IT Support Levels Clearly
Explained: L1, L2, L3, and
More
As an IT service management provider, customers frequently ask
about the various approaches to IT Support and how they can be
used to organize help desks and service desks. In this
article, we’ll explore:
The role of technical support
IT support levels/tiers 0-4
Trends
The necessity of support
Setup tips
And more!
The role of technical support
Technical support is a service that supports users of
technology products or services. Technical support is also
known as IT support, help desk, or service desk. In contrast
to traditional training, technical support typically focuses
on helping with a specific user problem or issue.
Technical support often contributes to or supports a company’s
overall customer service philosophy, so the team or department
may straddle the technical world of IT and the practical side
of customer service.
(Learn more in Customer Service vs Technical Support: What’s
the Difference?)
Technical support may be comprised of a single employee for
small companies or may include many departments and workers.
For example, a large company like BMC often has two types of
teams:
An internal IT support team that helps employees when
they are dealing with a technical problem.
An external-facing support team helps customers and
users of BMC’s systems.
Technical support can be delivered in a variety of ways,
depending on the support level or tier, including by phone,
email, live chat or video, chatbots, online tutorials and how-
to’s, message boards, and other logging tools. Popular third-
party tools for help desk support include Zendesk, Salesforce,
and BMC Helix, among many others.
IT support levels (tiers)
The terms “support levels” and “support tiers” are phrases
used interchangeably within IT organizations.
Structuring your IT support around levels or tiers is useful
for several reasons:
Strategically addressing customer needs
Creating a positive customer experience
Quickly resolving small or easy-to-manage issues
Establishing a timeline and protocol for harder-to-solve
problems
Increasing employee satisfaction
Improving employee training, upward mobility, and
retention
Obtaining feedback and suggestions for product
development
With some variations, a typical IT Support infrastructure is
usually organized around the following support tiers:
IT Support Level Function Support methodology Staffing needs
Users retrieve support information from
web and mobile pages or apps, including
FAQs, detailed product and technical Tier 0 requires technical
information, blog posts, manuals, and and marketing resources to
search functions. create, maintain, and
Users also use apps to access service update product
catalogs where they can request and information.
Self-help and receive services without involving the A development team handles
Tier 0 user-retrieved IT staff. web site and app creation.
information Email, web forms, and social contact Moderators are used to
methods such as Twitter, LinkedIn, monitor customer forums.
etc., are used to send questions and Tier 1 personnel respond
requests to upper support tiers or to requests received
company personnel. through email, web sites,
Customer forums allow users to or social media.
crowdsource solutions, usually without
input from company personnel.
Support for basic customer issues such
Lower-level technical
Basic help as solving usage problems and
personnel, trained to
desk fulfilling service desk requests that
solve known problems and
Tier 1 resolution and need IT involvement.
to fulfill service
service desk If no solution is available, tier 1
requests by following
delivery personnel escalate incidents to a
scripts.
higher tier.
Experienced and knowledgeable Support personnel with
technicians assess issues and provide deep knowledge of the
In-depth solutions for problems that cannot be product or service, but
Tier 2 technical handled by tier 1. not necessarily the
support If no solution is available, tier 2 engineers or programmers
support escalates the incident to tier who designed and created
3. the product.
Access to the highest technical
resources available for problem
resolution or new feature creation. Tier 3 specialists are
Tier 3 technicians attempt to duplicate generally the most highly
problems and define root causes, using skilled product
Expert product
product designs, code, or specialists, and may
Tier 3 and service
specifications. include the creators,
support
Once a cause is identified, the company chief architects, or
decides whether to create a new fix, engineers who created the
depending on the cause of the problem. product or service.
New fixes are documented for use by
Tier 1 and Tier 2 personnel.
