3 Ways to Give Your IT Department the Boost They Need

If you have an internal IT department, chances are that they’re functioning in a similar manner to a help desk team. They provide technology support for your less-adept employees, or those who encounter errors that they’re unable to resolve. Chances are that your IT department could use a hand every now and then, so here are a few ways you can lighten their help desk workload to free up time for more efficient purposes.

Invest in Employee Education
Have you ever encountered the problem of employees not knowing how to use a new solution so they end up asking IT too many questions? This can eat up a significant amount of time and resources that you can’t afford to waste. Yet, you can’t let your team handle their own IT issues; not without first educating them about how to best approach the problem.

One way that you can address this problem is by educating your employees on basic best practices, including email inbox management, network security, and so on. The more time that you invest in training your employees on how to be autonomous--without the help of IT--the more time that you can save in the long run. Plus, this kind of professional development is beneficial for your employees, too.

Set Up A Documentation Center
Have you ever resolved a problem that’s been asked multiple times, to the point where it just gets frustrating and time-consuming to answer the same question over and over again? This is often the case with IT support. In times like this, it would be helpful if you had a center where you can direct users who might be having trouble with basic issues that are frequently encountered. This is what we call a documentation center. If you have one, your techs can simply send a link to the file containing instructions on how to fix a basic problem.

Outsource IT Support
One of the easiest ways that your business can help your help desk is by outsourcing some responsibilities to a managed service provider. In most cases, your organization will have to focus on one of two responsibilities. You will either focus on management and maintenance of your IT, like applying patches and security updates, or you will focus on keeping operations moving forward. Yet, you’ll probably only have time for one of these, so you’ll be presented with a dilemma that’s not easy to resolve. Which one is more important?

In situations like these, Preferred is happy to help. Our trusted technicians can work with your team to ensure that they’re not held back by minor IT hiccups, while your in-house team can work toward implementing new and innovative solutions designed to improve operations. Or, if your in-house team wants to focus on providing support, we’re happy to innovate for you.

To learn more about our managed IT services, reach out to us at 708-781-7110.