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What’s the Difference Between L1 and L2 Levels Support?

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IT support helps customers with goods or services of specific issues. The Help desk usually focuses on resolving particular user problems or concerns compared to conventional training. The number of support agents varies from the type of the business; it may consist of a single employee or even several help desk departments.

IT support may be provided in many ways depending on the expertise level or tier. For example, the general types of help desk services are assisting by phone, email, chatbots, message boards, and also via third-party tools like Zendesk, etc.

L1 L2 L3 Support Responsibilities

We can emphasize the key features which are frequently used in all support levels.

  • Live chats

The higher the tier gets, the more the role of live chats becomes. Thus, live chats continue to replace a large part of phone calls. It is a great option for the customers as they tend to seek information concerning their issues more quickly and resolve them without additional help. 

  • Automation and regulation

Automation and regulation are the key features in every technical support, especially in first level second level support. It enhances efficiency and availability by reducing possible queues.

  • Clear self-service

Here’s an important note: no matter what kind of services an IT company provides, the information should be easily accessible and comprehensible. Therefore, the customers will be able to find solutions quickly without the help of technical support. That’s why a professional help desk combines clear self-service and knowledge management.

Before determining the difference between l1 and l2 support, let’s examine the technical features of each of the tiers. 

L1 Support

Level 1 IT support provides basic help desk resolution and service desk delivery. In other words, it’s the first line of support that is implemented through chats, phone calls, and email communications.

Help for L1 is performed by lower-level technical staff, trained to address frequent problems and to carry out service requests by following scripts. For example, engineers have basic products and the script on how to troubleshoot an easy issue like password reset, installation of applications, etc. 

Also, Level 1 IT Support is trained to make tickets which will then be redirected to the Level 2 and Level 3 support agents (such as integration, server & storage). 

L2 Support

Level 2 IT Support requires more in-depth technical assistance. Qualified agents examine problems and offer solutions to the challenges that cannot be addressed by first-level engineers. These technicians are more skilled and experienced in dealing with complex problems relevant to their expertise.  

Usually, the technical issues requiring back-end access may be solved by L2 specialists. Moreover, these techs can even not open tickets and help you find the solution via technical chat. 

However, if there are problems that L2 technicians cannot fix, they transfer them to the L3 specialists, the main function of which is expert product and service support. Tier 3 support is typically the most highly skilled product specialists and includes in their team the creators, chief architects, or employees who created the product or service.

So, what’s the main difference between the two tiers? L1 support requires basic knowledge and services given, compared to L2 and L3 support that deals with more sophisticated issues.