Misrak Polytechnic College

WEB DEVELOPMENT AND DATABASE

ADMINISTRATION
Level II

Recording Client Support

Requirements
 LO1. Log Requests For Support
 LO2. Prioritize Support Requests
 LO3. Participate in workplace meetings and
discussions
 Recording Client Support
Requirements
 LO1. Log Requests For Support
 This unit is developed to provide you the
necessary information regarding the
following content coverage and topics:
 Recording client support requests and
requirements according to organizational
standards
 Reviewing client support history and
details
 Checking and requesting the information for
accuracy and urgency
 1. Recording client support requests and
requirements according
Client: Can be to organizational
an individual, s.
an organization,
business or an institution that may come in
person or communicate using any
communication means like telephone, e-mail,
fax or online help desk to get technical
support, consultation on technologies etc.
 Log :Means recording client support
requirements based on organizational rule,
regulation and policies.
 Escalate: Transferring a helpdesk that
cannot be resolved to personnel at a lower
level such as an IT specialist or IT manager.
Cont.…
 First level Support: usually refers to the
initial support offered to a customer by a
help desk operator; in this initial point of
contact, the officer determines the nature of
the call and will try to solve the problem if it
is straightforward; support organizations
usually have quite clear outlines of what
constitutes first level support.
 Priority: The value given to an incident,
problem or change to indicate its relative
importance in order to appropriately allocate
resources and specify an appropriate time-
frame for resolution.
Cont.…
 Service Level Agreement: An agreement
between a service provider and a customer
detailing the level of service that is provided,
usually including what is covered, what is
not covered, the response time for
resolution.
 This is a contract that defines expectations
between an organization and the service
seller to provide an agreed-upon level of
support. As an employee of the service
company, your job is to honor the SLA that
you have with the customer:
Cont.…
 Service monitoring
 Contingency
 Maintenance windows
 Response time guarantee
 An SLA typically is a legal agreement that
describes the responsibilities and liabilities
of all parties involved.
 Overview of Client support
requirements
 Providing good IT supports for clients is vital
to the effective operation of any
organizations, so you may find there are
established procedures for determining and
addressing client support issues. In this
Learning guide you will learn about these
procedures, as well as the general skills and
knowledge needed to record clients’ support
need with IT problems.
 Client Support Roles
 Information technology is an integral part of
the operation of modern organizations or
businesses. Users of information technology
need timely, high-quality support. In addition
to sound technical skills, IT support staff
should have a range of skills that improve
their ability to successfully provide IT
services to their clients.
 The most important skills needed by the IT
professional who is working as a help desk
person to record the clients’ support
requirement are:
Cont…
 Technical skill
 Active listening skill
 Professional act
 Good conduct
 Following call handling processes
 Customer handling skill etc.
Cont…
 Many medium and large organizations provide a
centralized help desk support service. Clients with
IT problems report these to the help desk. Support is
typically provided for areas such as:
Hardware and software faults
 Networking problems (including login problems)
 Email and Internet problems
 Consultation on purchasing information
technologies
 Installation and configuration hardware
 Training needs
 Printing problems
 Software installation and upgrade etc.
Cont…
 Clients may request support:
 By calling a telephone or by email
 They may come in person /coming to office/
 They may fax
Data required Entry

Log number:

Help Desk Operator’s name:

Date and time of client request:

Client’s name:

Client’s contact details:

Section and location:

Problem logged:

Date and time problem occurred:

Computer/peripheral affected

Impact of the problem on operations/business:

First line support provided (if any):

Escalate to support staff? Yes/No

Support staff request details: Date and time reported:

Name of support staff:

