Technical support department staff

Technical support department staff structure
The technical support team is committed to providing customer support that enables product users to realize full potential of the product. The team members work collaboratively with each other to provide a variety of effective solutions for issues and problems through consultation, demonstration, remote support sessions and presentations. A wide variety of technical support staff depends on the industry the company is involved in. However, the basic staff structure of Technical support department may include the following positions:

Technical support manager
Technical support manager is a person who successfully initiates and develops comprehensive technical support environment in the department. The manager defines and specifies the full scope of technical support service, including task scheduling, resource management, collaboration and IT management.

• Act as an everyday technical and administrative coordinator to all tech services employees
• Provide regular training and coaching to the technical service team
• Watch assigned employee's tasks to ensure the service quality meets the needs and requirements of the customers
• Design technical services calendar and assign human resources accordingly
• Strengthen effective work environment and teamwork across the department

Technical support supervisor
Supervisor controls and coordinates tasks of technical support staff and also participates in the delivery of technical support services to ensure that appropriate solution has been recommended to customers and users. Tech support supervisor is responsible for the following duties:

• Coordinate and control activities of the support team members
• Set up priorities and deadlines for the tasks
• Track the tasks to ensure that customer requests are supported with adequate solutions and on-time
• Supervise and participate in the product pre-sales and demonstration stages
• Check calendar of scheduled tasks and track delays

Technical support engineers
This person provides customers with high quality technical services by consulting them via telephone calls, email, chat or remote session. Tech support engineer cares of finding solutions for issues and checks for potential problems with products. The support service engineer may perform the following tasks:

• Interact directly with customers to diagnose and resolve technical problems in a timely manner
• Analyze and clarify customer requests by researching and troubleshooting existing knowledgebase
• Inspect cases for technical complexity and give recommendations to customers
• Check product documentation for completeness and accuracy
• Communicate with development teams to find solution for the issues

Technical support operators
Operator is a person who is engaged in speaking with customers and users to receive their requests and to advise solutions. Tech support operators have a set of typical solutions and instructions which are recommended to users to resolve one or another typical problem with product. Tech support operator has the following duties:

• Receive and document phone and online calls and e-mails from customers
• Add customer requests in issue-tracking system
• While talking to customer, identify the nature of the technical problem and give recommendations to resolve the problem
• If the problem is untypical and unresolved, inform technical experts and schedule a support session

Technical support department resource list
Resource list is a detailed list of all employees who work at Technical support department. This is the way to organize the employees by position and role in customer support projects. VIP Task Manager has Resource List view where you can create resource list and add the employees. Each employee of the Technical support department gets a resource account which means a user account with access to common department database.

When you create a new resource, you can enter detailed information for an employee such as employee name, job title, e-mail address, phone number, and other. In Resource List view you can create roles by using Roles Panel. Role can be assigned to the employees according to their duties and responsibilities. In resource list of Technical support department there can be created such roles as "Operator", "Support Engineer", and "Department Manager". To manage task permissions for these roles, you can use Permissions Panel in Task Tree view. In such a way the department manager can organize staff and create common resource list.

• >> Technical support department staff
• Technical support department functions
• Providing technical support service and consultation
• Processing and transferring product enhancement requests
• Product pre-sales and demonstration