Top 15 Help Desk Support Skills to be Best in Your Career

Top 15 Help Desk Support Skills to be Best in Your Career

In order to excel in your help desk support career, you need to possess certain skills and qualities.

This post will guide you in learning about the qualities and skills you need to develop to be a best performer in your department and put your career in the path of success.

But first, let’s see what this position is about:

What is Help Desk Support Job?

Help desk support job involves providing customer service and technical user support on company-supported computer applications and platforms. The help desk support specialist troubleshoots problems and gives advice on the appropriate action to take.

The tasks you need to perform as a help desk support agent include responding to requests for technical assistance in person or through phone or electronic channel; diagnosing and resolving technical hardware and software problems; researching questions using available information resources; advising user on appropriate action; following standard help desk procedures; logging all help desk software; and administering help desk software. See detail help desk support job description.

Now, back to the skills and qualities you need to develop to be best on the job:

15 Help Desk Support Skills to be good on the Job

1. Patience: A valuable quality for anyone in the help desk support career to have is patience. Patience creates room for greater service; it allows the help desk support staff to take enough time to better understand the customer’s problems. When they understand the customer and know exactly what they want, they will then be able to serve them better. So, you need to exercise lots of patience in your job, especially when dealing with downcast and confused customers to be able to satisfy them.

2. Creativity: Your creativity will enable you to create effectively ways of dealing with customers. You should be able to come up with workable solutions regardless of how complicated the problems may seem to be. If a customer is calling on you over an issue, you can easily meet their needs in the best way you can using your creative skills.

3. Flexibility: When you are flexible in your job, you will be able to relate well and provide quality support to customers who come with different challenging issues to resolve. When you are flexible, you can easily handle customers of various behavioral types and meet their needs. A flexible help desk support agent will have the ability to handle a chatty customer and an angry one at the same time.

4. Active Listening: Customers would always like you to listen to them when they approach you with a problem. Do not allow your terminology to confuse your customers, because they would like you to hear their voice. You have to first listen attentively to get the point so that you will be able to identify the root cause of their problem. When it comes to understanding problems and finding solutions, a keen ear is a must-have quality.

5. Organization: To be able to cope with multiple tasks across various platforms for better support you will need to have good organizational skills. When you stay organized, you will have minimal errors during your work section and also have the ability to work efficiently. You need to organize both your time and your equipment in order to improve your time management, keep better track of your work materials, and plan your tasks superbly.

6. Interpersonal Skills: You need to be as friendly as possible to help you build a strong customer relationship. You should be able to express complex process in an easy way that customers can easily understand it.

The customers could get confused by the help desk jargon that is so common in the industry, but if you can rely on your interpersonal skills, you will go far beyond their expectations to win their trust, solve their problems and prove your competence.

Most of the people you help don’t know much about computers and their various functions. Therefore, you need to demonstrate that you are taking their problems seriously and working to resolve the issue.

7. Empathy: With empathy, you will be able to put yourself in the shoes of the customer you are dealing with after hearing or reading their issue. You should think about their feelings and try to understand their problems. If the issue demands an apology, you should start with an honest apology and make them to know that you understand why they are disturbed and you are looking for a way to resolve the issue, so as to keep them happy and smiling.

8. Strong Communication Skills: Help desk support agents need the ability to communicate effectively, excellently, and boldly because they are customers’ first point of contact. Good verbal and non-verbal communication skills can build superlative customer relationships, which can be leveraged to business success. You also need to relate to each customer in a language they understand, and ask the right questions to get to the bottom of the problem so you can get it solved.

9. Sense of Urgency: Help desk agents should recognize the urgency of the issues they are to resolve. Some issues require immediate resolution while some other ones may be resolved later on. Customers usually like their problems to be resolved immediately, however where this is not possible, the help desk support person should make it clear that the issue is being handled with a sense of urgency.

10. Good and Accessible Personality: You don’t need anybody to teach you to have good personality skills as this has to do with having great interpersonal skills, winning and smiling attitude, excellent telephone manner, overall customer service skills, etc. Another important trait that makes a good personality is a great sense of humor. This will help you to keep the daily work activities on-going. At the end of the day, customers will be happy and will like to come back.

11. Teamwork: The help desk support job requires that you possess the ability to work individually as well as with a team. Being part of a team is common no matter where you work. It will help you to progress in your career. Always make your efforts known in a team-oriented environment and success will be yours. Your success can be attributed to the collective efforts of a perfect teamwork.

12. Hardware and Software Skills: Help desk support agents should know about computers, gadgets, and the Internet, and how to correct and detect issues in the servers; repair, upgrade, and how to perform maintenance to stop any of the machines and equipment from breaking down or interrupting any of the business processes. They should also be able to teach and guide other members in troubleshooting processes.

13. Database Management Skills: You need the ability to use data effectively and understand database design concepts. You should know the needs of your clients and show that you are willing and able to explore creative approaches to using data.

Due to the fact that organizations are now establishing new initiatives and reevaluating existing strategies while examining the best possible means they can use to transform their businesses using huge data, you need database management skills to make you be the perfect match for the help desk support position.

14. Speed and Accuracy: The speed and accuracy skills will help you to work as quickly as possible without compromising the quality of work required. Working fast will give you the ability to handle more callers, therefore reducing the number of agents needed. As you waste no time answering customers’ calls, you will be able to come up with accurate solution. The information you share with your customers should also be accurate, to help keep your help desk job running smoothly.

15. Analytical Skills: You need the ability to visualize, collect correct information, analyze and handle complicated issues to ensure full productivity. You must understand the systems that you work with, and also any new developments in related hardware or software. The knowledge of how computers and other related electronics work and how to fix them is needed in your help desk support profession.

Help Desk Support for Resume

If you are writing a resume for a help desk support position, you can apply the skills and qualities presented above in making the competence or skills section.

The core competence section of your resume is where you put your best skills and qualities relevant to achieving success on the help desk support job.

Conclusion:

If you are in the help desk support career and desire to excel in it, the skills and qualities presented in this post will help you achieve the goal.

Also, if you are an employer in the process of recruiting for the help desk support role, you can use this article in creating the job requirements for the role that interested applicants should meet to be considered for the job.