How to hire for a Technical Support?
Summary:
Technical support workers manage, maintain, and repair IT systems. Their responsibilities include diagnosing and repairing faults, resolving network issues, and installing and configuring hardware and software.
Technical Support Officers troubleshoot technical issues, provide timely customer feedback, and support the roll-out of new applications, among other duties. Moreover, Technical Support Officers need to talk to customers directly, as well as create written documentation, requiring excellent written and verbal communication.
Standard Job Description:
Technical support is typically conveyed over phone, through email, over visit (IM) or utilizing unique programming or programming expansions that the client can utilize to legitimately contact technical support. Technical support delegates know about the intricate details of the items for which they offer help. If there is an issue that can’t be explained by the technical support, it is heightened to the advancement group and logged
as a bug that ought to be fixed by a future item update or the following item cycle.
There are a few key types of technical support:
Time and Material: This sort of help is basic in the tech business. Otherwise called “break-fix” IT support, the installment of the materials and professional assistance charge falls upon the client for a pre-arranged rate.
Managed Services: This is typically given to huge scope clients as opposed to singular buyers. A rundown of all-around characterized administrations and execution markers are given to the client on a continuous reason for a fixed rate, which is settled upon on contract. Administrations gave could be all day, every day checking of servers, all day, every day help work area and so forth. This may remember for site visits when issues can’t be unraveled remotely.
Block Hours: This is a prepaid emotionally supportive network where the client pays for a specific measure of time, which can be utilized every month or every year. This permits clients to utilize the hours deftly without the issue of administrative work or different bills.
A Technical Support system in an organization can be multi-tiered as follows-
1. Tier 0. Tier 0 (or self-help) is in the form of “wikis”, knowledge articles, chatbots, digital virtual assistants, or FAQs that consider clients to access and resolve data all alone as opposed to need to contact a neighborhood Helpdesk or Service Desk for goals.
2. Tier 1. Tier 1 (or Level 1, abbreviated as T1 or L1is the underlying help level answerable for fundamental client issues. It goes about as an “underlying sink” for client demands and, whenever required, makes an episode to tell different business groups/units to fulfill the client demand (for instance, blocking taken Mastercards or cell phones from use).
3. Tier 2. Tier 2 is a more top to bottom specialized help level than Tier I and are progressively experienced and educated on an item or administration. Experts in this domain of information are answerable for helping Tier I work force in tackling fundamental specialized issues and for examining raised issues by affirming the legitimacy of the issue and looking for realized arrangements identified with these increasingly intricate issues. Nonetheless, preceding the investigating procedure, it is significant that the specialist survey the work request to perceive what has just been cultivated by the Tier I professional and to what extent the expert has been working with the client.
4. Tier 3. Tier 3 is the most significant level of help in a three-layered specialized help model liable for taking care of the most troublesome or propelled issues. These people are specialists in their fields and are answerable for not just helping both Tier I and Tier II work force, yet with the innovative work of answers for new or obscure issues.
5. Tier 4. While not generally utilized, a fourth level regularly speaks to a heightening point past the association. Tier IV (or Level 4, abridged as T4 or L4) is commonly an equipment or programming seller.
Key Job Responsibilities:
1. Maintaining records listing requests for technical assistance, steps taken to resolve them, and the specific dates/individuals involved.
2. Act as the initial point of contact for all computer and system related concerns from clients or other employees.
3. Assist management in creating training materials pertaining to computer troubleshooting and usage.
4. Organize and file documentation pertaining to warranties and instructional guides for computer hardware.
5. Maintain a check list detailing all required system updates, as well as the date of completion.
6. Attend floor walks on client location to analyze, troubleshoot and diagnose hardware problems.
7. Resolve technical issues related to network interruptions.
8. Actively update, maintain and monitor all aspects of computer networks.
Ideal Candidate:
1. Professional written and interpersonal skills are essential when communicating with customers and clients.
2. Ability to prioritize and manage several milestones and projects efficiently.
3. Extensive experience working with different operating systems including Windows and Mac OS.
4. Accept constructive criticism and customer feedback regarding their experience with software or IT services.
5. Comfortable working in and assisting others through company help desk software to other remote access desktop programs.
6. Time-management skills and the ability to establish reasonable and attainable deadlines for resolution.
Desired Education:
A bachelor’s degree in computer science or related
technology field is preferred.
