The China IPR SME Helpdesk introduces European SMEs to the knowledge and business tools required to develop the value of their intellectual property rights (IPR) and to manage related risks. The Helpdesk provides free information, first-line advice and training support to European SMEs to assist them in protecting and enforcing their IPR in China. The Helpdesk is an initiative of the Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry at the European Commission and its services are free of charge. The Helpdesk offers first-line advice and provides European SMEs with the jargon free information they need to tackle IPR infringement issues, in China. The online portal contains a range of practical web-based training tools, which are also delivered to SMEs through training workshops in Europe and China.
Following the successful May 2008 launch of the China IPR SME Helpdesk in Beijing and Brussels, the Helpdesk team will provide European SMEs with information on China IPR and upcoming Helpdesk events through our regularly updated web-portal (www.china-iprhelpdesk. eu) and the quarterly produced ‘Helpdesk Update’.
Help Desk Update
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
The Key to win Business Competition
Friday, November 20, 2009
With the competition in business is getting wilder and wilder, a company should prepare to give its best shot in every of its movement to deal with the business challenge. As the core of its movement and its decision are the customers. It is because a company will not be able to run without customers who buy and consume their products. And, maintain the loyalty of the customers is its hardest yet most important duty.
To do this job, a company then builds a division which will deal with all the customers’ problems. This division is called customer service division, or Helpdesk. Employees in Helpdesk will be the first people who will get in touch with all customers. These employees will deal with all the needs of the customers from the product information up to products’ complaints and services’ claims. Thus, a duty of a helpdesk division is urgent and vital. The employees will be required to use polite words which they use to inform the customers. It is because they will be the representatives of the company that they need to build good image with polite manners.
This is not an old issue that helpdesk seems to be seen as unessential part of a company. It surely is wrong and has no base because a helpdesk is the one who will make the company becomes more standout than any others.
Biggest Supporter for Successful Business
Sunday, November 15, 2009
People may look down the position of a helpdesk. They may think that this helpdesk is just their servant. They may think that helpdesk is a place for them to spill out all the angers to the company. It is not true.
It is true that this helpdesk, or customer service, is the one who will answer all the phone calls from the customers who want to ask questions about the company’s products or to complaint about the defects of the products. But helpdesk is not the one to be blamed for all the imperfectness of a company’s products. Helpdesk has bigger role in a company. This division is the most important gateway for company to touch its customers. Through the helpdesk, a company will be able to maintain the loyalty of its customers. In business’ point of view, loyal customers mean long lasting successfulness and maximum profit. So, having an excellent helpdesk will give a company a great chance to reach the top of a business world.
As the conclusion, a helpdesk cannot be seen in a glance. This division should be seen as a whole of company’s biggest supporters to make its business grows in better situation and condition.
The Importance of Helpdesk for Customers’ Loyalty
Thursday, November 5, 2009
There is a department in a company of which duty is giving direct services to the company’s customers. The department is called as Helpdesk. The duty of the employees in this department is receiving all the calls from the customers which can be comments, supports, complaints, or just a wrong dial up.
For some people, working in a Helpdesk division is kind of disgusting and has no prestige. But it is not true. It is wrong because Helpdesk is the ore of the company. This division is the one which fully support the company as the first division which has ability to interact with the customers directly. Thus, a company will treasure this division and try to find the best and the most polite person to fill the position of a helpdesk. Furthermore, a helpdesk which sometimes is also called as customer service can determine the quality of the services from a company. It is because helpdesk is the representation of the company in giving full and complete services to its customers.
So, if the helpdesk has no good performance in doing its duty to deliver the comfort and the reliability, then the customers will think that the company has no good services. As the result, a company may lose its customers because of the dissatisfaction.
Customers, Users, and Callers
Friday, October 30, 2009
I will use a mixture of these terms when referring to the people outside the Help Desk who need your services or help. The term customers denotes a group of people who need extra care and should make you feel more inclined to help them with their problems. Users might be an accurate term because they use your product, but it does not promote the “I care for you” feelings a Help Desk agent should have. Callers may call you on the phone, but they could just as well walk up to your desk, e-mail you a question, or fill in a Web page. The point is they need you. Again, these terms will be used interchangeably throughout the book.
Associates, Agents, and Employees
Thursday, October 22, 2009
For a long time, if you worked in a company you were considered an employee. Lately, I have seen a trend away from that term towards the more favorably regarded associate. It’s supposed to sound more like you are a part of the big picture and not just a person employed by an impersonal corporation. You won’t see the word employee here but you will see associate and agent mixed throughout. I distinguish between the two by using associate when I am writing about a person’s career and personable traits and agent when I am referring to his or her role within the Help Desk itself. If this is confusing, you can go with the assumption that the two are interchangeable.
Help Desk, Support Center, and User Support
Friday, October 16, 2009
I started above, and will use throughout, the name Help Desk to describe the person(s) or group that functions to support your department and company. Personally, I dislike the term because it’s old-fashioned and doesn’t give the credit a well-oiled department deserves, but it is the most popular. Once I was in a position to name the group, I used the term Support Center. Even this name is supportive or reactive but it’s a bit more fashionable than Help Desk. (It did draw many comments towards Sports Center, however, which is not necessarily a bad thing.) We then decided to go to Customer Services and finally to Technical Customer Service. Other terms I have seen are Support Services, User Support, Technical Support, Competency Center, IS Support, Customer Care, and on and on. Mix in the words Support, Help, Customer, User, Technical, and Service and somewhere you will get a good name!
Defining a Help Desk
Saturday, October 10, 2009
For purposes of this book, we will define a Help Desk as a formal organization that provides support functions to users of the company’s product, services, or technology. Let’s break this statement down and analyze it phrase by phrase. A formal organization that. Support can be a full-time job or part of someone’s job; for example, a programmer may also take phone calls with questions on the software he or she is coding. But a Help Desk is an organized effort with an expressed purpose.
A Help Desk can be staffed by one person wearing many hats or by literally thousands of people supporting scores of functions in the business. Provides support functions. This can be reactive, as in “I sit by the phone and wait for someone to call,” or proactive, looking for ways to make users more productive and effective in their jobs. Support can be break/fix, as in “my printer jammed,” training, as in “the correct way to enter a purchase order on the system is…,” or behind the scenes administration, as in “keeping the network up all day every day.” …to users of the company’s products, services, or technology. The users (or customers, to sound friendlier) are the ones calling or are in need of the services you provide. The products, services, and technology are the point of the need. It may be a product your company manufacturers, a PC, printer, software, or telephone.
Help Desks are not as well known as applications development, database administration, or network management. You cannot get a college degree majoring in Help Desk; for that matter, I have never even seen a college class on the topic. I worked for years in a Help Desk before I could get my mom to understand what I did. Granted, I didn’t mind that she told her friends, “My son runs the computer department,” for lack of a better explanation! What you see is the recognition of the Help Desk profession. The Bureau of Labor estimates there are over 450,000 Help Desk professionals now employed. The Help Desk Institute feels this number is closer to 560,000, which will double in the next ten years. College majors may not exist for a Help Desk career, but certifications and professional organizations are popping up all over. It is even fair to say that if you consider yourself a quality IT shop that will expand into the electronic commerce arena, you are behind the times if you don’t have a formal Help Desk in place. You are behind because service, for customers or technology, has taken over electronic commerce and those businesses that cannot deliver quality customer service will not succeed in the long term.
