Associate/Senior Associate - Service Desk Improvement

The Associate / Senior Associate - Service Desk Improvement provides first-line support through telephone, portal, chat and email. The role records, categorises, priorities, diagnoses and resolves incidents, fulfils approved standard requests, and retains ownership of the customer experience when work is escalated. The Senior Associate operates with greater independence on complex first-line issues, supports shift handovers and quality, coaches colleagues, and contributes to knowledge and controlled shift-left. The role does not own specialist engineering, security investigation, application development or infrastructure administration unless an activity has been formally documented, trained, authorised and controlled for Service Desk fulfilment.

Key Responsibilities

Core responsibilities

• Act as a professional single point of contact for IT incidents and service requests through supported channels; verify user identity and capture the affected service, device, location, business impact and required evidence.
• Create, categorise and prioritise tickets accurately using agreed impact and urgency criteria; check known incidents and outages; set clear expectations and provide meaningful updates.
• Perform structured first-line diagnosis using approved knowledge, remote-support tools and troubleshooting methods; resolve within authorised capability and confirm restoration before closure.
• Fulfil approved standard requests only when required information, approvals and controls are present; route privileged, non-standard, engineering or business-approval work to the accountable team.
• Identify potential major incidents and security concerns promptly and engage the defined escalation process without attempting unauthorised investigation or remediation.
• Escalate unresolved issues with complete diagnostics, error details, screenshots/logs where appropriate, actions already taken, business impact and a clear next-step request.
• Retain end-to-end ownership of the customer experience after escalation by monitoring SLA position, following up with resolver teams, coordinating callbacks and confirming user acceptance before closure.
• Maintain high-quality work notes, resolution details, closure codes and shift handovers to support auditability, reporting, Problem Management and continual improvement.
• Use approved knowledge articles, identify gaps or outdated content, and create or improve draft knowledge from repeatable resolutions.
• Follow security, privacy, identity-verification, least-privilege and data-handling requirements always.
• Contribute to service measures including response, first-contact/first-line resolution, SLA compliance, aged backlog, reopen rate, misrouting, ticket quality, knowledge use and customer experience.
• Senior Associate: provide floor support, coach Associates, review ticket and escalation quality, support queue health and shift handover, and help validate new first-line procedures before adoption.

First-line service coverage

• Access, identity and JML assistance: password reset, account unlock, MFA, Okta and YubiKey support; approved mailbox, distribution/security group and collaboration access; joiner support for missing access/apps; accurate routing of mover, leaver, guest, auditor and privileged-access requests.
• Devices and software: Windows laptop/desktop triage, peripheral and printer troubleshooting, approved application installation/removal through Company Portal, Intune or SCCM, device-build evidence capture, mobile/tablet setup and enrolment, and lost/stolen device workflow initiation.
• Email, collaboration and file services: Outlook, Exchange/Microsoft 365, Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint, shared mailboxes, delegation, supported conferencing tools, Copilot access/standard-use triage, file sharing, removable-media requests and document-productivity tools.
• Connectivity and remote working: VPN, wireless, office connectivity, Citrix, client/external portal access, mobile Wi-Fi/tethering guidance and initial diagnostics for SFTP or allow-list requests before specialist routing.
• Meeting rooms, telephony and voice: displays, cameras, microphones, room technology, ClickShare, Teams Voice, Avaya, Genesys, digital fax, call recording, digital dictation and voice-recognition applications at first-line scope.
• Business and divisional applications: consistent intake, access triage, installation/add-in support where documented, outage identification and evidence-led routing to Product Support, line-of-business teams or vendors.
• Reporting and analytics: first-line access and client/browser diagnosis for Power BI, QlikView and SSRS; route workspace, gateway, dataset, report logic and underlying-data issues to the accountable owner.
• Infrastructure-generated contacts: capture user impact and correlate contacts for availability, backup/restore, cloud, database, server, network, capacity or continuity issues; specialist teams retain engineering accountability.

Service boundaries

• Out of scope unless formally shifted left: network/firewall configuration, server provisioning or patching, database administration, cloud/VM engineering, backup-policy or disaster-recovery design, security monitoring/investigation, application development/defect correction, procurement decisions and business-process support owned by Finance, Payroll, HR or divisional teams.
• Unsupported, retired or vendor-owned products must be routed according to the approved application support matrix; the Service Desk must not imply technical ownership where none is assigned.

Experience & Education*

• Associate: typically 1-5 years of relevant Service Desk, technical support or customer-facing IT support experience.
• Senior Associate: typically 5-9 years of relevant Service Desk experience, including independent handling of complex first-line issues, escalation quality, shift handover and peer support.
• Hands-on use of an ITSM tool such as ServiceNow to log, categorise, prioritise, update, resolve and close incidents and requests.
• Experience supporting users across Microsoft 365, Windows endpoints, identity/authentication, remote working, connectivity, devices and common collaboration tools.
• Experience working to SLAs while maintaining accurate ticket documentation and customer communication.

Education

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent recognised undergraduate qualification in technology, computer science, engineering or a related discipline; equivalent relevant professional experience may be considered.
• Role-relevant technical training or certifications are advantageous when supported by demonstrable practical capability.

Skills, Knowledge & Expertise

Knowledge, Skill, ability

• Strong technical troubleshooting across Windows, Microsoft 365, Outlook, Teams, OneDrive/SharePoint, identity and access, MFA/Okta, VPN, Citrix, wireless, devices, peripherals, printers and approved software.
• Working knowledge of ITIL-aligned Incident Management, Request Fulfilment, Knowledge Management, escalation and Major Incident identification.
• Ability to distinguish an incident from a request, assess impact and urgency, select the correct service/category and gather evidence that enables rapid resolver diagnosis.
• Customer-focused communication: active listening, clear language, expectation management, ownership and professional handling of high-impact or frustrated-user situations.
• Ability to follow documented procedures and security controls, including identity verification, data handling, approvals and least privilege.
• Good written documentation with concise work notes, reproducible diagnostic steps, resolution details and effective handovers.
• Ability to manage competing priorities during high-volume periods, work collaboratively across global resolver teams and adapt to rotational shifts.
• Associate: demonstrates learning agility, procedural discipline and readiness to broaden technical coverage.
• Senior Associate: demonstrates sound judgement, coaching capability, queue awareness, quality focus and confidence challenging incomplete or incorrect routing without losing customer ownership.

Essential requirement (non-negotiable) *

• Hands-on Service Desk or equivalent first-line technical/customer support experience at the appropriate Associate or Senior Associate level.
• Demonstrated first-line troubleshooting capability across core workplace technology and authentication/connectivity issues.
• Excellent spoken and written communication with evidence of customer ownership and accurate expectation setting.
• Ability to work through approved rotational shifts supporting global operations from office location only.
• Proven ability to work to SLAs, maintain high-quality ticket records and escalate with complete diagnostic evidence.
• Commitment to security, privacy, identity verification, least privilege and approved procedures.
• Willingness to use and improve knowledge and to learn new services as controlled shift-left is introduced.

Certification if any:

• Preferred: ITIL 4 Foundation.
• Preferred: KCS Fundamentals or equivalent knowledge-management training.
• Advantageous: Microsoft 365 Fundamentals, Azure Fundamentals, ServiceNow Fundamentals/CSA exposure, CompTIA A+/Network+ or an equivalent role-relevant certification.
• Certifications support but do not replace demonstrable hands-on Service Desk capability.