Cis285 Unit 7

Chapter 7
User Support Management

A GUIDE TO
COMPUTER USER SUPPORT
FOR HELP DESK AND SUPPORT SPECIALISTS
SIXTH EDITION BY FRED BEISSE
Important Dates
Assignment/Quiz/Exam Due Date

Quiz 1 Oct. 3
Assignment 1 Oct. 10
Midterm Oct. 24
Assignment 2 Nov. 21
Quiz 2 Nov. 28
Assignment 3 Dec. 5
Final TBA
A Guide to Computer User Support for Help Desk and Support Specialists, Sixth Edition 2
Chapter Objectives
• The mission of a support group
• Items in a typical user support budget
• Staffing a help desk
• Support staff training programs
• Evaluations of support staff performance
• Industry certifications for support professionals
• Professional help desk and user support associations
• Ethical principles that guide the professional behavior
of support workers
Reasons to Study
User Support Management
• Applicants for support positions need to understand
the perspectives of support managers
• Support specialists in small organizations often
perform some management tasks
– Project lead or coordinator
– Supervisory or lead worker responsibilities
– User support group management
Managerial Concerns: Mission, Budgets,
Staffing, Training, and Performance
• Mission statement
• Support services budget
• User support staffing
• Training for user support staff
• Performance measures
Example of a User Support
Mission Statement
• Mission statement: the guiding principles that
communicate support goals and objectives to staff,
users, and management
• Example: the mission of a user support group is to:
a) Maximize operational efficiency among users in an
organization by providing timely resolution to technology
use questions
b) Effectively manage problems to continuously improve:
• Quality of support services to users
• Usability of information systems
• Effectiveness of documentation and training
• Users’ satisfaction with support services
Budgeting for User Support Services
• A budget is a financial plan a manager prepares
– Translates mission statement goals into a strategy to
meet the goals
– Budget categories:
• Revenue (income)
• Expenses (costs)
– Personnel
– Supplies
– Services
– Facilities
Factors That Influence
Support Budgets
• The kind of users supported
– Internal versus external
• How services are provided
– Face-to face, telephone, email, web-based support
• The range of services provided
– Full service, partial service, telephone hotline
• The number of support workers
– Impacts the number of supervisors needed
• The cost of facilities and overhead
– Included in the support budget or the IT department budget
• The kind of expenses
– One-time capital outlay versus ongoing operating expenses or leases
Common Sources of
Support Revenue
• Revenue sources
– Fees for services
– Subscription fees
– Per-seat fees
– Service level agreement contracts
– Support bundled into product price
– Hardware repair income
– Other revenue sources
• Training
• Materials
• Sales of hardware, software, accessories
Common Support Expenses
• Personnel expenses
– Staff salaries and wages
– Other staffing costs
• Benefits (insurance, transportation)
• Paid leave (vacations, sick leave, family leave)
• Payroll taxes (federal, state, local)
• Staff recruiting costs
• Professional education and staff development
– Staffing overhead costs
• Supervision, accounting, administration, human resources
(continued)
• Facilities expenses
– Office space
• Furniture
• Utilities
• Janitorial services
– Equipment
• Agent workstations
• Office equipment
• Maintenance
(continued)
• Facilities expenses (continued)

