I started off my IT career on multiple Service Desks, either as a NOC Analyst or some other flavor of Technical Specialist which essentially fixed things.

IT Help Desks mainly functions as a Support group for the business; they help other teams perform their main function. A Salesforce Support team’s objective is to fix system issues so Sales and Support processes keep running. Here are some Dos and Don’ts of Support.

DON’T:

• Work off of emails
  • They are not traceable; you can’t prioritize, re-assign, or note progress.
• Forget to document your process
  • Every team has some tribal knowledge they’d like to pass onto the next guy or gal so instead of sounding like a broken record write it down.
• Merge the Support function with Development
  • I realize some groups function as Production Support and you are asked to take on Projects/ Development along with Support but you are taking on a separate function that deserves its own process.

DO:

• Use a ticketing system (like Salesforce Cases or some other ITSM software)
  • No matter how small you are you need Support metrics, and can’t have that without records of work.
• Maintain a Knowledge Base (like Salesforce Knowledge)
  • Keep articles on process and technical fixes, this will definitely pay off as you start to scale up and you need to delegate work to new members.
• Outsource Development internally or externally
  • Maybe you delegate the work to yourself, but don’t treat this as a Support Case. Projects require proper resources to plan and run it so if you don’t have the bandwidth or internal expertise you should find a consulting partner to delegate the work to.