Every organization has a helpdesk. It may be, physical, such as a walk-up counter, or virtual, such as by phone or email. Sometimes, the helpdesk is unofficial, as the portion of each day pent directly helping customers.
Small SA teams, with just one or two people, frequently have no official helpdesk, but that isn’t sustainable. As the organization grows, small SA teams, become big SA teams, and big SA teams become enterprise organizations. Organizations don’t realize that they need to institute a formal helpdesk until it is too late.
We believe that earlier is better when it comes to setting up a formal helpdesk. The best time to do this is 9 months before you realize that you should have done this 6 months ago. Organizations without access to timetravel devices need other techniques. Organizations grow through planning, and adopting a formal helpdesk should be part of that planning. If growth is
slow, you can simply look for warning signs. One warning sign is when SAs start to notice that their group has grown to the point that communication problems are occurring. Alternatively, SAs might notice that they aren’t able to get project work done because they are continually being interrupted by customer requests. Typically, the SAs might decide that it would be better
if, for example, one SA could be interrupted in the morning and focus on project work in the afternoon, and the other SA could do the opposite. If you are considering such a structure, you are in the formative stage of adopting a formal helpdesk.
The transition from ad hoc to formal helpdesk can be uncomfortable to customers. SAs should expect this and do their best to ease the transition. Communicating the new helpdesk procedures clearly is important.