Certifications Associated:
1. Industry-specific certification in relevant computer languages or software tools may be required.
2. Certification in Microsoft, Linux, or Cisco is advantageous.
Key Skills:
Technical Support, Six Sigma, ITSM, Incident Management, ITIL, Problem Management, Change Management, Knowledge Management, CMDB, Vendor Management, Security Management, Quality Assurance, Service Excellence.
Common Positions:
1. Customer Support Administrator/Specialist
2. Desktop Support Manager/Specialist
3. Help Desk Specialist/Technician
4. IT Support Manager/Specialist
5. IT Systems Administrator
6. Senior Support Specialist
7. Senior System Administrator
8. Support Specialist
9. Systems Administrator
10. Technical Specialist
11. Technical Support Engineer/Specialist
Screening Questions/Assessment Parameters:
Prior experience in tech support, desktop support, or a similar role.
Proficiency in Windows/Linux/Mac OS.
Experience with remote desktop applications and help desk
software.
Basic Terminologies:
1. Business Continuity: Activity performed by an organization to ensure that critical business functions will be available to customers, suppliers, regulators, and other entities that must have access to those functions.
2. Cloud: A common shorthand for a provided cloud computing services (or even an aggregation of all existing cloud services) is “The Cloud”. The cloud, simply, refers to software and services that run on the Internet instead of your computer.
3. Crowdsourcing: Crowdsourcing means the outsourcing of your tasks to, well, a crowd of people. That is, you will have a loosely defined group, which will do the work for you. Crowdsourcing takes away the task that you must do in-house or by using an employee and letting a bigger group of people do it. In IT, crowdsourcing usually involves the general public.
4. Disaster recovery: Disaster recovery is the process, policies and procedures related to preparing for recovery or continuation of technology infrastructure critical to an organization after a natural or human-induced disaster.
5. Domain: Part of an Internet address. The network hierarchy consists of domains and subdomains. At the top are several major categories (e.g., com, edu, gov); next are domains within these categories (e.g., ohio-state); and then there are subdomains. The computer name is at the
lowest level of the hierarchy.
6. Domain Name: Domain names are the base part of website names like howtogeek.com or google.com. Note that domain names are just another type of hostname.
7. Firewall: A firewall is a piece of software or hardware that blocks certain types of traffic. For example, a firewall could block incoming traffic on a certain port or block all incoming traffic except traffic coming from a specific IP address.
8. IP Address: An Internet Protocol address, or IP address, is a numerical address that corresponds to your computer on a network. When a
computer wants to connect to another computer, it connects to that computer’s IP address.
9. ISP: Your Internet service provider is the company that provides you with your Internet connection. For example, your ISP may be Comcast, Time Warner, or whatever other company you’re paying each month.
10. Remote desktop: A Windows feature that allows you to have access to a Windows session from another computer in a different location.
Industry Jargons:
1. Access point: A device that allows wireless-equipped computers and other devices to communicate with a wired network.
2. Ethernet: Ethernet is the standard wired network technology in use almost everywhere today. If your computer is connected to a
network via a cable, it’s likely using an Ethernet cable. That cable plugs into an Ethernet port on your computer.
3. FTP: File Transfer Protocol; a method of exchanging files between computers via the Internet.
4. Gateway: A gateway is a device that routes traffic between networks. For example, at home, your router is your gateway. It provides a “gateway” between your LAN and WAN.
5. MAC Address: Each network interface has a media access control address, or MAC address — also known as a physical address. This is a
unique identifier designed to identify different computers on a network. MAC addresses are usually assigned when a manufacturer creates a network device.
6. Mail server: A networked computer dedicated to supporting electronic mail. You use a client program like Microsoft Outlook for retrieving
new mail from the server and for composing and sending messages.
7. Microsoft Exchange: Microsoft Exchange Server is the server side of a client–server, collaborative application product developed by Microsoft.
8. Nameserver: A computer that runs a program for converting Internet domain names into the corresponding IP addresses and vice versa.
9. Network hub: A common connection point for devices on a network.
10. Patch: Piece of software designed to update a computer program or its supporting data, to fix or improve it. This includes fixing security vulnerabilities and other bugs and improving the usability or performance.
Benchmark Profile:
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References:
https://www.betterteam.com/technical-support-job-description
https://www.thejobnetwork.com/how-to-become-a-technical-support-engineer/
