Like many companies, my former employer offshored their Intranet helpdesk to India.  First I knew of this was when I received an email

We’ve reset your password to abcd1234, and we’ll now close your Help Desk ticket

“WHAT HELP DESK TICKET!?!?!”, I exclaimed to myself.

So I ring the Help Desk

CSC India, how can I help you?

“You’ve reset the wrong user account”.  A point which took 15 minutes to sink in with the bone headed Help Desk jockey.  My password was finally reset but it took the best part of the day before I could log in (password had to replicate around the world).

Perhaps it was a coincidence, but a few days later, the Intranet logon page had a new option “I’ve forgotten my password”, which eliminates the need to ever speak to the Help Desk ever again.

The morals of the story are:

• Offshoring your helpdesk because it’s cheaper and “everyone’s doing it” should not be your primarily motivation.
• The ability of users to fix their own problems (“I’ve forgotten my password”) is a good idea.
• If your Help Desk offer such crummy service internally, what will your external customers think of them?