Outsourced Help Desk Pricing
Service Estimates and Key Cost Factors
Relying on 17 years of experience in IT support, ScienceSoft is ready to estimate the help desk budget and deliver professional support of your apps and IT infrastructure.
Outsourced Help Desk Pricing
A help desk ticket price varies from $6 to $40 depending on the support level (L1–L2) and the monthly ticket volume. Actually, paying per ticket is the most convenient pricing model for help desk outsourcing. Due to its cost efficiency, more and more businesses today are turning to third-party vendors to outsource the entirety or a part of the service desk function to them.
Main Help Desk Service Levels
Before establishing a help desk process and calculating the budget, it is important to clearly understand what support levels you need to cover:
Resolving simple user issues like password reset, app installation, email client configuration, etc. L1 agents are expected to escalate any complex issues to the next level. They also create and maintain user guides and knowledge bases.
Dealing with complex technical requests and basic infrastructure issues, e.g., server administration, OS upgrades, verification of network settings, Group Policy Objects management, and more.
Handling app-related issues on the code level, advanced infrastructure issues and requests, e.g., root cause analysis of server performance problems, CI/CD pipeline implementation, investigation of network outages, desktop virtualization, etc.
Key Components of Outsourced Help Desk Service
1.
Discovery stage
Upon first contact, an outsourced IT support vendor conducts a pre-service discovery that includes:
- Identifying help desk needs and required level(s) of support (L1–L3).
- Evaluating user requests volume, urgency, and complexity.
- Deciding on the scope of help desk support activities and the optimal pricing model (monthly package, price per ticket, T&M).
- Defining the help desk KPIs (first response time, user satisfaction score, resolution rate, etc.).
2.
Transition phase
After signing the SLA, a help desk services provider will:
- Analyze your IT infrastructure and applications, processes and documentation.
- Define the scope of activities within the required support level(s) and the responsibility transition schedule.
- Decide on the team composition (the number of support engineers and their qualifications) and organize the necessary training for the help desk team.
- Choose and configure the ticket management software and, if necessary, introduce software customizations.
- Run a demo of help desk services delivery.
3.
Service delivery
The help desk team will:
- Process the incoming requests on the corresponding support level according to the defined service level objectives (SLOs).
- Escalate complex issues to higher support levels.
- Gather user feedback.
- Create knowledge bases, FAQs, and self-support articles.
- Regularly report on service delivery according to the defined KPIs.
- Introduce improvements to help desk services.
Factors Affecting Help Desk Costs
Based on ScienceSoft’s experience in help desk projects, these are the key factors that influence help desk prices.
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Outsourced Help Desk Cost Estimation: A Rough Sample
Interested in specific numbers? ScienceSoft shares ballpark costs for L1 help desk services (as it is the most frequent scenario for outsourcing):
*The estimates provided are not ScienceSoft's official rates for help desk services. We calculate the cost of each project individually, based on our customers' specific situations and needs.
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How to Reduce Help Desk Costs
Provide users with self-support options
69% of users prefer to resolve as many issues as possible on their own. To meet their needs and reduce your help desk expenses, create and maintain an easy-to-use knowledge base with FAQs, user guides, and tutorials. Regularly updating the existing knowledge base is more cost- and time-efficient than involving a help desk specialist every time someone needs to change their password.
Automate IT support processes
Set up an automated ticketing system (like Dynamics 365 Customer Service or Zendesk). This will help you to not only reduce the costs and free your help desk specialists from manual tasks (like filling out user information) but also decrease the response time and improve user satisfaction.
Outsource your help desk partially or entirely
With an experienced help desk provider, you can reduce help desk expenses by up to 40% and increase ROI by 50% due to efficient IT support, reduction in user errors, and increased resolution rate.
About ScienceSoft
ScienceSoft is a global IT consulting and software development company headquartered in McKinney, TX. We provide L1-L3 help desk outsourcing services since 2007 to help companies reduce support costs, increase user adoption, and improve satisfaction rates. ScienceSoft relies on mature ISO 9001-certified quality management system ensuring result-driven and transparent service delivery. We guarantee the safety of the data entrusted to us with our unfailing ISO 27001-backed information security management system.