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All of today's help desk support skills, in one easy-to-understand book The perfect beginner's guide: No help desk or support experience necessary Covers both "soft" personal skills and "hard" technical skills Explains the changing role of help desk professionals in the modern support center Today, everyone depends on technology-and practically everyone needs help to use it well. Organizations deliver that assistance through help desks. This guide brings together all the knowledge you need to succeed in any help desk or technical support role, prepare for promotion, and succeed with the support-related parts of other IT jobs. Leading technology instructor Darril Gibson tours the modern help desk, explains what modern support professionals really do, and fully covers both of the skill sets you'll need: technical and personal. In clear and simple language, he discusses everything from troubleshooting specific problems to working with difficult users. You'll even learn how to manage a help desk, so it works better and delivers more value. Coverage includes: * How the modern help desk has evolved * Understanding your users' needs, goals, and attitudes * Walking through the typical help desk call * Communicating well: listening actively and asking better questions * Improving interactions and handling difficult situations * Developing positive attitudes, and "owning" the problem * Managing your time and stress * Supporting computers, networks, smartphones, and tablets * Finding the technical product knowledge you need * Protecting the security of your users, information, and devices * Defining, diagnosing, and solving problems, step by step * Writing it up: from incident reports to documentation * Working in teams to meet the goals of the business * Using ITIL to improve the services you provide * Calculating help desk costs, benefits, value, and performance * Taking control of your support career Powerful features make it easier to learn about help desk careers! * Clear introductions describe the big ideas and show how they fit with what you've already learned * Specific chapter objectives tell you exactly what you need to learn * Key Terms lists help you identify important terms and a complete Glossary helps you understand them * Author's Notes and On The Side features help you go deeper into the topic if you want to * Chapter Review tools and activities help you make sure you've learned the material Exclusive Mind Mapping activities! * Organize important ideas visually-in your mind, in your words * Learn more, remember more * Understand how different ideas fit together