4 Tips for Improving Your Moodle™ Help Desk Experience
Have you ever been on a deadline for an LMS related task and, no matter what you do, nothing seems to go right? Whether you’re looking to improve LMS accessibility or integrate your learning and data systems, sometimes you just need HELP! It’s likely safe to say everyone prefers this process be quick and painless. Hopefully, contacting your Moodle™ help desk or Moodle™ provider is the easy part. However, in the interest of solving problems with maximum efficiency, here are certain things that you can do to help your Moodle™ help desk help you.
Verify Who You Are
Almost every time you contact a Support team, they typically need to first verify that they have permission to talk to you or are able to retrieve related account information in order to successfully fulfill your request. Verification doesn’t always require revealing personal information. If you are calling about a bill or invoice on your account for your employer, they might just need to know the invoice number or your customer number. If your office address does not match the corporate address, then be prepared to answer with that information if needed. Nevertheless, having account or ticket information handy allows you to breeze through initial admin access and get right to troubleshooting and finding a solution.
It’s all in the Details
In order to efficiently and completely fulfill a user’s request, your help desk needs to fully understand the issue you are facing. If you leave out relevant details or cannot articulate what you are having problems with, it is hard for the help desk to know how to help you. Providing any information potentially related to the issue often helps direct your help desk to the solution much more easily. If possible, provide screenshots or a URL to the page where you experienced the problem. If you are experiencing issues with your software, being able to tell the support person the exact steps that you took before you got the error will help them try to recreate the issue. This goes a long way in determining if the problem is a SITE wide issue or possibly an issue with your computer.
Be in Front of Your Computer
We know that it might seem like a great idea to call the support line on your lunch break but if you aren’t in front of your computer, it might be a wasted call. At times, the Help Desk will ask you to check settings on your computer or to test a change that they made, and you can’t do this sitting in your car.
To Close or Not to Close
Hopefully, the call went smoothly and you got all the help you needed to get back to work. Before hopping off the call or closing your ticket, make sure to let the help desk know if all your problems are resolved or if you still need additional assistance. If changes were made, make sure you’re able to fulfill your task completely. Maybe they were able to get you past the initial error and you got the information that you need to meet a deadline, but you still cannot PRINT that report. If you don’t have time to stay on the line until that is resolved, tell them that. Most Help Desks can arrange a callback at a later time to finish working through your issues. This ensures your issue gets resolved and helps you avoid the dreaded phone queue if you’ve got a meeting (or your lunch break!) to get to.
Help Yourself
The people that work in the Support arena, are there to do just that….. SUPPORT. They will do their best to help you, but taking the steps above will help them help you troubleshoot any issues or complete any tasks much more efficiently.