IT Service Desk Agent

IT Service Desk Agent

The IT Service Desk Agent provides first-level technical support to students, faculty, staff, and other authorized users. This position serves as a primary point of contact for technology-related questions, incidents, and service requests received through telephone, email, chat, walk-in support, and the IT service management system.

The Service Desk Agent delivers timely, courteous, and effective assistance; documents customer interactions accurately; resolves common technology issues; and escalates more complex matters to the appropriate technical support team. This is an entry-level position designed for an individual who has foundational technical knowledge, strong customer-service skills, and an interest in developing a career in information technology.

Responsibilities

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

Customer and Technical Support

• Serve as a first point of contact for customers requesting technical assistance.
• Respond to support requests received by telephone, email, chat, walk-in, self-service portal, or other approved channels.
• Provide courteous, professional, and customer-focused service.
• Troubleshoot and resolve common hardware, software, account-access, connectivity, printing, classroom technology, and application issues.
• Assist customers with password resets, multifactor authentication, account access, and other identity-related requests.
• Guide customers through troubleshooting steps using clear, nontechnical language.
• Use remote-support tools when appropriate and authorized.
• Confirm that the customer's issue has been resolved before closing the interaction.

Incident and Request Management

• Create, update, categorize, prioritize, and resolve tickets in the IT service management system.
• Document the customer's issue, troubleshooting performed, resolution provided, and next steps.
• Follow established incident, request, escalation, and major incident procedures.
• Escalate unresolved or complex issues to the appropriate technical team with complete and accurate documentation.
• Monitor assigned tickets and communicate status updates to customers.
• Meet established service-level targets for response, resolution, documentation, and customer communication.
• Recognize potentially high-impact or widespread issues and notify service desk leadership promptly.

Knowledge and Process Support

• Use approved knowledge articles, troubleshooting guides, scripts, and standard operating procedures.
• Identify missing, outdated, or inaccurate knowledge content.
• Create or recommend updates to knowledge articles based on recurring customer questions and successful resolutions.
• Participate in training, team meetings, service reviews, and continuous-improvement activities.
• Stay informed about current technology services, planned changes, outages, and institutional announcements.
• Follow established quality-assurance standards for customer interactions and ticket documentation.

Security, Compliance, and Other Duties

• Verify customer identity before completing password resets, account changes, or other restricted activities.
• Protect confidential, personal, institutional, and regulated information.
• Follow information-security policies and report suspected phishing, compromised accounts, security incidents, or inappropriate system access.
• Maintain assigned equipment and comply with acceptable-use requirements.
• Support special projects, technology deployments, peak service periods, and other departmental activities.
• Perform other related duties as assigned.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications

• High school diploma or equivalent.
• Foundational knowledge of computers, mobile devices, operating systems, software applications, and internet connectivity.
• Demonstrated customer-service, communication, or problem-solving experience.
• Ability to communicate technical information clearly to customers with varying levels of technical knowledge.
• Ability to document work accurately and follow established procedures.
• Ability to manage multiple requests and priorities in a fast-paced environment.
• Willingness and ability to learn new technologies, applications, and support processes.
• Equivalency statement: Relevant coursework, technical training, internships, student employment, volunteer experience, or personal technology-support experience may be considered in place of formal professional IT experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• Associate degree, technical diploma, college coursework, or industry training in information technology, computer science, cybersecurity, business technology, or a related field.
• Up to one year of experience in customer service, technical support, a call center, computer lab, service desk, retail technology, or a related environment.
• Experience supporting Microsoft Windows, macOS, Microsoft 365, web browsers, mobile devices, printers, or wireless connectivity.
• Experience using a ticketing or IT service management platform such as ServiceNow, Jira Service Management, TeamDynamix, Freshservice, or a similar system.
• Familiarity with Active Directory, Microsoft Entra ID, multifactor authentication, remote-support tools, or endpoint-management technologies.
• CompTIA A+, HDI Support Center Analyst, ITIL Foundation, Microsoft Fundamentals, or a comparable entry level certification.
• Experience working in a college, university, school, public-sector, healthcare, or other service-oriented environment.

Required Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Strong commitment to customer service.
• Professional verbal and written communication skills.
• Active-listening and information-gathering skills.
• Basic technical troubleshooting and analytical skills.
• Ability to remain calm, patient, and professional during difficult interactions.
• Ability to follow documented procedures while recognizing situations requiring escalation.
• Ability to work effectively both independently and as part of a team.
• Ability to maintain confidentiality and exercise appropriate judgment.
• Ability to work respectfully with customers from different backgrounds, roles, abilities, and levels of technical experience.
• Ability to receive feedback and apply coaching to improve performance.

Working Conditions

• Work is primarily performed in an office, service center, computer lab, or remote-support environment.
• The position requires extended periods of computer and telephone use.
• The employee may occasionally be required to move or install computer equipment weighing up to 30 pounds.
• Some evening, weekend, holiday, on-call, or adjusted-schedule work may be required during high-volume periods, scheduled maintenance, major incidents, or institutional events.
• Regular and reliable attendance is required.

Performance Expectations

Success in this position may be evaluated using a balanced set of service and quality measures, including:

• Customer satisfaction.
• First-contact resolution.
• Ticket documentation quality.
• Accuracy of categorization and prioritization.
• Response and resolution performance.
• Appropriate use of knowledge articles.
• Escalation accuracy.
• Schedule adherence and availability.
• Quality-assurance review results.
• Participation in training and professional development

Applicants must be authorized to work in the U.S. We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of an employment visa at this time.

About Us

The University of Memphis is a leading, student-centered, urban public R1 research institution. Located in Memphis, Tennessee, on 1,160 acres. The University serves a population of nearly 20,000 students and 2,500 employees, including more than 1,000 full-time faculty members. The University offers bachelor's degrees in more than 230 areas of study, master's degrees in more than 50 subjects and doctoral degrees in 26 disciplines; supported an institutional record of more than $100 million in research awards for FY24; and has an operating budget of close to $500 million.

Job Info

• Job Identification 705
• Job Category Information Technology
• Job Schedule Full time
• Locations 3