Help Desk Manager

PURPOSE

The Help Desk Manager is responsible for leading ibml's Help Desk operations and ensuring timely, professional, and effective support for customers, field service teams, and internal stakeholders. This role owns the day-to-day performance of the Help Desk team, including ticket management, call handling, customer communication, escalation management, staffing coverage, process adherence, and continuous improvement and reports directly to the VP of Service Operations.

The Help Desk Manager will be expected to drive accountability, improve ticket resolution times, reduce aged open tickets, support first-time resolution, and ensure that customers receive consistent communication throughout the service process. This position plays a key role in the overall Service Operations organization and will work closely with Field Service, Software Support, Professional Services, Engineering, Sales, and Customer Success. This role requires the manager to be on-site daily.

ROLE AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Help Desk Operations

• Manage daily Help Desk operations to ensure tickets, calls, and customer issues are handled accurately and in a timely manner.
• Monitor incoming service requests and ensure proper ticket creation, classification, prioritization, assignment, and follow-up.
• Ensure all tickets are updated with clear notes, next steps, ownership, customer communication, and current status.
• Maintain focus on aged tickets, open tickets greater than defined thresholds, and tickets waiting on customer, vendor, engineering, or internal action.
• Lead daily and recurring ticket review meetings to drive closure, remove blockers, and escalate issues when needed.
• Ensure customer communication standards are followed, including timely updates, proper closure notices, and professional written responses.

Team Leadership

• Lead, coach, and develop Help Desk team members to improve technical knowledge, customer service skills, process discipline, and accountability.
• Establish clear roles, responsibilities, ownership rules, and expectations for Help Desk staff.
• Manage schedules, coverage, workload balancing, and staffing requirements to support customer needs.
• Evaluate team performance using defined KPIs and provide regular feedback.
• Support hiring, onboarding, training, and performance management of Help Desk personnel.

Ticket Management & Escalation

• Own the ticket lifecycle from intake through resolution or proper handoff.
• Ensure tickets are properly categorized by severity, system impact, customer impact, component, and issue type.
• Manage escalation paths between Help Desk, Field Service, Software Support, Professional Services, Engineering, and third-party vendors.
• Identify when tickets should be escalated, reassigned, closed, or reopened under a new issue.
• Ensure escalated issues have clear ownership, urgency, documented history, and defined next steps.

Customer Support & Communication

• Ensure customers receive professional, timely, and accurate communication throughout the support process.
• Maintain a customer-first approach while balancing operational discipline and internal accountability.
• Review customer-impacting issues, repeat calls, and escalated concerns to identify root causes and improvement opportunities.
• Support customer follow-up when issues are delayed, unresolved, or require management attention.

Reporting & Continuous Improvement

• Track and report Help Desk performance metrics, including ticket volume, response time, resolution time, open ticket aging, repeat calls, backlog, customer communication, and escalation trends.
• Analyze ticket data to identify recurring issues, training needs, process gaps, product concerns, and customer pain points.
• Recommend and implement process improvements that increase efficiency, improve customer satisfaction, and reduce unnecessary escalations.
• Support dashboard development and reporting through HubSpot, Excel, Power BI, or other approved tools.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Work closely with Field Service leadership to coordinate onsite support, parts needs, escalation coverage, and customer-impacting issues.
• Partner with Software Support, Professional Services, Engineering, and Product teams to resolve complex technical issues.
• Collaborate with Sales and Customer Success when customer issues may impact relationships, renewals, or future opportunities.
• Support service improvement initiatives, operational reviews, and leadership reporting.

PREFERRED SKILLS, QUALIFICATIONS AND EDUCATION REQUIREMENTS

Required Qualifications

• High school diploma or equivalent required; associate or bachelor's degree preferred.
• Minimum of 5 years of experience in help desk, technical support, field service support, customer service operations, or service management.
• Minimum of 5 years of leadership or supervisory experience preferred.
• Experience managing ticket queues, escalations, customer communications, and technical support workflows.
• Strong understanding of service operations, ticketing systems, and customer support processes.
• Ability to lead a team in a fast-paced environment with competing priorities.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Strong problem-solving, follow-up, and organizational skills.
• Ability to analyze data and use metrics to improve performance.
• Experience with O365 Tools, HubSpot, Jira, Zuper and Power BI.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting hardware, software, imaging systems, scanning equipment, or production equipment environments.
• Experience working with field service teams and remote technical support teams.
• Knowledge of SLA management, escalation procedures, and customer service KPIs.
• Experience creating or improving help desk workflows, dashboards, training materials, and operating procedures.
• Ability to work with cross-functional teams including Engineering, Professional Services, Sales, and Customer Success.

Key Performance Indicators

• Response time to customer tickets and calls.
• Resolution time by ticket type and severity.
• Open ticket backlog and aged ticket reduction.
• Tickets open greater than 5 days.
• Escalation volume and escalation aging.
• Customer communication compliance.
• Ticket documentation accuracy.
• Customer satisfaction and survey feedback.
• Team productivity and workload balance.

Core Competencies

• Leadership and accountability.
• Customer-first mindset.
• Process discipline.
• Strong communication.
• Problem solving and critical thinking.
• Data-driven decision making.
• Follow-through and ownership.
• Cross-functional collaboration.
• Ability to manage urgency without losing organization.

ADDITIONAL NOTES

Work Environment

This role requires participation in customer escalation calls, internal service reviews, ticket aging meetings, and cross-functional project meetings. The Help Desk Manager must be comfortable managing both daily operational issues and longer-term process improvement initiatives.

Position Impact

The Help Desk Manager plays a critical role in improving the customer experience, reducing ticket backlog, increasing service efficiency, and strengthening ibml's overall support model. Success in this role will directly contribute to improved response times, faster resolution, better customer communication, and stronger alignment between Help Desk, Field Service, Software Support, and Professional Services.