Interview | Katie Blue on building a standout support desk

IT service desks are the quiet achiever of the IT world. They don’t get the fanfare of breakthrough product launches or the spotlight of innovation labs, but without them, the world would be brought to a screeching halt. This is because when you strip it back, service desks do the important work of taking in problems and giving back solutions. Without that central place to exchange issues for answers, small problems can quickly turn into much bigger ones. Just ask anyone who’s had their entire work day derailed by an unresponsive keyboard or a classic case of improper printer setup.

As a managed service provider, it’s hard to overstate the importance our service desk plays in our customers’ lives. Day-in and day-out, users from all over Australia and beyond rely on our service desk team to help them leap over their roadblocks and get back on track. And that’s exactly what our quiet achievers do, with flying colours.

So what’s the secret sauce to creating a high-performing IT support team? There’s no one more qualified to answer that than our Service Desk Manager, Katie Blue. Responsible for heading up support, Katie’s leadership draws on her 13+ years of experience working across customer service and IT. We recently sat down with her to talk about the things that keep her department ticking.

Q: You’re both the Service Desk Manager and a technical escalation point for your team. What do you enjoy most about your role?

A: I love the variety—everyday is different. There’s the team management side, but then there’s everything else: site visits, client meetings, engaging with the technical teams, and completing technical tasks for our clients.

Q: What philosophy guides your approach to IT support?

A: I’m a firm believer that IT support is 80% customer service and 20% technical skill. You can have all the technical expertise in the world, but if you can’t connect with your customer, you won’t be able to deliver the most effective solution.

Q: What’s a pearl of wisdom you’ve learnt from your time in the industry?

A: Always check the basics and never skip triage or information gathering. Sometimes it may look like one issue, but it ends up being something completely different!

Q: Let’s talk about the service desk team. Who makes up your team and how do their roles fit together?

A: Our level 1 engineers are Tom, Rhys, Travis, Campbell, and Sam. They’re our service desk’s ‘first line’. They’ll triage and prioritise tickets based on urgency, take care of any day-to-day issues that crop up, and support our senior team with solving more complex problems. Our senior team is Oscar (level 2 networks) and Chris (level 3 wintel). These are the guys who take on the more complex incidents: solving them and working on processes to prevent recurrences. Oscar and Chris also function like a bridge between the service desk and operations so that proactive steps can continue to be taken in our customers’ environments.

Q: What determines which team member tackles which ticket?

A: There’s many factors that determine who does what. Our goal is to make sure that the user’s issue is solved as quickly and effectively as possible, so once we have an understanding of the issue, our goal is to assign it to the most compatible problem-solver. We consider each individual’s experience with the issue type and system, their capacity, and any other important timing considerations.

Q: When an issue requires a solution from beyond the service desk, how do you work with other specialists outside your team, to keep the fix on track?

A: The ticket will go through an escalation process that will summarise what has been done, and what still requires work. This will then be monitored by myself and the relevant team manager that the ticket is escalated to. The original engineer will review the ticket on completion, including any issues that may arise again, and communicate this with the whole team so we can collectively take this learning forward for future tasks.

Q: What are the habits and practices that help the team keep tickets moving?

A: We use a number of different channels to keep us all up to date and alert other team members of urgent tickets. We also have an internal flagging system to clearly distinguish the different ticket types, which helps us get them to the right team member faster.

Q: Which platforms or technologies do you use in the day-to-day, and how do positively impact your customers’ experience?

A: Our stack looks something like this:

• ConnectWise PSA: our ticket system that keeps all the important customer information and details in a centralised place. With this system, we leverage automation so that when a ticket requiring immediate action lands (even outside business hours), it is escalated to the team via phone contact for quick response.

• Kaseya One, which is a centralised hub that houses:

  • Datto RMM: This is our remote management system, enabling us to monitor and remotely access devices securely to assist with end user and server issues for each of our managed services customers.

  • ITGlue: We store any documentation, customer site information, network, and all IT related data in this system. It is both secure and protected with MFA, to enable access with security.

  • RocketCyber: Is a security alerting system that monitors multiple systems within our client base. This notifies us via phone call and ConnectWise ticket of any errors or alerts within the environment.

• PRTG: This is another monitoring system that maintains 24/7 monitoring of critical systems to enable prompt response to any alerts or issues. This system sends notifications via phone and ConnectWise to ensure that alerts are managed quickly and efficiently.
• Microsoft Teams: We use Teams Voice as our phone system and base our internal communications and shift tracking inside the application. This enables speed and accuracy, as well as easy attendance tracking.

Q: How do you assess whether a resolution was good enough from the customer’s point of view?
A: We use customer satisfaction surveys to establish how the customer feels about the resolution to the ticket. We also have an internal QA review on all tickets for clarity, effectiveness, and communication to ensure that the customer was informed throughout the ticket.

Q: What’s been the service desk’s biggest accomplishment of the last year?
A: Reaching the goal of all tickets assigned out and 95% SLA in April! This was a proud moment for the whole team. It showed us that all the processes and practices we’d put in place were genuinely working for us and our customers.

Q: Finally, what are the top qualities that make a successful service desk team?
A: I think it’s about teamwork, being adaptable, and of course, rockstar levels of customer service. All things our team has in spades.