fix hardware issues the same day when possible? If you don't build this into the SLA with an outsourcer, don't count on it happening - they will staff to meet minimum requirements. If a company finds that the SLA's are not adequate for their business and adjusts them, guess what: They are now spending more than they did with their ‘in sourced’ solution. And have a year left on their contract.

Outsourcing within the US works well if you NEED someone else to organize your operations and absolutely cannot do it yourself. Perhaps a premium is worth it based on the improved productivity your company will receive with better organization (knowledge base creation, self help portals, ticket tracking systems all typically come with an outsourcer). On the other hand, if you train or hire the right people for your helpdesk operations, you may save yourself some (or a lot!) money.

Take a moment to visit my website, which focuses on Helpdesk and Customer Service best practices: http://www.helpdeskresource.com/

Steven White has been managing Help Desk operations for over 15 years. His experience includes managing nationwide and global helpdesk operations at a senior level in the technical and financial sectors. Visit his Helpdesk Resource Site at http://www.helpdeskresource.com/

Orange SPV M700 - Help Desk on Work - Always

Making a lot of things easier for you, present digital assistant devices are too good to be your reliable professional pals. The Orange SPV M700 is also a personal digital assistant, which comes with a balanced profile to take a very good care of your professional needs. Actually, the Orange SPV M700 is specifically designed for business professionals and busy workaholics, who do not want to waste a single second of their highly busy lives. Besides being a reliable gadget, the Orange SPV M700 also looks good in its overall profile. It has been duly finished up with various latest functionalities to enable you manage all your tasks in the easiest possible way. It comes in two simple colours with Black and White. You would find it quite easy to carry around, as it comes with a smooth and glossy surface.

The Orange SPV M700 is a consummate personal assistant, which can make a lot of things easier for you. It uses the popular Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 platform to run various sorts of computer based applications. Well, this PDA device supports the popular Tri-Band technology with HSDPA and UMTS to enable you enjoy unparalleled connectivity with high-speed Internet. Hence, you get that desired connectivity with your Orange SPV M700 – throughout the whole world.

There are other superb connectivity features with Infrared, Bluetooth which enables you to make the most with wireless data exchange. On the other hand, it also comes with USB port, which allows you to transfer all your data from your computer to the mobile handset by using a wire. Besides that, it is also conferred with Wi-Fi, which enables you to enjoy wireless Internet access. The Orange SPV M700 is endowed with two cameras, with a 2 mega pixels camera, which is used for imaging and another camera, which lets you enjoy video calling. Thus, the Orange SPV M700 provides the desired digital assistant, which you would certainly relish in your mobile phone.

Carly Charu is an expert author and the webmaster of Mobile Phone deals. The website having details of Contract Phones and Sim Free Mobile Phones

How I Got Rid of Customer Support and Saved 8 Hours a Day

You may not be aware of this, but customer support can very easily be your main time consumer. Yes, those emails that you get, and answer one by one, they end up taking a LOT of your time.

Now, how would I know that?

The reason I know that is because this happened to me. Except doing my company’s customer support got to a point where I was spending around 8 hours a day doing it. Every SINGLE day.

But even if you are not spending 8 full hours a day doing support, let’s pretend that you’re only getting 25% of the support I was getting, that would mean you’d still be spending 2 hours a day doing support. That’s 10 hours a week, and if you work on the weekends (and which online business owner doesn’t these days) you’d be spending 14 hours a day. Almost two full business days just on supporting your client base.

Now, on the other hand, imagine that you'd have to do NO support at all. Imagine that all your customers are satisfied with your product and all the emails you get are the ones from all the sales that are coming through.

What if this was possible?

The way I turned this whole thing around was by getting smart and deciding to install a brand new customer support software in my website. At first the whole thing seem like I was trying to speak alien, but after a while I realized using a script definitely has a lot of value.

For example, most people don't know this, but some scripts will have a function that will allow you to present all the answers in front of your customers, EVEN BEFORE THEY ASK FOR IT.

How does this work?

Simple, all you do is fill out your databases with the questions that you get answered over and over (there's always a pattern to the questions you get). After you fill that database, your customer selects the topic he wants to ask the question about, he will see a list of possible answers. If you did your homework right, that's as far as your customers will go. They now get their answer in front of them.

Well, this is how I did it. Trust me, it's way simpler than you think, it will clear out a lot of your time, and like people say "Time is Money", so in this way this will pay off in a big way.

Discover the Support Ticket System that I used to reduce my support workload... down to almost zero!