The quarterly publication of the International Legal Technology Association
Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/34686
A Self-Service Legal Helpdesk? Not So Fast worldwide PC sales by the end of 2011. Gartner reports that smartphones are “the fastest-growing market segment and the most resistant to declining average selling prices.” While lawyers have embraced the global mobility and virtualization trends taking full advantage of remote access technology, this has not necessarily translated to user support applications being made available for instant remote access and troubleshooting. Why is this? How can this mind-set be changed? For one, it starts with user support taking necessary steps to ensure the user base has confidence in existing support methods, especially in after-hours and 24/7 support, an area that has traditionally presented the typical, understaffed helpdesk with its biggest set of challenges. THE FUTURE: AN INCREASINGLY EFFICIENT HYBRID OF THE PRESENT Although law firm users are becoming (by choice or not) ever more IT savvy and self-reliant, lawyers continue to have high service expectations, in large part because their clients, whose business they are competing for more fiercely than ever before, have high expectations. While some things in user support remain constant — Outlook and Microsoft Office still generate more than 50 percent of all service desk requests — there are plenty of opportunities for change. Faster, more on-demand user support service today will pave the way for broader acceptance of a self-service hybrid in the future. Updating tried and true support methods and technologies to keep pace with legal’s increasing mobility and social media prowess will not only be a welcome next step in the world of user support, but will help advance the often maligned help(less) desk to the chat-enabled, mobile-supporting, 24/7 (self) service desk. ILTA Tips for User Support: Prepare for Tomorrow’s Helpdesk Manage what you measure: A popular business axiom states you can only manage what you measure, and nowhere is that more true than in the realm of legal help/service desk support. Measuring service levels, ticket volumes and user satisfaction is only valuable if it can be tracked over time, compared to and analyzed with other metrics, and most importantly, acted upon. Knowing where the helpdesk stands now (in the eyes of your users) will help you make informed decisions about what you can and cannot change in day-to-day as well as future user application support. Leverage nonlegal helpdesk innovations to ease the pain: If you have ideas of how to advance user support, but don’t have precedent to back it up, share popular case studies and examples from consumer call centers and helpdesks that are using self-service and other innovations. When is the last time you talked with Microsoft to solve a Microsoft issue? Embrace mobility, and not only when it comes to smartphones: Legal has come a long way in leveraging mobile technologies to work faster and provide better client service. Tap into this mobility excitement and run trials of some user support applications and technologies that will not only provide users with more reliable after-hours (aka 24/7) support, but make them feel good about their helpdesk. When is the last time you heard “helpdesk” and “innovations” mentioned in the same sentence? Lance Waagner is the President and CEO of Intelliteach, a legal-specific service desk outsourcing company with offices in Atlanta and London. Prior to founding Intelliteach in 1998, Lance served as CIO for a 450-lawyer firm. Lance leads a 150-person team of legal support analysts serving over 30 percent of the Am Law 200 with 24/7 helpdesk support, overflow support and full-service outsourced helpdesk solutions. He is an active sponsor of ILTA and frequently writes and speaks on legal helpdesk and service delivery topics. He can be reached at lwaagner@intelliteach.com. Build, build, build…the user application knowledge base: Knowledge is power, especially in the world of law firm service desks. Users rely on their helpdesk for reliable and instant answers to their application questions, while user support hopes they can rely on past call-logs and resolutions to provide prudent solutions. The common denominator is growing the firm’s support knowledge base with quick fixes, how-tos, tutorials and work-arounds. After all, the sooner you can build a knowledge base with answers to most user questions, the sooner you can experiment with a self-service model. ILTA Peer to Peer the quarterly magazine of ILTA 105