Helpdesk Administrator: Their Responsibilities, Career Path, and Skills

Aside from technical support, most successful companies also have helpdesk support at hand. The two teams keep their operations running efficiently, especially since technical support can focus on their duties.

To have a successful helpdesk support, you need to know the qualities needed for them to work efficiently. This article provides you the information you need about helpdesk administrators and its must-have qualities.

What is a helpdesk administrator?

 

A helpdesk administrator is someone who is primarily responsible for providing customer support and resolving customer problems. They are the first point of contact for customers looking for technical assistance, whether by phone, email, or other means. Their main purpose is to maintain the highest level of customer satisfaction and provide the utmost technical assistance to their customers.

Helpdesk administrators are usually part of a company’s IT support team but they are different in the sense that they focus on providing solutions to basic concerns, such as password resetting, basic computer and software troubleshooting, server backup, etc.

What does a helpdesk administrator do?

The helpdesk administration team is part of a company’s customer support department, so their main responsibility is to offer support to those who need it. Further, here are other responsibilities included in a helpdesk administrator’s job description:

• Walk customers through the problem-solving process
• Answer queries and provide technical assistance
• Diagnose and resolve issues
• Install, modify, or repair computer hardware
• Record a log of events and service failures
• Write training manuals
• Follow up with customers to ensure complete resolution of the issue
• Train computer users
• Redirect specific concerns to correct resource
• Come up with ways to improve the company’s support procedures
• Other related tasks as assigned

How to Become An IT Helpdesk Administrator

Becoming a helpdesk administrator, however, isn’t a walk in the park. Further, aspiring candidates need to have a Bachelor’s degree, preferably in business or computer courses. They also need to have excellent oral and written communication skills, as they will be communicating with customers and resolving their problems via email, phone, or live chats.

However, being a helpdesk administrator is a career full of many opportunities. You may start with this role, and move on with more complex roles such as systems administrator, network administrator, consultant, information technology manager, to systems engineering manager.

Vital Skills and Traits of A Helpdesk Administration Professional

The work of helpdesk support, though dealing with basic concerns, requires patience, consistency, and focus to make things work. Some of the essential qualities businesses should develop in helpdesk support include:

Excellent Customer Service

Helpdesk support’s main task is to deal with customers every day. With this, they should possess excellent customer service skills such as:

• Communication skills. Effective helpdesk support should be able to listen carefully to their customers to understand their concerns. They should also know how to communicate with customers in a clear and approaching way.
• Empathy. To fully understand their customers, they must know how to empathize and put themselves in the shoes of their customers.
• Providing a clear timeframe. They should provide a reassuring, accurate, and realistic timeframe on their concerns. Set a timeframe on when a customer should expect a response or resolution regarding the issues they provided.
• Doing follow-ups. Customers stay at a business when they feel they are taken care of. Because of this, helpdesk support should be able to follow up on their customers whether their issues have been resolved and if they still have other concerns with their product.

Outstanding Technical Skills

Aside from this, an IT helpdesk administrator needs to have outstanding technical skills to provide the level of support expected from them. Some of the key technical competencies are:

Call response. Efficient helpdesk support properly tracks, plans, and logs responses to calls, live chats, and emails.

• Service improvement. They should also be able to identify and explore opportunities that can improve the business process.
• Service focus. As mentioned, the work requires focus on providing utmost support to customers.
• Service reporting. They should also understand certain metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) to reach service delivery.
• Technical understanding. They should possess deep technical knowledge and understanding to apply to a product or service.
• User focus. Lastly, they have to know how to engage with customers in a friendly and approaching way.

Strong Workflow Processing

Administrators should also be strict in handling workflow processes with each concern. They should be keen on details provided by customers, the responses they will give to each inquiry, and the suitable process each concern should go through.

Also, they should know where to direct other concerns that require more complex problem-solving. For instance, when a customer provides an issue with computer hardware, they should know how to escalate their concern to technical support for further assistance and provide them with enough details for it.

Analytical Skills

Apart from organizational skills and attention to detail, a helpdesk professional should have strong analytical skills. They should be able to ask additional questions regarding a customer’s concern, especially if the customer struggles to articulate the issue, and be able to identify their resolution easily. 

Additionally, depending on the nature of the company and the products they handle, they must easily identify the certain product their customer mentioned.

Helpdesk support offers real-time problem solving, so they should be capable of analyzing issues and solutions quickly.

Works Well Under Pressure

Helpdesk support also handles volumes of calls, tickets, and workload that should be done in a short period. With this, they should be able to work under pressure and have a clear focus on finishing their work on time. 

Focus and consistency are the keys to maintaining consistent work. They need to fully focus on their current workload so they can finish on time.

Proficiency in Helpdesk Software Tools Used in the Operation

Lastly, as a part of technical knowledge, administrators should be well-trained to use several helpdesk software tools in their operations. 

As much as possible, helpdesk support must know how to use tools such as Zendesk or FreshDesk to help make their work easier. These tools can make their work more efficient by streamlining conversations, better record and track customer issues, and schedule appointments easier. 

Helpdesk software tools are either provided by the company itself or their outsourcing partner for their team.

Outsourcing Your Helpdesk Support

You do not need complicated processes and a large cost to build a helpdesk support team. 

Hiring in-house support can bring you some benefits, but this entails higher operational costs for small businesses. Building your own IT helpdesk administrator, requires an office space, phones, computers, help desk software, and other equipment. You’ll also need to train them and ensure they deliver quality support.

Meanwhile, you gain greater advantages when you outsource helpdesk support. Aside from savings, you have access to global talent and the latest technology provided by a reliable outsourcing partner such as SixEleven. Outsourced services can also provide an efficient business continuity plan when local calamities arise.

Get in touch with us to know more about how we can support your business.