– Software
• Help desk software
• Office and other applications
– Supplies
– Communications
• Office network
• Internet access
• Telephone access
• ACD equipment (automatic call distributor)
• Mobile devices
Staffing a Help Desk
• Management challenge: How many help desk staff are
needed to meet the level of service demands efficiently?
– Need sufficient staff to meet the demand for timely responses
to incidents
– Need to staff at a level which avoids idle agents and
unproductive payroll expenses
• Erlang: a unit of traffic (such as user incidents) in a given
time period
• Erlang calculations estimate the number of help desk
agents required to meet peak and off-peak incident
volumes
Staffing a Help Desk (continued)
• Factors managers consider when making staffing
level decisions
– Volume of incidents
– Types of incidents
• Information requests versus problem-solving
– Variation in incidents
• Many very similar incidents versus wide variety
– Experience level of staff
• Relatively inexperienced versus experienced workers
Recruiting Help Desk Agents
1. Use mission statement and budget as a basis for
planning staffing needs
2. Analyze the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed
3. Write position description(s)
4. Prepare advertising/recruiting for open positions
5. Screen applications received for best match with
KSAs(Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities)
6. Interview applicants with the best combination of KSAs
7. Check applicant employment references
Typical KSAs for Help Desk Agents
• Hardware, operating system, and application software
proficiency
• Specific technical skills needed for the open position
• Network skills and experience
• Internet and web expertise
• Troubleshooting and problem-solving capabilities
• Communication, listening, reading, writing, and telephone
skills
• Work experience as a project team member
• An understanding of information systems and business
perspectives
Example KSAs for a
Help Desk Position
• PC Support position
– Experience with Intel-compatible hardware platforms
– Skilled in use and support of a local area network (LAN) in
an office environment
– Windows operating system experience
– Working knowledge of Microsoft Office applications
– An ability to troubleshoot technical problems
– An ability to communicate effectively with users, other
agents, and managers
– An ability to work as an effective member of a support
team
Categories of Interview Questions
• Knowledge and skills test questions
• Traditional interview questions
– Directed questions
– Non-directed questions
• Behavioral questions
• Scenario questions
• Stress tolerance assessment
• Illegal questions (to avoid!)
Employment Interview Tools
• Knowledge and skills test: measures an applicant’s
knowledge and problem-solving abilities
• Interview questions about an applicant’s
educational and work background and experience
– Directed question: determine whether or not an
applicant has specific qualifications
– Non-directed question: give an applicant an opportunity
to talk in general terms about his or her qualifications
• Behavioral questions: ask an applicant to describe
actions he or she took in a specific situation
Employment Interview Tools (continued)
• Scenario questions: give an applicant a specific
problem representative of those that agents
actually encounter
• Stress tolerance assessment: an interview
environment designed to evaluate an applicant’s
performance under pressure
– Noisy interview environment
– Frequent interruptions
– Multiple interviewers
– Overly technical questions
Illegal Interview Questions
• Examples of illegal questions or applicant
characteristics in an employment interview:
– Age
– Ethnicity
– Marital status (and family background, number of
children)
– Sexual orientation
– Religious affiliation (and political beliefs)
– Disabilities (except to determine the need for
accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities
Act for ADA compliance)
User Support Staff Training
• Orientations for new support staff
– Organizational structure, including important managers
– Organizational culture, policies, and procedures
– Payroll and employee benefits
– Support group workflow, policies and procedures
– Specific job skill training
– Help desk tools used
• Help desk software
• ACD and IVR systems (Interactive Voice Response)
– Performance appraisal criteria and procedures
– Professional development and career path opportunities
User Support Staff Training (continued)
• Ongoing help desk training
– Requires scheduled downtime for agents
– Goal: Keep help desk staff current with changes in
technology and help desk tools and trends
• Professional growth and development is a joint
responsibility of the company and help desk staff
members
– Attend conferences, training sessions, and workshops
– Read trade publications
– Prepare for and take certification exam(s)
Performance Appraisals
for Support Agents
• Performance appraisal: a process to evaluate
support agents according to established criteria
– Based on support mission statement
– Based on position description
– Related to employee’s professional growth objectives
– Based on worker’s prior performance appraisal
• Common performance appraisal tools
– Performance statistics
– Monitored calls
– Results of user satisfaction surveys
Measuring User Support
Performance
• Performance statistics: objective data collected to
evaluate a user support or help desk operation
• Examples:
– Average time to respond to incidents (wait time)
– Percent of abandoned incidents (abandonment rate)
