IT outsourcing
Helpdesk
IT support for employees, by ticket, phone and on site, in Portuguese and English.
What is delivered
A first line measured on resolution, not just routing
Device and access management against a current inventory
Portuguese business hours or continuous cover, as the operation needs
Why are tickets closed the wrong metric?
Because it rewards closing rather than resolving. An operation assessed on tickets closed closes early, reopens later, and produces an excellent number about a user who still cannot work. Reopening rate exposes this and it is the first indicator we ask any existing operation for.
The metric we use is total time to resolution from the user's point of view, including time the ticket spent waiting on another team. A ticket escalated and forgotten for two days counts those two days, because that is what the user experienced.
And first-contact resolution, measured by request type. A global rate hides that access requests resolve in minutes and application problems do not, and improving the average by increasing easy requests is an optimisation that improves nothing for anyone.
How is the knowledge base built?
From real requests rather than from the vendor manual. The twenty most frequent request types typically cover more than half the volume, and documenting them well is the service's best-return investment, because it converts second-line requests into first-line resolutions.
Every new resolution that was not documented generates an entry. It is a simple rule and the one most frequently broken, because writing takes ten minutes and the queue is waiting. Without it, the same resolution is rediscovered several times by different people.
And the base is revised when systems change, which requires knowing they changed. A support team that learns about an update from the tickets it generates is being informed by users, and it is a sign that the link with whoever manages changes does not exist.
Which languages and hours does a European operation need?
Portuguese and English as a baseline, with Spanish, French and German depending on where users are. For internal support the rule is to serve in the language the person works in, because describing a technical problem in a second language adds friction exactly when the person is already frustrated.
Lisbon is an hour behind central Europe, which means covering the full day in Berlin requires starting at eight in Lisbon. It is an hour of misalignment resolved in the schedule and almost nobody calculates it before signing.
For continuous coverage, the global network covers the European night on local daytime hours. For end-user support this works better than night shifts because night volume is low and irregular, and one person alone on a night shift in Lisbon is expensive, worn down and frequently with nothing to do.
How is access management handled?
By procedure and with no informal exceptions, because this is where support meets security. An access request granted by phone to someone who sounded credible is the most exploited social engineering vector, and identity verification has to be a mandatory step rather than a judgement call.
With a record of who requested, who approved and who executed, kept separate. In small teams the same person frequently does all three, and it is exactly the configuration an audit flags and an incident exploits.
And with revocation treated with the same priority as granting, which is where almost every operation fails. Access for people who left months ago appears in practically every audit, and the cause is always the same: granting is urgent and revocation has nobody asking for it.
How do you reduce volume rather than serve it better?
By analysing causes rather than categories. If thirty per cent of requests are password resets, the problem is not the queue but that resetting is not self-service. Fixing that removes the volume rather than handling it faster, and it is an outcome a supplier paid per ticket has no incentive to propose.
We report volume reduction by cause as a result rather than as lost revenue, and the contract is designed so that it does not penalise us. A per-ticket model aligns the supplier with volume, which is exactly the opposite of what the client wants.
The three causes most frequently dominating volume are access, printing and one badly designed internal application. The first two are solved with automation; the third requires a conversation with whoever maintains it, and it is the one most often not had.
What size of organisation justifies the service?
From around fifty users for dedicated support, or fewer where there are coverage-hours requirements one internal person cannot meet. Below that, the shared model works better and is what we propose.
The signal that matters more than user count is concentration. If support depends on one person who also does something else, the service degrades whenever that person has a priority, and their holiday is a predictable annual event that goes unmanaged.
For organisations with users in several countries, the gain is mainly consistency. Three teams resolving the same problem three different ways produce three different experiences, and normalising that is frequently more valuable than the cost saving.
How do you measure satisfaction without useless surveys?
By asking little and at the right moment. A one-question survey immediately after resolution has a response rate several times higher than a ten-question one sent the next day, and the information it produces is more actionable because the user still remembers the case.
And crossing the result with request type. An average score hides that users are satisfied with support and dissatisfied with one specific system, and those two conclusions lead to completely different actions, only the second of which resolves anything.
Where helpdesk can be run from
Not every delivery model suits every service. The table shows only those that make sense for this work, with the data residency position of each.
| Model | Where | When it makes sense | Personal data |
|---|---|---|---|
| Onshore Portugal | Lisbon, Porto, Braga, Coimbra, Aveiro, Faro, Funchal and Ponta Delgada | When data cannot leave the EEA, or when the end customer is Portuguese | Stay inside the EEA. No transfer. |
| Nearshore in Portugal | Lisbon and Porto, for foreign buyers | When you need a multilingual European base without incorporating | Stay inside the EEA. No transfer. |
| Global network | Uzbekistan, the Philippines, Poland, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Colombia, Turkiye and Africa | When you need continuous cover, specific languages or the lowest cost | Poland is inside the EEA. The others require standard contractual clauses. |
The data column describes the applicable framework and is not legal advice. The detail is in international data transfers.
Related services
- Software developmentProduct and project teams for web, mobile and backend applications, working inside your processes.
- Managed servicesOngoing management of applications and infrastructure, with SLAs, monitoring and continuous improvement.
- Cloud and DevOpsMigration, delivery automation, infrastructure as code and cloud cost control.
- CybersecurityMonitoring, incident response, vulnerability management and compliance support.
Frequently asked questions
How do you measure performance?
By first-contact resolution per request type and by total time until the user is working again, not by tickets closed.
Which languages do you cover in support?
Portuguese and English as a baseline, with Spanish, French and German depending on where users are.
Do you handle access management?
We do, by procedure and with no informal exceptions, with request, approval and execution recorded separately.
Do you have an incentive to reduce volume?
The contract is designed so reducing volume does not penalise us. A per-ticket model would align the supplier with volume.
Do you cover out of hours?
We do, with the global network on local daytime hours, which works better than night shifts for low, irregular volume.
What is the minimum size?
Around fifty users for dedicated support, or fewer where coverage-hours requirements exceed what one internal person can meet.
Do you use our ticketing system?
We do, wherever one exists. A parallel system someone later reconciles introduces delay and loses history.
Who writes the knowledge base?
The team, from real requests, with the rule that every new undocumented resolution generates an entry.
Let us look at the numbers for your case
Tell us which processes you want to outsource, in which languages and at what volume. We come back with a euro estimate and an operating design, with no commitment.
We reply within 6 hours on working days. If you would rather write: info@corpshore.solutions