What are the different types of IT support?

The world of IT support is huge and has so many different roles and services within it that can make it difficult to understand. There are three levels of IT support that can be provided to businesses and these are 1^st line support, 2^nd line support and 3^rd line support. The difference between them can sometimes be confusing as they do sometimes overlap. However, in this article, we will look at each one individually as well as the different job responsibilities they cover.

So, here are the different types of IT support levels that you can expect including the tasks and duties that generally come with each one.

What is 1^st line IT support?

As you might have gathered from the title, 1^st line support is the support a customer will first come to contact with when they have an IT issue. A 1^st line support provider will aim to quickly and efficiently help a customer fix their issue so they can get on with their day. They will usually have a broad, general knowledge of the products and will have the knowledge and training to deal with the majority of the basic issues. If the 1^st Line support team is not able to deal with the issue, then it will be recorded and sent to 2^nd line support. The main forms of communication will be through the phone, however, support via the web might also be provided.

Some of the 1^st line IT support job titles you will come across are Helpdesk Operator, IT Call Desk, First Line Support Engineer, 1^st Line Network Support Analyst and more.

You can find 1^st line support interview questions here.  

What is 2^nd line IT support?

2^nd line support is the support that’s provided to customers that have issues which are specialist or too technical for the 1^st line support staff. So whereas, 1^st line support will have general knowledge about products/issues, 2^nd line support will have in-depth and specialist knowledge to deal with customer issues. 2^nd line support will also likely have a number of conversations with the customer in order to help them.

Some of the typical 2^nd line support job titles you may come across are 2^nd Line Support Engineer, IT Support Technician and Desktop Support Analyst.

You can find 2^nd line support interview questions here.

What is 3^rd line IT support?

3^rd line support teams will be expert technicians that can understand the cause of the problem or issue and then help to fix it. Therefore, if a problem is too complex, it will be passed through 1^st, 2^nd and then finally 3^rd line support to be dealt with.

Some of the typical job titles for 3^rd line support include Network Specialist, Server Engineer and 3rd Line Support engineer.

More on how to get into IT Support and IT support guides.