– Average resolution time for incidents
– Percentage of problems that could not be resolved
– Percentage of closed incidents that had to be reopened
– Number of unresolved incidents
– Cost per incident
Performance Statistics
• Most useful when compared across times of the day,
days of the week, or months to display trends over
time
• Can be computed:
– For an entire support organization
– For a help desk team
– To compare employees’ performance
• Often used to justify the need and budget for
support services
Performance Statistics (continued)
User Satisfaction Surveys
• User satisfaction survey: a questionnaire to measure
how satisfied users are with support services
• Contents
– General questions about support services
– Questions about specific support staff members’
performance
• Survey methods
– Follow-up phone call
– Mailed questionnaire
– Emailed questionnaire
– Web-based survey
User Satisfaction Surveys (continued)
• Typical survey questions
– Availability of help when needed
– Responsiveness of support staff
– Ability to communicate effectively
– Usefulness of online information resources
– Technical knowledge of staff
– Ability to resolve problems
Justifying Support Services
• User support in an organization’s budget may be a:
– Cost center operation: the support budget includes only
expense items in Figure 7-2
– Profit center operation: the support budget includes both
revenue (income) and expenses
– Chargeback: fees or other income designed to offset
expenses in a support group budget
Justifying Support Services (continued)
• How to justify user support as a cost center
– User satisfaction surveys
– Sometimes difficult to justify support center expenses when
no direct income is produced
• How to justify user support as a profit center
– Income based on the level needed by support clients
• Free support (no income)
• Fee-for-service (pay-as-you-go income)
• Premium support (stable contract income)
– Somewhat easier to justify support center expenses when
revenue offsets at least some expenses
User Support Certification
• Certification: an assessment process to measure and
document employee knowledge and skills
• Individual certification
– Formal education (certificate, diploma, degree)
– Vendor-specific product knowledge and skills
– Industry-standard (vendor-neutral) knowledge
• Certification of a support group
– Evaluated against support industry best practices, which are
procedures, tools, and methods that successful support
groups use
Vendor-Specific
Certification Examples
• Microsoft Technology Associate (MTA)
– Technology fundamentals primarily for students
– IT infrastructure, databases, developer skills
• Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS)
– Office applications (Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint)
• Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate (MCSA)
– Windows operating system
– Windows server
Other Vendor-Specific
• Cisco Certified Entry Networking Technician (CCENT)
– Installing, operating, troubleshoot small network
• Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA)
– Cisco network administration and support
• Certified Novell Administrator (CNA)
– Basic networking and support skills
• Certified Novell Engineer (CNE)
– Advanced networking and support skills
• Apple Certified Associate
– Mac OS X operating system and applications
Industry-Standard
• Computer Technology Industry Association (CompTIA)
– A+ covers hardware, operating systems, configuring,
installing, diagnosing, maintaining PCs
– Network+ covers network architecture and operating
systems
– Security+ covers access controls, authentication,
infrastructure and operational security
– Project+ covers IT project management skills
Other Industry-Standard
• ICCP’s (Institute for Certification of Computing
Professionals) Associate Computing Professional (ASP)
– Knowledge and skills earned in academic and vocational
degree programs
• Internet and Computing Core Certification
(IC3 Certification)
– Entry-level hardware, software, Internet knowledge, and skills
• Linux Professional Institute Certification
• CIW(Certified Internet Web Professional) Web
Foundations Associate
User Support and Help Desk
• Help Desk Institute
– Support Center Analyst (SCA)
• For help desk agents
– Desktop Support Technician (DST)
• For user support workers who provide face-to-face technical
support
– Other HDI (Help Desk Institute) certifications
• Customer service representatives (CSRs)
• Help desk team leads
• Help desk managers
User Support and Help Desk Certification
Examples (continued)
• Microsoft
– Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP)
• Configuring and supporting:
– Windows operating systems
– Application software that runs on Windows
Benefits of Certification
• A recognized benchmark of minimum-level job skills
and expertise
• Justification for pay increases
• Justification for promotions
• Documents efforts to keep up to date in the field
• A feeling of accomplishment and increased job
satisfaction
Is Certification a Job Requirement?
• Some position descriptions and job ads list specific
certification requirements
• For other positions, certification is optional
– Provides documentation of knowledge and skills to
supplement formal education and experience
– However, job requirements in user support vary
• Few agreed-on industry-wide standards that cover all support
positions
Popular Certifications for
User Support Workers
• Which certifications make sense for an entry-level
user support worker?
– CompTIA’s A+
– CompTIA’s Network+ (or comparable Cisco)
– Microsoft’s MOS
