Bosses are biggest help desk bothers, says survey

Their computers are smarter than they are...

You get a better class of divot in the helpdesk business, according to an ICM Research survey carried out recently for support specialist outfit Touchpaper. Despite constituting less than 5 per cent of the workforce, board level users apparently chalk up a whole 25 per cent of calls to company help desks concerning mobile applications and devices.

Touchpaper very decently suggests that this is simply because they haven't been given adequate levels of training, which we suppose is true enough as far as it goes. However, writes a Register board level user, they're also to a great extent pig-ignorant, self-important gits who claim they're too busy, but who're really too scared of being made to look like prats, to go on training courses.

It's also worth noting that board level users are far more likely to to acquire expensive mobile computing toys without having any real mission-critical need for them, and hence the motivation to master them properly; which is what the field force is likely to do.

According to the survey, 70 per cent of help desk and support managers feel inadequate training has been given to those using mobile technologies, while another 15 per cent said the majority of calls to support teams concerned using the devices and software remotely.

Touchpaper worldwide sales and marketing director Lee Chadwick agrees with us on the self-important bit, although perhaps a tad less vehemently: "Due to the nature of their role and level of seniority, board level users expect immediate support. This inevitably causes a considerable strain on help desk resourcing, and knocks the priority of other support incidents out of kilter.

"Mobile working technologies are an asset to any company, however, to get the most out of them, practical training has to be given to all staff, no matter how junior or senior." ®