In general, an IT support technician is given the responsibility of helping customers understand how to use or resolve a problem that the customer is dealing with. Their main tasks are to handling customer queries, troubleshooting and diagnosing IT issues, and ultimately developing solutions to the issues.
According to Freelance, IT Support refers to the infrastructure of technicians, helpdesk agents, support specialists, and tools in place to offer help and support to customers in the IT industry. The IT support serves to solve hardware or software problems and makes use of tools such as ticket systems, online chat, or call centers.
IT support technicians help with specific problems with the IT products and services offered by the company they work for. The range of products and services vary from computers, smartphones, software, food deliveries, and many others.
Here goes the flow. Customers who face issues with their devices or relevant IT products would reach out to IT support looking for a course of action and solution. As an IT support technician, this involves receiving the customer complaint/query, and diagnosing the problem by phone, email, or a live support chat, and helping the customer solve the problem if possible, or escalate to their supervisor for a matter that is rather complicated to solve.
Therefore, one of the must-have qualifications technicians must possess is to be extremely knowledgeable and skilled regarding the product they are providing support for so as to best help the customer.
What are the responsibilities of an IT support technician?
IT support technicians mainly help customers with tasks such as setup, maintenance, and troubleshooting issues. They may provide both in-person technical support and assist customers remotely, via phone, chat, or e-mail.
Certain IT support technicians may offer support services exclusively for a certain product, both software or hardware, or help users with general IT issues. Technical issues such as viruses, loss of data, non-working software programs, troublesome hardware setup, and faulty Internet connections are potential issues dealt with in an IT support technician job.
What skills does an IT support technician need?
IT support technicians generally must possess excellent skills in communication and problem-solving. Their typical workday consists of discussing IT problems and operations with people who may know much less about technology than they do therefore, the ability to explain to different types of the audience is highly required. As such, it is essential to have good technical writing skills – translating complex technical issues into both simple and rather complex terms. The current or updated knowledge of company products and services is also part of the skills requirements of this role as well.
When providing telephone support, they will need to stay calm and patient when dealing with panicked or irate computer users, who are very common to deal with on a daily basis. It is therefore important to have good people skills.
We offer the 37-week Diploma in IT Support and Software Quality Assurance. Email us at [email protected] to learn more, or see if you qualify for Ontario government funding for Second Career.