 2. Reviewing client support history and
details
 Reviewing client support history means
checking the client support request database
for the same problems. This is very important to
overcome the following main challenges one
may face while working as a Help Desk IT
professional.
 It enables to find easily how the previously
logged problem is solved
 It eliminates redundancy of recording the same
problem
 It enables easily identify the problems solved
from the one in queue
 It enables the responsible IT staff for the
resolution of the problems logged etc.
 3. Checking and requesting the
information
 Accuracy isfor
toaccuracy and urgency
be ensuring that the
information is correct and without any
mistake. Information accuracy is important
because may the life of people depend in it
like the medical information at the hospitals,
so the information must be accurate.
 The quality of information measured by
accuracy, timeliness, completeness, relevance
and if it is easy to understood by the users, so
the accuracy important for quality of
information.
Cont.…
 Urgency is a measure of how long it will be
until an incident, problem, or change has a
significant business impact. For example, a
high-impact incident may have low urgency
if the impact will not affect the business until
the end of the financial year.
 Recording Client Support
Requirements
LO2. Prioritize Support Requests
 This unit is developed to provide you the necessary
information regarding the following content coverage
and topics:
 Identifying relevant guidelines for prioritizing or
rating client
requests
 Prioritizing client requests
 Referring requests to appropriate person or
department for assistance
 Involving appropriate persons with client support to
be communicated
 Identifying relevant guidelines for
prioritizing or rating client request
 There should be some mechanism used to
prioritize service request that come from clients.
In many organizations there are rules and policies
that govern prioritization issues. The most
important factor taken into consideration is:-
 Business Critical System – the interruption of
such system directly affects the production, profit
of the organization or the business. It results in
bankruptcy, frustration, disappointment etc.
Cont…
 Prioritize client requests based on criticality
or impact on the business
 Some client support requests will be allocated a
high priority, as they involve critical IT functions
which cannot be carried out until the problem is
resolved. Extra resources may have to be
allocated to high priority support needs, and the
progress of these support needs to be closely
monitored.
 The most common ways of prioritization
mechanisms are using the following general
guidelines but its best to respond to all requests
as quickly as possible.
 High Priority
 High priority is given where the business
critical system has got a problem.
 A significant number of people are affected
by an issue, a customer’s computer crashed,
the network server is down, a virus attack,
or there is a security concern.
 Examples: The user is unable to login; the
computer crashed; a customer’s account is
locked or the password needs to be reset; a
computer has been infected by a virus; an
entire student lab is down; if the network is
inaccessible.
 Medium Priority
 A single customer is affected by a problem
but is still able to work, or there are
problems with a service but it is still
functional.
 Examples:- A customer is experiencing
irregular computer problems; is unable to
open or work within a software program; is
having printer problems; has lost access to a
file share; or requires data recovery/backup.
 Low Priority
 Routine or maintenance tasks.
 Examples: A customer asks “how to”
questions or requests new software
installations or computer set up. The
department requests account creations or
updates, directory changes, or new file
shares.
 Ways to Prioritize
 Important + Urgent
 Important + Not-Urgent
 Not Important + Urgent
 Not Important + Not Urgent
 Recording Client Support
Requirements
 LO3. Participate in workplace meetings and
discussions
 This unit is developed to provide you the necessary
information regarding the following content
coverage and topics:
 Attending team meetings on time as scheduled.
 Expressing own opinions clearly
 Listening those of others to without interruption.
 Developing consistent meeting inputs with the
meeting
purpose and established protocols.
 Conducting Workplace Interactions
In A Courteous Manner
 Participate at Work
 A clearly defined purpose to your meeting
 Advise people of the meeting in time for them to be
able to attend
 Set an agenda
 Start and finish on time
 Manage the participants
 Attending team meetings on time as
scheduled
 Team meeting is a scheduled conversation when
employees discuss a particular topic or list of topics,
which should be outlined on a pre-planned agenda
created by the meeting leader.
 Why Effective Team Meetings are Important
 Builds Stronger Relationships
 Helps Make Better and Faster Decisions
 Facilitates Creative Thinking and Innovation
 A Medium for Feedback and Continuous
Improvement