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 spent 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.