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The Complete Help Desk Guide
by Mary Lenz, softcover, 224 pages, 1996, $24.95

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Overview

Keep this book within easy reach, because it has tips from industry experts on just about every help desk and support center topic there is. Mary Lentz's Complete Help Desk Guide helps you predict call volume, reduce turnover and costs, and make telecommuting, workspace design, and Web support decisions. And, if you are gearing up for a help desk software selection, don't be without this book. In addition to a project workplan checklist, and one-hundred questions and criteria for inclusion in your vendor Request For Proposal, this book contains one of the most recently compiled list of help desk software vendors in its self-proclaimed "Mother of All Product Guides". Really quite a buy at $24.95.
Table of contents

The Dawn of Help Desks.

  • Why they developed.

  • Formal Technical Support.

Setting Up a Help Desk.

  • Goals & Missions.

  • Starting from scratch.

  • Reevaluating an existing help desk

  • Controlling calls and costs.

  • Predicting call volume.

  • Structural ergonomics.

  • Looking at other support centers.

  • Understanding the support process.

  • Outsourcing support.

  • IBM's well kept secret.

Deciding What's Right For You.

  • Choosing the right help desk system.

  • Creating a request for proposal.

  • Determining needs - one help desk manager's experience.

  • Real-life RFP's.

  • Building a knowledge base.

  • Gateway 200's knowledge base implementation. - Artificial intelligence.

The Vendors.

  • The Mother of All Help Desk Guides.

  • Help desk services & outsourcers.

  • Industry groups & associations.

Using other systems.

  • Remote access control.

  • Bug tracking.

  • Automatic Call Distributor (ACD's).

  • Dell Computer's ACD system.

  • Interactive Voice Response systems (IVR).

  • Computer Telephony Integration (CTI).

  • Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN).

The Self-Help Evolution.

  • Using e-mail.

  • The Internet.

  • Mary Kay Cosmetics.

  • Breaking a support bottleneck.

Managing Your Help Desk.

  • Organization and maintenance.

  • Preventing burnout.

  • Reducing turnover.

  • Telecommuting.

  • Ensuring customer satisfaction.

  • How Hewlett-Packard measures customer satisfaction.

  • What a customer satisfaction survey should look like.

High-Profile Case Studies.

  • ABC's response center.

  • Bay Networks.

  • Kraft Foods.

  • Mercedes Benz.

  • MTV.

  • Novell.

  • Quantum.

  • Staples.

The Future of Support.

  • Opinions.

  • Intel's philosophy.

  • Support Standards Initiative.

  • Desktop Management Task Force.

  • Future trends.

  • Multi-vendor support.

  • Solution Exchange Standard.

  • Streamlining e-mail support.

  • Closing thoughts

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Last modified December 31, 1997

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