A day in the life of a Helpdesk Specialist

Hello – I’m Mike Hodges and I work in the Support Team at Malvern Head Office in the UK.

When I’m asked what I do for a living, I often struggle to describe the various aspects of working on the Malvern Helpdesk.

Once I have explained that we do not make guitars, tubas, triangles, glockenspiels… (not those kind of instruments) I have to try and get across that it’s not just customer support (although depending on the attention span of the other party, that is often where I leave it) – Whilst that is a broad description of what we do, it doesn’t really come close.

In short, we help people – any people, with any problem – to the best of our abilities. In many cases a call to the Helpdesk starts and ends with the first person who picks up the phone (or who replies to the email). Whilst direct customer queries relating to Malvern products obviously take priority, we still do our best for anyone who contacts us – you never know who may be a potential customer in the future!

The questions we receive can vary greatly from the simple (a quick web search on my part has provided an answer to more cases than I would care to admit) – to the involved (hundreds of records of instrument data to be analysed and commented on), we can deal with a great majority. In the case that the Helpdesk cannot handle the issue directly, we have access to product specialists for all of Malvern’s portfolio to back us up.

In addition, we provide technical expertise to the engineers in the field whenever they need us – whether a direct Malvern engineer, or one of Malvern’s many partners around the world. In the rare event an issue cannot be resolved remotely, we schedule engineers and arrange any parts required. All of the Helpdesk team have had full service training on the products they cover.

The best part of the job however, is the feeling you get knowing you have solved someone’s problem, reduced their downtime or otherwise had a positive impact on their day!

Whilst happy customers have responded with offers of coffee in Rio or an invitation to a fishing trip (both true!) a simple ‘thank you’ is more than sufficient reward.

In the coming weeks I hope to discuss some of the regular questions we receive and the solutions we offer, but in the meantime please contact us if you need anything – we are here to help!