Help Desk Policies and an IT Audit Checklist

An IT audit is an in-depth evaluation of an organisation’s processes and systems, and is particularly necessary when developing complex software applications or systems.

An IT help desk audit should evaluate all processes related to IT support. Furthermore, IT audits should examine how cybersecurity incidents are documented and addressed as well as any policies or procedures not adhered to properly that need rectification.

1. Review Help Desk Policies and Procedures
Examining help desk policies is a key part of making sure that your IT team operates optimally. By having clear, written policies for their IT service desk, this can ensure they deliver top quality customer service while decreasing support ticket counts.

Verify that all customer interactions with support staff are documented with an official ticket, which contains pertinent details about them, their issue, and expected response time.

Verify that all staff adhere to effective first contact resolution best practices. An agent should thank customers for calling, and ask if there is anything further they can assist with.

2. Review Help Desk Operations
The IT Help Desk serves as a central location for customers to submit customer service requests, while also making staff more aware of policies and procedures, and helping identify areas for improvement.

Develop help desk metrics that are meaningful to your business, and devise a system to track them. This will allow you to evaluate if your IT help desk is meeting expectations while helping expand and grow the enterprise.

Regular audits of help desk operations are critical to ensure quality service delivery. For instance, agents should monitor whether tickets are escalated when all solutions have been explored; any ineffective escalations could negatively affect an agent’s audit score and require additional training sessions.

3. Review Help Desk Security
Your help desk serves as the first line of defense in your organization, from an increase in phishing attacks to major security vulnerabilities; therefore, they should have rigorous processes in place in order to address them quickly and efficiently.

Help desk staff are responsible for many security-related processes, including creating accounts and providing access to users; often with elevated permissions to support technology. It is therefore essential that they regularly review policies and procedures to ensure they are being followed.

Physical or virtual, an effective help desk is an essential element of an IT department. By creating and reviewing an IT help desk audit checklist, organizations can ensure they’re protected against cyber threats.

4. Review Help Desk Training
Help Desk Managers must ensure their staff receives adequate training. This means ensuring customer service skills and knowledge of emerging technology and industry trends. To be successful, Help Desk Managers must make certain their staff receives proper education.

An audit should also consider the training provided to new hires, especially help desk staff members who may become new employees in the coming months. A well-trained help desk team is critical to improving employee performance and decreasing support tickets.

Finally, the help desk must evaluate security-related processes and procedures. For instance, monitoring agents for any violations of security policies should be undertaken by this help desk; any instances should be evaluated thoroughly, followed by appropriate disciplinary action being taken as appropriate.

5. Review Help Desk Security Policies
Help desks play a critical role in maintaining security processes within an organization, including creating accounts, provisioning access and allocating elevated privileges. Without adequate security policies in place, this leaves your company exposed to hackers and data breaches.

Reviewing security policies is an integral component of an IT audit. Policies should be evaluated at least annually; notable events or significant modifications to your infrastructure may warrant additional assessments. Passwords should be changed regularly, encryption applied for sensitive data and access controls put into effect as appropriate.

6. Review Help Desk Security Training
Help desks serve as an indispensable intermediary between IT staff and end users, acting as both first line defense against many security breaches as well as first point of contact when users need help with something.

So it is essential that help desk staff receive regular training on information security policies and best practices, including how different forms of data should be classified, labeled, and managed.

Employee reporting of security incidents is also crucial. For instance, if someone accidentally sends personal data by email to another individual without consent, the IT department needs to know about this immediately so they can take measures to reduce risk and avoid future security breaches.

7. Review Help Desk Security Policies
Service desk teams who have been properly trained can recognize early warning signs of security incidents and alert appropriate InfoSec teams before any problems become more severe.

Help desk personnel must adhere to company policy in order to deliver optimal help services. If employees are permitted access data records, annual compliance training must be completed and multifactor authentication restricted if applicable.

Agents allowing users to interact directly and provide advice must understand how their language may have an adverse impact on the company. Monitoring conversations that contain offensive or inappropriate language should form part of a help desk quality assurance program.