What’s the difference between technical support and help desk?
between technical support
In the realm of IT support, the terms “Technical Support” and “Help Desk” are often used interchangeably, giving rise to confusion about their roles and responsibilities.
While both play crucial roles in assisting users with technical issues, they are distinct in their functions and scope.
Here, in this blog, we aim to shed light on the subtle yet significant differences between Technical Support and Help Desk, offering readers a clearer understanding of their respective purposes within an organization.
What Is a Help Desk?
A central point of contact for end-users, a help desk is designed to resolve basic issues related to the company’s products/services. A type of reactive support, it is responsible for handling and resolving fundamental customer queries like password resets.
Having a more general understanding of business products/services, the help desk handles the majority of tickets. If the problem is too technical, then they escalate to the eligible level of tech support.
What Is Technical Support?
Technical Support, normally said as tech support, receives highly technical tickets from the help desk. With a high level of technical expertise, they provide specialized support for complex technical problems like server malfunctions.
Generally, it’s a self-contained system that focuses on resolving issues without escalation or referring.
Help Desk vs. Tech Support
Goals
Being the first point of contact, the help desk has more of a customer-centric approach. Their primary goal is to resolve the issues without delay and boost customer satisfaction.
The main aim of technical support is to resolve the technical problem by identifying the root cause and providing the best solution. They are fully committed to achieving success in a single attempt, aiming to eliminate the necessity for customers to recontact.
Different Listening Approach
The help desk listens with empathy and makes the customers their top priority. While they listen to “fix” the issue, sometimes they can only recommend the possible solution or escalate it.
Tech Support, on the other hand, seeks to address problems head-on. They listen with a “to fix this” approach and guide customers with detailed steps.
Skills
A help desk typically focuses on offering immediate assistance and basic problem-solving. The required skills for them are active listening, communication, adaptability, and problem-solving.
Technical Support is characterized by its in-depth knowledge of complex systems, hardware, and software intricacies. Professionals in this field possess advanced troubleshooting skills, adeptly tackling intricate issues and providing specialized solutions. Additionally, they need to be able to decipher complex technical jargon into user-friendly language.
Perspective
A help desk is designed to take a general and holistic approach. Thus, they have a broad knowledge of the product/service.
Tech Support takes the “target-specific approach” for problem-solving. To provide specialized solutions they categorize problems into hardware, software, system, network, etc.
Summing Up
In essence, a help desk acts as the initial filter and support for general technical issues, offering quick solutions and routing more complex problems to technical support teams.
Technical Support, on the other hand, handles intricate and specialized issues, offering in-depth assistance and solutions to customers who require deeper technical expertise.
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With there being 3.5 billion smartphone users in the world, mobile becomes one of the key elements of an omnichannel strategy. With the addition of hundreds of millions of users in a month, it makes sense for a customer to seek support on their mobile devices too.
According to a study conducted by SuperOffice, 90% of customers stated their customer service experience on mobile was negative and 52% of customers said that a poor mobile experience makes them less inclined to the brand. To improve on this factor, make it easier for your customer to navigate and get support. The top complaint of customers for customer service on a mobile site was “difficult to navigate”.
With there being 3.5 billion smartphone users in the world, mobile becomes one of the key elements of an omnichannel strategy. With the addition of hundreds of millions of users in a month, it makes sense for a customer to seek support on their mobile devices too.
According to a study conducted by SuperOffice, 90% of customers stated their customer service experience on mobile was negative and 52% of customers said that a poor mobile experience makes them less inclined to the brand. To improve on this factor, make it easier for your customer to navigate and get support. The top complaint of customers for customer service on a mobile site was “difficult to navigate”.