Well, undoubtedly you have some names and numbers -- either gurus your colleagues told you about, or someone who helped you before, or from a bewildering list of techies, or perhaps a single "help line" that deals with all problems like these.

"Given how frequently office computers and networks break down, it is technology support workers who often decide whether people must sit stewing unproductively for hours, or whether a software bug is just a minor nuisance," said David Leonhart in a recent New York Times article.

Help lines and help desks are a big business nowadays, with software and hardware suppliers usually providing customers (perhaps as a part of a warranty, or for a fee) a number to call for help with their product. However, like most companies, newspapers have a variegated blend of equipment, programs and networks, most of them unique, some homemade and of varying vintages. No one else knows how it is supposed to fit together. That, plus the round-the-clock, holiday and weekend operations of a daily newspaper that need to be supported, means that most of us have some kind of internal tech help available for employee "customers."

It can range from one poor frazzled soul who answers the phones, performs maintenance, teaches classes, and whose pager, cell and home phones can ring days, nights and holidays, to a multitiered, multicompartment bureaucracy that is highly automated.

Usa Today has a central number, answered by support staffs that double as mainframe computer operators. This arrangement allows them to answer telephones on a six-day, round-the-clock basis. At other times, calls are forwarded to a central switchboard that pages technicians on call. Many calls are handed off from this group to specialized team components of the Information Technology (IT) division.

Usa Today's Shirley Carr says that they have been using a call recording and tracking system they designed using Lotus Notes tools. Adding an explanation of problem resolution to a previously opened ticket is difficult with their system, however. They are in the process of bringing up a help-desk-specific system from Vantive Corp., a subsidiary of PeopleSoft Corp. of Pleasanton, Calif.

IT umbrella
At the Los Angeles Times, all technical support falls under the umbrella of the IT department (although some isolated pockets of departmental self-support persist). Ideally, all calls about problems are directed to the single, consolidated help desk. However, different major areas (editorial, Macintosh, everything else) have different numbers. The Automatic Call Distribution system (ACD -- running on the same switch that classified and circulation use) keys off the called number to pre-screen calls and funnel them to help desk analysts with appropriate expertise. However, a call to any of the help desk numbers can reach any analyst, depending on who's available. The desk is staffed from 6:30 a.m. to midnight five days a week, plus two 10-hour weekend shifts. The Times has a loose rule that anything that is expected to take more than 15 minutes is handed off to a specialized IT group.

All Times calls are tracked by the ACD both in cumulative statistics and in real time -- overhead monitors in the office display the volume of incoming calls and the status (free, busy) of available analysts. Calls are recorded on a high-level application used throughout the IT department, which has integration with data security, asset management (inventory) and change management modules. When fully developed, an analyst could retrieve information about a caller, starting with their name, and be able to quickly check on their location, the make and model of their equipment, when it was last repaired, when they last called and if others in their area are having the same problem.

The software the Times uses, from Tivoli Systems Inc. of Austin, Texas, has capabilities of maintaining a knowledge base of problems and matching solutions that an analyst can draw upon to help solve a problem. Any support person or department is sure to have not only scads of manuals, but also more scads of reference material in various forms, all the way down to Post-It Notes. Finding some tool to store and classify this material is a big help, so it can be quickly accessed while a caller is on the line. CD-ROMs and full-text search software is a possibility, and you need to be able to burn your own CDs. Information like this can be wonderful, but only if you can devote time to entering and maintaining it, so factor in these resources when considering a knowledge base or master reference. Third parties sell such CDs for common commercial software, such as the Microsoft Office suite of applications.

Outside contractor
At Philadelphia Newspapers Inc., a central help number is available for staff of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia News, offering callers a voice response menu. One choice takes them to an outside contractor that handles standard desktop-application questions. This resource is available until 8 p.m. daily.

Another choice sends them to an internal help desk that can solve basic password, network, hardware and e-mail problems. If it's more department- or application-specific, the calls are referred to specialized areas, such as electronic systems, which serve the newsroom. This desk has a tracking system to record calls, but doesn't use it to dispatch calls to other areas -- that's done by telephone.

Inside help centers are staffed until the final edition is off the floor. At other times, a cell phone is passed around to designated on-call support staff, and home phone numbers are made available.

Support operations need, like all functions, to have realistic goals and expectations. The customers need to know this as well, because problems cause, not only loss of revenue and missed opportunities, they also strike at the heart of the creative instinct in writers, artists, photographers and sales staff. If you lose something, have it trashed, or can't just keep barreling forward to the point you're trying to make, you get frustrated, and that frustration frequently gets vented on those answering the phones. They, in turn, need to understand just how much they can do, and they must be properly equipped for it.