Contracted support for items provided
by but not directly serviced by the
Outside
organization, including printer Preferred vendors and
support for
support, vendor software support, business partners
problems not
Tier 4 machine maintenance, depot support, and providing support and
supported by
other outsourced services. services for items
the
Problems or requests are forwarded to provided by your company.
organization
tier 4 support and monitored by the
organization for implementation.
Many companies modify this template and combine support tiers
according to their resources and philosophies. In some
organizations, Tier 1 and Tier 2 functions are handled by the
same personnel. Other companies may combine Tier 2 and Tier 3
functions, for example.
Another way to think about the tiers is as a timeline: the
higher the tier a problem is escalated, the more time (and
perhaps resources) it will take to solve. Your company can:
Set time limits on tiers. For instance, if a Tier 1
problem takes more than 15 minutes, it is automatically
elevated to Tier 2.
Let IT support staff determine when to escalate a
problem.
Trends for tiered technical support
Trends we are seeing frequently in tiered technical support
include:
Automation and orchestration. Automating and
orchestrating as much of technical support as possible
increases efficiency and availability while reducing
incident queues.
Self-service and knowledge management. If information is
easily accessible in Tier 0, customers can quickly find
solutions without IT help, saving higher skilled
resources for creating new solutions and troubleshooting
difficult problems. This combines two practices that are
here to stay: self-service portals and knowledge
management.
Live chats (not pre-scripted). At higher tiers, live
chats continue to replace a significant portion of phone
calls. Offering a live chat option to your customers may
prompt them to seek help more quickly, which can promote
the positive customer experience.
Of course, as users of any product become savvier, your help
desk agents need to keep up—both with your own product as well
as with your competitors. With comprehensive internet access,
knowledge is the baseline; today, it is personalized help and
customer service that become the medium for positive
experiences.
Is tiered technical support
necessary?
A case can be made against tiered technical support. Swarming
support, including intelligent swarming, has proven to be a
strong alternative to traditional tiered support.
Opponents of tiered support sometimes cite employee
boredom—solving the same problems repeatedly—or customer
frustration, especially when the user realizes she knows more
about the product than the help desk rep who’s trying to
“help” her.
Collaboration is an often proposed solution: the idea that a
help desk ticket is assigned to a specific individual or group
who either resolves the issue directly or shepherds the ticket
(and its user) through the support system. This can help
support staff learn other areas of the company and ensures
that customers feel better cared for.
A collaborative approach still relies on delineation around
who can solve which problems or which teams are responsible
for tickets, while others are there to assist with the help
process as needed.
Setting up tiered technical support
Establishing or making changes to your technical support team
can be overwhelming, especially as your company grows.
Developing a structure is the first step. Start with
identifying your needs and circumstances. For example, a
software company’s users will likely have a lot of technical
issues whereas a service or retail company will have monetary
or other issues. Using the tiers template above, determine
what sorts of topics and issues might fit into each tier. Note
that some companies use fewer tiers than the five levels (0
through 4) listed above. If you only have enough staff to
support three levels, that is a fine approach!
Once you’ve established your support structure, consider how
you can continue to support your support staff, so they can
continue to create positive customer experiences:
Define top skills for support staff. This may include
strong verbal and written communication, a technical
expertise, empathy, good listening skills, and more.
Define top skills for support managers. This may include
goal setting, motivation, experience with change
management and conflict management, strong
communication, and hiring experience.
Create opportunities for growth. This can include formal
and informal trainings, mentorships, and ongoing
education through web resources and readings.
Tiered IT support is greatly enhanced by ITSM and software
products that automate many of the functions provided by each
tier, such as BMC Helix. (Learn more about choosing ITSM
tools.)
Additional resources
For related reading, check out these resources:
BMC Service Management Blog
Service Desk Best Practices for Creating More Value
TIPS Explained: Ticket, Incident, Problem, Service
Request
Creating a Strong Support Culture
State of ITSM in 2020
Swarming: How a new approach to support can save DevOps teams
from 3rd-line ticket hell from Jon Hall
