Why a Quiet IT Help Desk Is a Dangerous Sign for Your Business

Question: What would you think if you looked at your IT department’s queue and saw zero support tickets in the hopper? On the surface, this seems great—everything appears to be working, after all—but looks can be deceiving.

What if, instead of you having no issues at all, your reporting systems are too much of a hassle for your team members to utilize, and as a result, they have neglected reporting issues in favor of developing their own workarounds?

If Support is Seen as a Chore, Your Team Members Will Get Creative

Let’s face it, effectively all of history’s greatest innovations have come from the desire to avoid extra efforts. However, when your employees start to get innovative instead of turning to tech support, forward thinking can actually lead to a sizable problem: the introduction of shadow IT.

Shadow IT is any technology—software or hardware—present on your business’ network without the knowledge and prior approval of your IT department. It is frequently adopted when there is some issue with your business’ prescribed tools that a team member avoids by selecting their own preferred alternative or coming up with another workaround. One such workaround could be to send files to their personal email accounts or to an online storage service to work on them later, for example.

While their willingness to solve a problem is admirable, the fact that shadow IT regularly leads to cybersecurity issues, data exposure, and loss makes it unacceptable. You need total visibility over your data… where it is stored, and what tech is interfacing with it. Shadow IT blinds you to precisely these key details. That’s why you need to know, with absolute confidence, that your team is using only approved and vetted tools and seeking assistance when needed. If your help desk is too quiet, that may be a sign of a larger, insidious problem.

If Support Isn’t Leaned On, Warning Signs are Missed

Many cyberattacks will telegraph their presence, with network intrusions often manifesting as odd pop-ups, lags, or password reset requests. Without a clear communication channel between your team and their support, it is too easy for a team member to disregard or dismiss these messages or to acquiesce to such requests.

To protect your business, your team needs to treat every alert as an urgent sign and refer to IT for assistance. If they aren’t, they will most likely just hit ignore on the warnings you need to protect your organization. Their knee-jerk reaction should instead be to reach out.

Keep in mind, if you are using C3-Solutions for your cybersecurity, we are monitoring and detecting issues preventatively, but it’s still really important for your staff to feel comfortable asking for support and reporting issues they personally bump into.

If Support is a Hassle, Your Team Just Won’t Bother

Regardless of whether a member of your team is dealing with a tech issue or staring down a potential cyberattack, reaching out for support should be their first instinct. To facilitate this response, reaching out for help should be the easiest option. At C3-Solutions, we’re here to provide the assistance your team needs and—almost more importantly—we are invested in doing so. Our approach is to work as an extension of your existing team, partnering with them and encouraging them to lean on us for the support they need. We want to help…it’s what we’re here to do.

Find out more about our help desk and other managed IT support services. Reach out to us at (240) 226-7055 to learn what we offer the businesses of Greater Washington DC & Maryland.