In the help desk "industry," these are called "Service Level Agreements" (SLAs), and they have been implemented at Usa Today, says Carr. They don't have to be more than the notes of a meeting where everybody agreed on how quickly the phones would be answered, on what days and hours, and how soon someone will guarantee to get back to the caller. They can be quite elaborate, if you like. However, don't keep them a secret; there's no value in having callers make up their own expectations.

There's a wealth of equipment that can be enlisted for support tasks, and most newspapers have some of these pieces already in house, although they may be primarily for other areas. Telephones, for instance -- chances are you have some automation for the phone room in classified sales. You may be able to carve out a chunk of this action to direct calls automatically, or to set up a voice response system. ("Press One if your call is about a server problem. Press Two if ...") It's always far better to have a live human answer calls; we all know how annoying these menus are. Caller ID is a useful tool, and sometimes its display can show some of the current call statistics being monitored by an ACD.

One idea used infrequently at the Los Angeles Times is to have a crisis hotline. Calls to this number go immediately to a voice mail greeting, and when a widespread crisis occurs, the message is updated frequently by the help desk with status reports. Employees are directed to the number by e-mail (if it's working) or public address announcements. It has been welcomed by the employees, and relieves the help desk from taking a lot of "Is the system back up yet?" calls.

Access, FileMaker, etc.
Tracking calls is extremely important. There are many software products available, from the simple to the elaborate and expensive, to do this. Many smaller shops do quite well with homebrew software crafted with Microsoft Access, FileMaker or other database programs. Many problems are resolved in stages, by different people and job functions. You want to be able to know where a call is in this process, and to prevent it from getting sidetracked. You also want to be able to identify frequent problem types, which could indicate chronic flaws or deteriorating situations, and frequent callers, who may be in line for upgrades or for remedial training.

Results of tracking can demonstrate the real volume of calls, when peak periods occur, how much time it takes to resolve a problem and where they're coming from. Phone automation can be a source of additional statistics (the number of lost calls is especially significant). These numbers will be good ammunition at budget time, when you assess whether commitments are being met and if more resources are needed.

Tracking will also help with follow-up, to make sure that the original caller knows the problem was solved, and whether they are satisfied with the result. Carr, manager of publishing and support services at Usa Today, says it's one of the keys to establishing a successful operation. You may not believe it, she says, but "it can help you close more calls faster."

Support is -- or needs to be -- closely aligned with training. Let's face it, many calls for help are solved by retraining the caller. (Sometimes, unfortunately, a call amounts to training someone from scratch over the phone, when they didn't take the class for some reason.) In taking a call, the technician has to know something of what an employee was taught, to be able to remind them of class segments or exercises, or of their newspaper's preferred procedure -- versus the 27 different ways to do the same thing that you find in suppliers' manuals.

Usa Today has worked with an outside trainer and implemented with him a proactive plan to roam around departments to pick up employee feedback. This became invaluable in assessing the effectiveness of system support and adjusting classes and procedures to better match employees' needs.

For curriculum developers and manual writers, call-takers should be an important information source, as well as copyreaders, or even writers, of literature. Support staffers should spend time with developers too, because they have first-hand knowledge of what works, what doesn't and what improvements or changes would best help the employees.

Call-takers need time away from the telephones -- no more than 60 to 75 percent of their time spent that way is a recognized call-center-industry guideline -- because they need stress relief and some variety in their diet. It takes a long time for a call-taker to reach an effective level of expertise and it takes continuing education to maintain it.

Call-takers, ideally, should be super-users on at least some of the systems they support. With a variety of system types and ages, it takes more people to staff the phones, just to have a certain level of expertise available, than you need merely to keep up with call volume. The Philadelphia Inquirer's Rick Schwein says, "If you don't know the task, it's hard to solve the problem." He says support staffers not only need ongoing user-type training, but also would benefit greatly from experience sitting in the seats the callers occupy and learning how their jobs are performed.

Without such opportunities, call-takers become frustrated at their own shortcomings, on top of the stress inflicted by stressed callers, which leads to burnout and high turnover -- one of the major, chronic problems of help desks at all types of companies today. Trouble analysts are in high demand, so you need to take measures to protect your investment of time and resources by being competitive with their salaries, benefits, equipment and working conditions.

We all have help desks of some kind, but they're not always recognized and appreciated for the role they perform. If designed carefully, properly equipped and cultivated, they can make employees' lives easier and more productive, as well as help the company exploit technology better.

-- Jim Marchant

PeopleSoft Inc., (925) 225-3000, e-mail: info@peoplesoft.com;
Tivoli Systems Inc., (512) 436-8000, e-e-mail: entprod@tivoli.com.

From THE COLE PAPERS, March 2000, Copyright © 2000, All Rights Reserved.