The Help Desk Agent position at any IT Service Management operation is paramount to their longevity and success. Service desk agents require several skills since they are the ones in charge of bridging the gap between users and the company by acting as a point of contact for inquiries or problem-solving from a technical standpoint. Most of all, they are outstanding listeners, practical thinkers, and crystal clear communicators who can manage to successfully represent the company’s values through their service.
In addition, help desk agents gather and classify all customer concerns, and report every transaction to management for evaluation and improvement of its service and products. The service desk agent also caters to phone and both email and inquiries. Thus, integrity, good conversation skills, and an ability to work under pressure are absolute musts.
The truth, however, is that more often than not, job descriptions can be a little hazy or too wide in scope as to what they really need from service desk agents in most job-seeking websites. For that reason, we have put together a detailed run-through of what you might encounter in most job opening descriptions posted on high-transit job-seeking websites.
The best way to do it is to start with an example of a help desk agent job description:
IT Help Desk Representative
Tyrell & Deckard Hardware Solutions.
We are looking for a performance-driven candidate with effective communication skills to join a brand new team of service desk operators in our rapidly-expanding company based in Miami, Florida.
A candidate who could thrive in this position must also be customer-oriented, confidential, and be able to generate creative solutions.
Responsibilities:
- Respond to and investigate customer/end-user inquiries, concerns, and issues via logged phone calls, mail, and e-mail in a timely and courteous manner.
- Escalating issues as needed and maintaining communication with the customer and Technical teams through resolution and assuring SLA’s are being met through support groups.
- Organize and maintains file system; files correspondence and other records.
Qualifications:
- Proficiency in Microsoft Office programs including Excel, Word, and Outlook, PowerPoint, Access, ABS, and iSeries/ AS400 preferred..
- Experience with ticketing systems.
- Bilingual (Spanish / English)
As you can see, there’s quite a lot of stuff to unpack here, so let’s take a closer look and see what they essentially mean.
Help desk agent job description: duties and skills
First off, there’s the introductory section. A few requirements are peppered through it and on closer inspection, some of them stand out. The performance-driven part is a synonym of aligning work with strategic goals and meeting them in a timely manner. This also means you’ll be expected to look for ways to improve and promote quality through creative solutions such as translating concepts into simpler and broadly-known terms like images, graphs, or reports, just to name a few.
When effective communications skills are brought to the table, it’s easier to think of these as “people skills” or soft skills. You want to sound friendly and have a conversational but resolutive disposition. This ties into being confidential, which means that you’ll have to uphold the company’s values and security protocols. Last but not least, customer-oriented candidates know that customers are integral to any successful entrepreneurial endeavor and are always able to find nuanced ways of making the customer experience as smooth as possible.
Moving forward with the help agent job description, it's time for responsibilities. There are a couple of key aspects to put under the spotlight here. First, there’s the part where you are expected to respond to and investigate customer/end-user inquiries. This could be done through email or phone and these will oftentimes be logged for supervision. Pace yourself too, since the more open you are to listening to the customer’s inquiry, the quicker you can come up with a concise solution.
Escalating issues as needed is something that every service desk agent should always do when a swift solution is not within grasp. How and to whom these issues should be escalated depends on the analyst’s level and the issue’s complexity. Often times tickets can be elevated up to level 3, where analysts pertinent to this level look into structural problems that might be causing trouble. Otherwise, a level 1 analyst should be able to deal with most complications.
Assuring Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are met is paramount to any kind of service, but with service desk agents this is one of the defining factors that will quantify how well they are doing. Most companies have support groups dedicated to analyzing performance but of course meeting SLAs is a goal all agents should strive for every step of the way.
An agent’s day-to-day activities don’t start and end when a user has established contact. Far from it, that’s where they begin. One of the most overlooked tasks analysts need to carry out is organizing and maintaining file systems. Since user’s issues are expected to be fully solved, analysts need to monitor, organize and file all complaints and issues so as to better follow each case.
Additionally, if tickets are actually elevated to higher-level agents, reports detailing the troubleshooting that has already been tried are essential. Though it may seem indirect, this is indeed another sign of someone who’s an organized and efficient team member.
Help agent job description: qualifications
In terms of qualifications, we’ll keep it nice and simple, especially because of how jargon-filled some help desk agent job descriptions can be.
Times might change but MS Office tools continue to be of great help in IT circles, so knowing how to work with these tools is pretty much the standard for any IT-related job. You’d better know there inside out, since more of then than not, you’ll have to do some troubleshooting and support work with these. Additionally and particularly in the case of reports and briefing, internal cloud networks might be used for in-company filesharing.
As someone who’ll be constantly working with ticketing, it’s important to know how ticketing systems work. To put it briefly, a ticketing system is a management tool that processes and catalogs customer service requests. Tickets, also known as cases or issues, need to be properly stored alongside relevant user information. Though of course, managerial duties will largely be in charge of -you’ve guessed it: Service Desk Managers.
The bottom line
When searching for a job as a Service Desk Agent, it’s important to know what employers are searching for. Although you need several skills to become a help desk agent, the help desk agent job description typically includes the following:
- Performance-driven mindset
- Communication skills - or soft skills
- Ability to work under pressure
- Creativity
- Organization
We hope this quick guide has provided insight and be of aid if you are currently looking to position yourself in a rapidly-expanding field of work such as this one. InvGate Service Desk is a tool that helps service desk agents who are looking for that.
