All of today s help desk support skills, in one easy-to-understand book
The perfect beginner s guide: No help desk or support experience necessary
Covers both soft personal skills and hard technical skills
Explains the changing role of help desk professionals in the modern support center
Today, everyone depends on technology and practically everyone needs help to use it well. Organizations deliver that assistance through help desks. This guide brings together all the knowledge you need to succeed in any help desk or technical support role, prepare for promotion, and succeed with the support-related parts of other IT jobs. Leading technology instructor Darril Gibson tours the modern help desk, explains what modern support professionals really do, and fully covers both of the skill sets you ll need: technical and personal. In clear and simple language, he discusses everything from troubleshooting specific problems to working with difficult users. You ll even learn how to manage a help desk, so it works better and delivers more value.
Coverage includes:
How the modern help desk has evolved
Understanding your users needs, goals, and attitudes
Walking through the typical help desk call
Communicating well: listening actively and asking better questions
Improving interactions and handling difficult situations
Developing positive attitudes, and owning the problem
Managing your time and stress
Supporting computers, networks, smartphones, and tablets
Finding the technical product knowledge you need
Protecting the security of your users, information, and devices
Defining, diagnosing, and solving problems, step by step
Writing it up: from incident reports to documentation
Working in teams to meet the goals of the business
Using ITIL to improve the services you provide
Calculating help desk costs, benefits, value, and performance
Taking control of your support career
Powerful features make it easier to learn about help desk careers!
Clear introductions describe the big ideas and show how they fit with what you ve already learned
Specific chapter objectives tell you exactly what you need to learn
Key Terms lists help you identify important terms and a complete Glossary helps you understand them
Author s Notes and On The Side features help you go deeper into the topic if you want to
Chapter Review tools and activities help you make sure you ve learned the material
Exclusive Mind Mapping activities!
Organize important ideas visually in your mind, in your words
Learn more, remember more
Understand how different ideas fit together