Help Desk Management: Report on Efficient Operations Features

This report analyzes the features of efficient help desk management, drawing on the work of Mortensen and Hazel (2014). It focuses on the importance of social interaction in creating and maintaining high-level relationships, particularly in the context of a help desk environment. The report identifies two key features: greeting sequences and the next turn-at-talk. The greeting sequence involves mutual gaze and verbal greetings, while the next turn-at-talk includes projecting the next turn, moving into an F-formation, and making the next turn. The report highlights how these features contribute to effective communication and service delivery, emphasizing the importance of coordinated activities and the ability to assist visitors. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of these features in creating a positive experience for those visiting the help desk.

Features of efficient management
of a help desk
Name:
Code:
Date:

• The article by Mortensen and Hazel (2014)
presents the importance of using an
interaction during the initial stage of
meeting as an important step into creating
and retaining high-level social relationships.
• Describes how help desk counter
participants interact with visitors.

Two features
• Mortensen and Hazel identify two features
as;
• Greeting sequence
• Launch of the next turn-at-talk
• The verbal greeting feature forms the first
sequence of an interaction
• The greeting should be established through
a mutual gaze.

Cont…
• The mutual gaze occurs between those visiting the counter to access
other offices and the person at the counter
• Could be formed through early gazing or turning an early gaze
towards anyone approaching the help desk
• early gaze, it would help predict what an individual wants
• The verbal greeting takes place as an initial next-action
• should occur out of coordinated activities of interaction
• greeting sequences that emerges from a social interaction is not a
guarantee to create a sustainable interaction.
• This is because a majority of people approaching the help desk only
depend on temporary body visuals like smiling and mutual gaze

Cont…
• The feature of next turn to action takes
three aspects –
• projecting the next turn,
• moving into an F-formation, and
• making the next turn-at-talk
• when projecting the next turn, a help desk
must sustain a talk up to the time they enter
into an F-formation

Cont…
• coming to a halt helps the help desk
managers to any one vising the counter
assists
• Assist them to come to a halt before making
any request on which office to go to
• the person at the help desk can assist
visitors by providing a self-identification

Reference
• Mortensen, K. & Hazel, S. (2014) Moving
into Interaction - Social Practices for
Initiating Encounters at a Help Desk.
Journal of Pragmatics. 62, 46-67.