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Having a successful help desk support team can make or break your business. Your customers need to know they can get assistance when they need it and how they need it. How you structure your help desk support team will depend on several factors: the size of your team, whether anyone works remotely, and how many levels of staff your support team includes.

Regardless of structure, your key concern should be to make sure you have excellent communication among your staff. Your customers should not have to explain their situation multiple times or wonder if a team member received a key document. Here are some strategies for structuring a variety of help desk support teams.

Large Teams

Large teams are great for getting a lot done, but so many moving parts can be a challenge to manage. Here are some tips for structuring your large support team.

Break into smaller groups. While you may have only one official team leader, you can have smaller pods lead by unofficial advocates. These advocates can help bring information to management, while also leading positive change within the group. With development, advocates can grow into team leads and managers.

Set regular meetings with each group. Whether you break prods up by function, location, or another metric, you need to know what’s going on in each group. The team leader should meet with each pod regularly to ensure clear communication both up and down the management chain.

Encourage pods to challenge each other. If pods have similar functions, contests can help everyone improve while building rapport among the group. Make sure your team enjoys these challenges, and then use them to excel.

Multi-Level Support

The biggest challenge with a multi-level support team is encouraging connections and avoiding an ‘us vs. them’ mentality, where one level feels they are more important or doing more work than others. Here are some great ideas for structuring your multi-level support team.

Encourage informal bonding. Whether it’s a team lunch or an afternoon at the park, regularly encourage all levels to form friendships with each other. This will help the group avoid tension among the different levels of the team.

Communicate Expectations Clearly. Part of helping everyone feel fairly treated is clearly communicating expectations. If all levels are aware of everyone’s expectations, they can understand their role and not feel underpaid or overburdened.

Encourage Development. If someone is doing a great job in a Level 1 role, encourage them to apply for a higher role. When there is the frequent promotion

and movement, there will be fewer walls and better communication between the levels of your team.

Virtual Teams

While off-site team models can dramatically enhance flexibility, they present some special challenges for management. Here are some ways to successfully structure your virtual team.

Hire the right staff. A staff member who is successful in a remote position will need different skills than an on-site employee. These team members need to be self-motivated, great communicators, trustworthy, and thrive without direct supervision or feedback. When choosing the members of your virtual team, look for these talents.

Develop Protocols for Common Issues. With a virtual team, it’s important that each team member be confident making decisions without direct interactions. Part of developing that confidence is having specific action plans for certain issues. These can be as simple as how to schedule a call-back if a department is closed, or as complex as how to handle suspected payment fraud.

Set up a regular communication schedule. Whether it’s weekly team meetings or daily check-ins, be sure that each staff member communicates actively with you and the rest of the team. This will help head off problems, avoid misunderstandings, and strengthen the team’s bond.

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