OT: Quick poll on helpdesk staffing

[Mark LaCore]

Hi all,
Quick poll on your company's helpdesk staffing:

I work at a company that hosts ~1500 users, and we only have 4 helpdesk
representatives and 4 desktop support representatives.

What does your company have? I'm just interested in the help to user ratio.

Mark

 

[Ray at]

Perhaps you should post this poll to a website if possible, so people don't
flame you, but hey, I'd like to hear the results too! :]

My company: 800 users - ONE helpdesk person, for the most part. There are
two, but they have different shifts. There is also a part-time one who
works about 16 hours a week, but most of her time is spent doing
non-helpdesk things.

One day my company will figure out that one helpdesk person is not enough.
That department has the worst reputation in the company, and it's not their
fault.

Ray at work

 

[TimBo]

Yes and no... there are over 1500 servers, Wan and Lan
hardware, Routers, Switches, Printers all over the place,
etc... Direct user support is done by maybe 250 techs. The
rest of the team is still doing support but end users
doesn't know they are there.

I was told that, in Canada, the ratio is 1 tech for every
100 users. We do about double that number.

Timbo.

 

[Chris Barnes]

Hi all,
Quick poll on your company's helpdesk staffing:

I work at a company that hosts ~1500 users, and we only have 4
helpdesk representatives and 4 desktop support representatives.

Being a former helpdesk staff person myself (including being the
manager) for 10 years, allow me to offer some advice: merely looking
at the staffing numbers will tell you nothing. They are not
transportable from 1 company to another, or even 1 group within a
company to another group. The type of questions referred will be
different, the level of service expected will differ, ad.infinitum.

You would be FAR better served by looking at 3 statistical numbers:
1) the number of questions in the queue awaiting an answer.
2) the number of questions answered in the first contact
3) the length of time spent on each contact

(of course #2 will depend on whether the helpdesk is an 'answer center'
or merely a place where questions are redirected).