– More specialized help desk certifications
• HDI’s DST or SCA
• CompTIA’s Project+
Steps in Certification Process
1. Acquire knowledge and skills covered by the
certification exam
2. Evaluate your skills by taking a pretest assessment
exam (optional)
3. Take a certification exam
– May include preparatory course to cover steps 1 and 2
4. Retake parts of the certification exam not passed on
first attempt
Certification Exam Preparation
• College and vocational/technical courses target
popular certification exams
• Crash courses: intensive exam preparatory classes
– Expensive
– Time consuming
– Sometimes called boot camps
• E-learning tutorials: use computer-based (CBT) or
web-based (WBT) training methods
• Self-study courses: self-paced tutorials in book
format
– Lowest cost
– Little help available
Certification Exam Formats
• Traditional fixed-length sequence of questions and
problems
• Computer adaptive test: a method used in some
certification exams
– Asks selected questions from a test database
– Questions are graded in order of difficulty to quickly estimate a test taker’s
proficiency
– Next question asked depends on answer (correct or incorrect) and level or
difficulty of previous question
– CAT Advantages:
• Asks fewer questions than a traditional test
• Takes less time
• Reduces testing stress
• Reduces boredom from questions that are too easy or repetitious
Sample Certification Questions
Sample Certification Questions (continued)
Sample Certification Questions (continued)
User Support as a Profession
• 2010 employment: 950,000 million workers in the United States
employed as computer and network support specialists (+22%
growth during next decade)
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2012–13 Edition”
Employment Trends
• 2000s decade: some reduction in support
employment
– 2001-2003 and 2007-2009 recessions in the United States
– Overseas outsourcing of lower level support positions
• 2010s decade: forecasted increases in support
employment
– Computer Support Specialists: average rate of growth
– Network and Computer System Administrators:
above average rate of growth
Professional Associations
for Support Workers
• Professional association: a formal organization that
represents the interests of a group of professionals
and provides services to its membership
– Publishes journals, magazines, and books
– Encourages professional growth of members through
seminars and conferences
– Offers training and certification programs
– Facilitates membership contacts via email, websites, chat
rooms, blogs, newsgroups, and local chapters
– Encourages members to adhere to a code of ethical
conduct
Examples of User Support and Help Desk
Professional Associations
Example Principles of Ethical
Conduct for IT Professionals
Example Principles of Ethical Conduct for IT
Professionals (continued)
Ethical Issues in User Support
• A code of ethical conduct is a set of principles
to guide a support worker’s professional
behavior
– Professional behavior may be
• Ethical
• Unethical (and unprofessional)
• Illegal
Example of ethical issues
• Unwilling to share information with coworkers
• Modifies weights on RFP
• Accesses information in human resources
database
• Manipulates training result
• Makes training results public information
• Reports “Windows” certification
Example of ethical issues (continued)
• Embellishes trouble ticket entry
• Disregard for nondisclosure agreement
• Reorganizes user’s desktop icons
• Offers free software for positive
recommendation
• Sale of website information
Chapter Summary
• User support and help desk management positions:
– Supervisors and managers
– Lead workers
– Project coordinators
• A mission statement defines guiding principles and
goals of a support group
– Serves as a benchmark for evaluating performance
• Managers develop a budget plan for support
services that includes:
– Revenues from fees
– Expenses for staff and facilities
Chapter Summary (continued)
• Managers use a mission statement and budget to:
– Analyze the KSAs required
– Prepare position descriptions
– Write job ads
– Prepare various types of interview questions
• Knowledge and skills test
• Directed and nondirected interview questions
• Behavioral and scenario questions
• Stress assessment situations
• Avoid illegal questions
– Interview applicants and select staff
• Training for support agents includes:
– New employee orientation
– Ongoing professional development
• Evaluation of help desk and agent performance
based on:
– Help desk mission statement
– User satisfaction surveys
• Certification for support professionals includes:
– College degrees
– Vendor-specific certification
– Industry-standard certification
• Associations of support professionals provide services
to address the needs of support workers
• Codes of ethical behavior and standards of conduct
guide members of professional associations
– Help professionals distinguish between ethical, unethical
and illegal behavior
• Other management issues include appropriate salary
levels and retention of support employees
Practice and Discussion
• Please work on the following questions:
– Hands-On Activities 7-2, 7-3, 7-4 on P334
• Submit your report to Blackboard before the
due time
Work to Do
• Review
– Chapter 7
• Continue assignment 2
• Read
– Chapters 8

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Chapter 7

User Support Management

Assignment/Quiz/Exam Due Date

• Facilities expenses (continued)

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2012–13 Edition”

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