External Helpdesk - Efficient Way to Provide 24/7
Content
When the words external helpdesk are spoken, many companies get scared and immediately think about one thing – high price. But is the internal helpdesk center truly less costly?
The times of expected 8/5 work hours have been a history for along time. With the shift of our lives to the online world, we have changed our view on the hours services should available. It used to be quite normal to go shopping on certain days and then the shops were closed on the others. Today, when we cannot go shopping in the middle of the night and have a midnight snack in a favourite fast food chain, we get grumpy and the company gets a thumbs down.
So how do you ensure for customers to have services at hand at any point in time but our company does not pay for this with its financial health? The solution is external professional helpdesk that can cover the time your technicians are no longer at work.
Scenario
Let’s imagine a company that runs its own e-shop. The team has several technicians that take care of the cloud and also resolve problems that can occur during the customers’ shopping experience. Sometimes an advice is enough, sometimes it is necessary to get the hands dirty.
Given that the technicians work 8 hours a day, everything runs smoothly and the customers receive the care they expect. But what about the rest of the day, the 16 remaining hours? Rememmber that people want to do everything on their own terms. So if you count with a mmonth having 30 days, that would leave you with 552 days when the customers will not have support they need – or worse, they expect.
Fulfilling Expectations – External Helpdesk
What actually falls into external helpdesk? It is not just a call center where people write their problems and that is all. We are talking about a team of specialists that are able to find a solution. They have experience with solving various problems, they can empathize to understand what the problem really is. And they ensure the customers receive the answers that save the reputation of their companies.
L0 – common call center – writing down a request into a ticketing system
L1 – tech call center – guiding the custommer over the phone to resolve the problem
L2 – techn call center – the technician comes to the customer or uses a remote desktop to resolve the problem
L3 – tech call center – activities requiring a specialist help
Therefore, we are talking about IT guys that are not complete juniors. When you think about the wages of these employees, goosebumps are ensured. Let’s now look about the two solutions of our scenario – own helpdesk center vs. external helpdesk as a service.
Head-to-Head between Own vs. External Team
We will not consider now the 8 hours covered by our own technicians (even though even them coud be relieved from some of the routine tasks). We will focus on all the things we need to ensure to cover the remaining 552 hours and mainly, we will look how much it will cost.
Wages
If we want to utilize 24/7, then the minimal size of our team will be 5 people. Experience shows that an average wage for such a position is around CZK 35 000 if we don’t include weekend fees, vacations, additional fees and overtimes. Then we reach CZK 45 000 and when we include costs for the employer, then one team member will cost CZK 60 000 a month. And we have 5 of them – meaning CZK 300 000 every month.
equipment and services
Of course our team cannot be left without devices – literally – so we will have to buy the equipment – computers, phones, licenses, etc. Then we will also have to add increased costs for services because the offices will be populated not for 8 but for 24 hours. And also put that office space on the shopping list.
A rough estimate of these costs amounts to CZK 200 000 per month.
know how
Our new team also needs the know-how and we need to expend time and money to also maintain the new talent in the company. We will probably need to prepare internal processes that will be like a manual for this team. This will be the result of the rest of the team that will have to put the material together in their productive time.
Comparison
Your own helpdesk will cost you at least a half a million per month for maintaining 24/7. This is a significant increase in costs. And what about the costs for an external helpdesk? We have not mentioned that in our calculations.
Because it is very simple. External helpdesk is a service so you only have one cost item from your provider. Let’s say that the cost for helpdesk will be about CZK 100 000 per month. That is a large sum. But if you look in the previous paragraph, it is just one fifth of the costs for having your own helpdesk.
And even better view is shown when we calculate the hourly rate. Are you ready? The hourly rate will be CZK 191. Without any additional fees, overtimes and other costs. A clear one item cost.
Conclusion
24/7 is slowly becoming the new must in customer care. People expect that they can arrange their activities on their own terms which sometimes truly means nonstop availability, especially when customers come from various time zones.
External helpdesk can be a much less expensive alternative compared to the company hiring its own team. And it is also a faster alternative.
