It’s a stressful job that lies between struggling to solve customers' problems and dealing with potential bugs in your system. So, it’s no wonder that burnout is a real issue in IT support. But just how do you stop your support staff from burning out and reduce turnover rate?
For those interested in the crossover between technology and helping others, a role in IT support might be their calling.
However, as job roles go, technical support is often cited as the role with the highest burnout rate. This is because of the constant pressure that comes with having to solve complex IT problems on the spot. Customer support often means prioritizing client satisfaction based on technological realities and limitations. This can often come at a high price if your employees lack the appropriate support and guidance to do their jobs effectively.
What’s more, by the time the customer actually gets in contact with your support team, they are often already frustrated and have tried a number of solutions. Therefore, they are looking to your IT support personnel to help them in a quick and easy way.
Whether it's a break from their desk or a break for a vacation, it's crucial to let your IT Helpdesk staff rest their mind.
The thing about IT supports roles is that they require that your techs constantly use their mind to solve what might sometimes be very complex technical problems, but doing this day in, day out, for 10+ hours a day, five days a week, will inevitably lead to burnout.
If you take the necessary steps to ensure your staff has time off the phone by rotating tasks (including undertaking administrative work), you can reduce employee turnover and limit the amount of staff who face burnout.
Attracting and retaining highly-skilled support personnel is the key to success for most small businesses. Increasing benefits, offering better pay, and better perks may also help lower the number of staff who experience burnout and, as a result, leave the support department. Savvy business owners have to be mindful of this when allocating assets for their IT Helpdesk department.
The longer someone is in an IT support role for any given company, the more familiar the problems they have to deal with are. Initially, when they first start the role, each problem will be new and exciting and offer a fresh challenge. But as time goes by, they’ll find themselves dealing with the same problems over and over, and perhaps their enthusiasm will start to wane.
When your IT Helpdesk staff starts to feel less motivated, dealing with frustrated and potentially angry customers can be very challenging.
That’s why it’s important to ensure that the work your staff is doing is varied and stimulating, but it's also equally important that they feel that their job enables them to be constantly learning and growing in their career.
Ways to combat monotony include giving all your IT Helpdesk staff the opportunity to try different things. A good strategy is to let them participate in special projects such as documenting processes like the onboarding of new staff so they can be ready to help the rest of the IT Helpdesk team sooner.
Giving your employees the opportunity to complete tasks that are different from their primary role will help break up their workday and make the workday more interesting (as well as helping the IT Helpdesk team as a whole with a divide-and-conquer strategy).
Using an IT Helpdesk tool like SherpDesk will enable your support personnel to easily track their tasks (i.e., IT Helpdesk tickets). They can also assign priority to specific tasks and tickets, giving your team the ability to manage their own time and expectations.
Most people who require the help of an IT support technician want their problems solved instantly. What they forget is that in order for that to happen, there has to be a support team readily available. This team will work on providing solutions to your customers while helping your IT Helpdesk team do their jobs better. Rotating between the support staff and the frontlines (phones, emails) is also a good way to prevent staff burnout.
As we mentioned earlier, the work of your IT support technicians (after a while) can become repetitive. Giving your employees the opportunity to learn new skills that will help them solve more complex challenges will enable them to broaden their experience and provide better IT support for your clients.
Your support team has a wealth of knowledge. They know what major technical issues your customers deal with, and they know what problems are the most common on your site and processes.
This is valuable information for your company as a whole. Encourage all departments, especially marketing, and sales, to reach out to the support team to find out what problems customers are currently facing.
Armed with this data, your marketing team can better create content and campaigns that directly address your customer’s major pain points.
Your IT support team shouldn’t exist in silos relative to the rest of your company.
Your customer support team is the face of your MSP. They help keep your customers around for longer and take the blame for everyone else’s mistakes.
As a successful business owner, it's important to take the necessary steps to ensure that your IT support team feels looked after and valued and that your techs have tools (like SherpaDesk) to do their jobs effectively.
What steps have you taken to stop IT Helpdesk support burnout?