The success of your company as a managed service provider depends on your ability to deliver top-notch IT support that makes your customers feel consistently taken care of. In order to make good on this promise to your clients, you must employ the best MSP technicians. Ones who are knowledgeable, dependable and personable.
To help you achieve that, we’ll examine the essentials for hiring stand-out IT technicians for your MSP help desk, and how to keep them in your company long term. These suggestions will help you build a staff of highly skilled, culturally-compatible technicians who can offer your customers the best service possible.
What to look for when hiring the best IT technicians for your MSP service desk?
What are the traits of high quality IT help desk technicians? Here’s what to keep a look out for:
- Skills and experience: This can range from technical expertise in hardware and software to strong customer service abilities in communication and problem-solving.
- Flexibility and availability: MSP technicians must be adaptable and readily available to offer assistance as required. This can include working during regular business hours, on the weekends and/or on public holidays.
If you can not achieve this by hiring locally, you can try an outsourcing provider for MSPs. With global, outsourced staff onboard, your MSP can follow the sun model and always be available to your customers without compromising the well-being of your local staff.
- Communication skills: MSP technicians must have strong communication abilities, for they will speak with clients while they are experiencing stressful technical issues. Naturally, those clients might be stressed or feeling helpless, so it’s crucial to seek people that are articulate and personable.
A tech who possesses charisma and cultural compatibility is important for the sake of developing a rapport with clients. It’s important not to overlook the value of this!
- Mindset and attitude: Along with having the necessary technical abilities, MSP support staff should also have a good attitude and a customer-focused mindset. They should be helpful and eager to go above and beyond to assist clients and find solutions to their problems.
Read more about the top qualities of the best MSP help desk technicians!
Where to look for the best MSP technicians for your help desk?
When looking for the best IT technicians for your MSP help desk, be aware that it is a candidate’s market that you are operating in. What do we mean by that? Well, let’s just say the best IT technicians don’t stay unemployed for long because they are in high demand. It’s very important to be early to the game and put your best foot forward in being a desirable place of employment. You can start your IT technician search with the following:
- Job boards
- Referrals
- Outsourcing agencies
These are the channels through which you can get in touch with the best technicians locally and globally.
Job boards, as we’re sure you already know, are widely available. They store information on hundreds or even thousands of candidates, all within a few clicks away. The only tricky thing here is that there are large amounts of data from CVs, and you have to keep an eye out for their quality and credibility. However, there might be a unicorn hiding somewhere within that bunch.
Referrals are more likely to provide the right candidate for your MSP help desk. A more personal recommendation, coming from a valued member of your staff, can really hit the mark. However, it is not certain that there will be enough candidates to choose from, or that the hire will be a successful one.
Hiring a staff member through a trusted MSP outsourcing provider combines the wide spectrum of candidates found on job boards with the personal approach of referrals. A good outsourcing agency will provide hand-picked, highly-skilled individuals who are ready to be onboarded.
A responsible MSP outsourcer will have their staff tested and trained on all the crucial aspects of what makes an exquisite IT professional, ready to excel working at any MSP help desk.
As an MSP outsourcing provider ourselves, we at Support Adventure have a tried and true system of training and testing candidates on various aspects of what makes a well-rounded IT technician. The objective of this is to make sure remote techs we provide will become an irreplaceable part of any MSP they join.
If that is music to your ears, feel free to check out our MSP staffing page to learn more about what we do.
You can also read more about Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) and its multiple benefits for MSPs
How to test IT technicians for your MSP help desk the right way
We can not let you in on all of our secrets, but we’ll give you one golden nugget to take away! The secret is to test candidates on:
- How well they demonstrate transferable skills they already possess from prior experience
- How good they are at finding, acquiring and applying new pieces of information
We’ve learned that just because a technician has degrees and certificates, that doesn’t promise that they will thrive in the ever-changing, intricate environment that is an MSP.
Certain things can not be taught.
And those things are exactly what make a great technician:
- Intelligence and cleverness–which above other factors, will transform and freshen up any sector of a business.
- Passion– the driving force that brings the most results, for it comes from the right motivation and is done out of liking one’s job instead of a mandatory need.
Individuals possessing these two traits will thrive in any IT environment.
Our MSP helpdesk technician recruitment hiring process explains the testing program in more detail
It’s good to test both the ability to follow instructions and be creative
A huge part of what makes an IT tech thrive at an MSP is when they have coherent and consistent instructions to follow. That’s why it’s important to implement procedures for ticket note writing, communication and escalation policies, auditing and documentation.
For testing softer, more abstract skills, use situational awareness tests, cultural compatibility tests or a video presentation.
The testing could look something like this:
- Filling out a sheet with basic information (it sounds so simple, right!)
- Technical competency
- Ticket note writing
- Cultural compatibility in conversation
How to win over the most in demand IT technicians for your MSP help desk
A good place to start is to make sure you are avoiding the most common hiring mistakes MSPs make! You can do so by having a functioning and nurturing environment, and knowing how to convey that to your potential staff member. Remember, it is a candidate’s market as we said, and the best MSP technicians are looking for more than just an attractive salary.
You can find, hire and keep the best MSP help desk technicians by
- maintaining an immaculately organized helpdesk
- following the best practices in an interview
- seamlessly onboarding them so that they want to stay long-term
| Factors that contribute to undesirable environments and unattractive job offers | Practical solutions that positively influence the environment and create a desirable offer |
| A distracting environment and constant interruptions to ticket completion. | Having a dispatcher to handle the intake of tickets. |
| Technicians feeling stuck in one role for years due to not being able to improve and advance. | Letting the roles breathe and vary so that technicians acquire new skills and broaden their knowledge. |
| Having a dispatcher handle the intake of tickets. | Allowing for down time and over staffing to reduce workload overwhelm. |
| Bad management that focuses only on sales and marketing. | Having great technical managers, people who can represent the technicians and the technology. |
| Lack of solid structure and policies for escalation, emergency, communication and documentation. | Having policies in place and coordinators who make sure that they are being followed |
Or, let us do it for you while you’re in the co-pilot seat! You will see that outsourcing MSP help desk support is not as scary as you think!
Hiring an Outsourced MSP Help Desk Technician
Another option is to hire IT techs through an MSP outsourcing company. Some of the benefits of that include:
- Savings – cuts down on your expenses!
- Specialization and expertise – the techs you would choose from are sourced for the MSP niche specifically
- Scalability and flexibility – no more understaffing and grumpy clients
- Concentrate on key business processes instead
- Broaden your MSPs support coverage: follow the sun model and offer 24/7 support to your clients
However, you should be careful when choosing an MSP outsourcing provider. To help you know what to look for and how to investigate if the match will be a good one, take a look at our article How to choose an MSP outsourcing provider: 21 Questions to Ask!
A provider that culturally fits with your MSP will help you get to know your own organization deeper, as well as help to onboard a remote technician into your training plans and SOPs.
Build your team with Support Adventure, our reliable MSP remote staffing service! We are happy to let you know that we’ve already created over 60 happy clients and you can become one of the MSPs transformed by our talented staff.
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