How to get quick results from IT support

 

If there’s one thing we all know about IT, it’s that it’s never perfect. Your team will always have a stream of issues and problems that need resolving. That’s why you have IT support, right?

But not all IT support relationships are created equal.

The strongest relationships are built on strong communication. Give your IT partner the right information and they can deliver fast, effective results.

Efficient IT support

If you’re a smaller business you’ll be best served having a dedicated engineer from your IT partner’s team to talk to via email. Larger organisations will likely need a ticketing system due to the larger volume of support requests that will go through.

Either way, the most important thing is making sure your team has a process for clearly establishing their problem in a way that allows the engineer to identify and resolve it as smoothly as possible. To get quick results from IT support, use a process that looks something like this:

  • Take a screenshot of your problem if possible and note the error message if you have one.
  • Outline your problem.
  • Give details of the software or hardware on which the problem occurred.
  • Outline the process that brought you to your problem.
  • Include a description of the urgency of your problem so that your IT partner can prioritise tasks. For example, a computer that won’t boot up is a more pressing concern than a software glitch.

A little process goes a long way

This process isn’t just about making life easier for your IT partner; more importantly it’ll allow your team to get quick results from IT support, letting them return to full productivity much sooner.

This kind of detailed reporting of problems will also allow your IT partner to spot recurring issues and investigate the root cause in order to prevent future issues.

In other words, it’s win-win.

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