A help desk technician, also known as a technical support specialist or help desk support analyst, plays a crucial role in providing technical assistance and support to end-users or customers. They are often considered a Tier-1 level support, or the first level of support that you will get when you call/email/web form in for help.
Sometimes they will be specialized in a certain area, however, they usually know a broad amount of information about a variety of system. This broad level of knowledge may come at a sacrifice of deep knowledge in areas, and if they cannot handle a problem, they may hand it off to a tier 2 support person. This could be on the help desk, just someone with more experience, or in a domain specific area.
Now some people have ideas of what the helpdesk does. It’s not always accurate, but it can be funny, as is seen from this scene of the IT Crowd:
Certification Requirements?
For many companies, this is where their IT people will start, especially if you are fresh out of college, or looking at a career switch. Some companies will require certifications such at A+, or Windows Desktop at hiring. Others will require it later on, maybe as part of a 6 month probationary period. Other companies will not care one way or another.
A friend of mine worked for a company that provided this type of support for other companies. While his company didn’t require certification, they gave a 50 cent/hour raise for some, and a dollar an hour raise for others.
Job Responsibilities
Each company is going to have their own unique set of requirements and skills needed. However, in general, here are somethings which are fairly consistent that you will need to be able to do:
- Provide Technical Support: Help desk technicians assist end-users with technical issues, including hardware, software, and network problems. They may do this over the phone, via email, or through remote desktop support. This can be everything from replacing toner in a printer, to tracking down broken network cables.
- Troubleshoot Issues: Identify and diagnose technical problems by asking questions, following troubleshooting procedures, and using diagnostic tools. They need to determine the root cause of the issue.
- Resolve Technical Problems: Offer solutions to resolve technical issues, which may involve walking the end-user through a series of steps or making system changes remotely.
- Document and Track Issues: Maintain accurate records of reported problems, solutions provided, and any escalation processes. Utilize help desk software or ticketing systems to track and manage issues. This is especially important if a new version of software rolls out and there are conflicts. Tracking is often done through a CRM (Customer Relationship Support) software.
- Escalate Complex Issues: If an issue is beyond their expertise, help desk technicians escalate it to higher-level support or specialized teams, such as system administrators or network engineers.
- Install and Configure Software and Hardware: Assist with the installation, configuration, and setup of software applications, operating systems, and hardware components like printers and peripherals. Most help desks prepare computers for new employees and recover hardware from employees leaving.
- User Account Management: Create, modify, or delete user accounts and reset passwords for various systems and applications.
- Follow Security Protocols: Adhere to security policies and procedures to safeguard data and protect against cybersecurity threats. This is a base level support, as most companies will have a skilled team that does this for the organization.
What You Need to Know
As was mentioned before, you need a broad amount of knowledge, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be deep at this level, especially for a level one help desk technician.
There are two types of skills you will need. Technical, and Soft Skills
Technical Skills
Tech skills are those which are technical in nature about the job you are performing.
- Operating Systems – which your organization allows and supports. Many companies are becoming platform agnostic, especially with web based tools. You will also need to know how to update the machine’s OS both through regular (security) updates and patches, as well as to new versions.
- Hardware Knowledge – be able to troubleshoot, and upgrade hardware such as SSDs, RAM, and peripherals.
- Networking Basics – to check on connectivity, configure machines, and troubleshoot problems.
- Software Skills – Generally only the basics, and those used by the organization they are working for. May only be able to check to make sure it is installed, but not know much beyond that.
- Remote Desktop Skills – This allows the tech to log into a computer remotely, so the end user doesn’t have to carry their equipment down to IT, or even be in the same state. I’ve helped people in different time zones more than once. And one place I worked for, their Tier-1 support was in a different country all together.
Soft Skills
Soft skills are not about a technical solution, but more about how you go about handling customers and solving their problems. These, in some cases, are more important, as you need to keep your users calm, and ask good questions to properly troubleshoot the problem, and thus solve it.
- Customer Service Skills – Strong communication skills and a customer-oriented approach to handle end-user inquiries and concerns effectively.
- Professionalism – Maintain a professional and patient demeanor when dealing with end-users, even in stressful situations.
- Troubleshooting Skills – The ability to systematically diagnose and resolve technical issues by following logical problem-solving steps.
- Communication – You will need to be able to communicate both over the phone, instant message, and in person. Often switching between multiple conversations at once.
Continual Learning
While some skills are constant (trouble shooting, customer service, etc), other skills will constantly need to be updated. This can be from whole new applications being adding to what your organization uses, to an update changing how an existing application works.
Over the years various types of hardware have come and gone, and you have to know how to install and configure some of them, however luckily, many are self configuring now, but not all. During my years, for just connecting the keyboard, we’ve gone from 5-pin DIN for keyboard connectors, to PS/2, to USB, to wireless – which often uses a USB receiver.
This doesn’t include different types of hard drives, the move to solid state drives, optical drives, etc. Now does it cover the different types of processors, case form factors, or even large storage systems such as NAS and SAN.
So, just because you get out of school doesn’t mean you’ll be done learning. Whether you stay in a desktop support role, or move to something more specialized, you will need to continue to learn about new tools, features, applications, and hardware.
Help Desk Support Technician was originally found on Access 2 Learn
