Interviewer: Ben Hoffman
User name: Jan Hoffman
Background / Skill level: Bachelor of Science Degree and 38 years in IT industry as engineer, manager, and senior technical advisor
Q: What are a few examples of your most regular tech problems?
A: Password resets, router/switch configuration problems, power out, workstation and roaming profile corruption, server recovery and workstation re-builds.
Q: What is your first step when you come across a need for help? How long before you escalate the issue to the next step?
A: Our Level One support immediately creates a trouble ticket then follows a knowledge-based set of questions with the user/LAN Admin to see if they can guide/repair with the tools they have on hand. This ticket process and contact with our Help Desk can be via toll-free phone number or web screen. If monitoring tools generate an alert our Level One may be proactively contacting the user before they are even aware of the problem. We have guidelines for escalation time based on the nature of the issue and some items are immediately escalated. Workstation issues affecting one or a few users rarely escalate sooner than one hour whereas “LAN down” immediately goes to Level Two. Network, circuit, switch, and router issues generally escalate to Level Two in 15 minutes.
Q: Does your company have an intranet site that offers FAQs or other technical help? If so, how often do they resolve your issue?
A: Yes; we have troubleshooting steps sorted by subject and symptoms for LAN Admins to follow. This Help forum is sometimes useful for new or inexperienced LAN Admins but often not a help for the ones with more experience. The FAQs and topics are updated weekly including a list of recent and most common problems.
Q: Do you struggle to properly convey the nature of the problem to IT staff?
A: No; the IT support staff and user community have excellent rapport and communicate often via on-line bulletins, telephone calls, broadcast messages and monthly sessions with representatives from each user organization. In addition we have on-line feedback forums and rating forms for users to help us improve out service. Our LAN Admins that contact us, in responding to our standard and structured questions usually do not have a problem conveying the nature of a problem.
Q: Typically how long before problem introduction to problem resolution?
A: On the average with thousands of calls weekly, our time to resolution for individual workstation issues is 20 minutes; LAN out or LAN down on the average takes one hour and circuit and network issues usually take about 30 minutes. (We use dual and diverse routing in our network and rarely have network problems that last more than a brief period of time).
Q: Does your IT staff have remote access to your system? If so, do you find this method useful? If not, do you think this would be helpful in your situation?
A: Yes. Our IT staffs at Levels 1, 2 and 3 have remote access to workstations, servers and most network attached devices. However, remote takeover and remote access must be logged for security purposes and the troubleshooter must obtain permission from the site manager or LAN Admin. This is a widely used technique by us and we find it very helpful in both diagnosis and repair of problems, especially ones that involve extensive trouble shooting. Although we have contractors to provide on-site support on a per call basis it is preferable and faster to use remote access and often saves us the cost of dispatching an on-site technician.