16 February, 2026
When customers need IT help, Jenna Spelten and her Service Desk team provide a solution as well as a good feeling
Behind every IT problem is a person who just wants to move on. Our Service Desk Team Leader Jenna Spelten understands this like no other. With structure, clear communication and a lot of attention for her team, she ensures that our customers are not only helped, but also feel heard. Her creative and inquisitive eye does not stop at IT Local: she just as easily takes it to a LARP event or to her punk band's rehearsal room.
Have you always been in IT?
"No actually I don't. I come from graphic design and photography and I also graduated in graphic design. But that turned out not to suit me anyway because I was too technical. So at nineteen I decided to just give it a try in IT. I then started in IT support and now I still work within this specialism."
"What's that like, how does it work?"
So what attracted you to IT in particular?
"Building computers! My friends had taught me that at the time and I liked it. As a curious little nerd, I immediately wanted to know everything: how is it put together, how does it work, what's behind it, who manages it? My curiosity pushed me towards that."
Late last year, you started applying for a job at IT Local. Tell us how that went: why did you want to leave your previous employer and how did you end up with us?
"At my previous company, I was first a service desk assistant and worked for about a dozen large companies. Then I was on-site support for a government agency, where I was at the customer's office. I eventually progressed to a second-line role. That was fun, but after a while I had seen enough. Since there were no further opportunities for advancement at the company, I started looking further afield. A friend of mine had once received help from IT Local and she told me, "Oh, that's a nice company, those people were very nice to me. When I happened to see the vacancy of Team Leader Service Desk on Indeed I thought hey, I know that company, I'll apply and we'll see."
And you saw an invitation in your mailbox ...
"Yes, I was invited to an interview. First with Pierre and that was very pleasant. After some chatting and getting to know each other better, we ended up with the position. Pierre initially thought I was coming for Service Desk employee, but after I indicated that leadership suits me much better and so actually came for the role of team leader, we moved on to that. The next step was a meeting with Jappe, the then manager of the Service Desk, and Bart, the team leader of the engineers to see if, in their opinion, I fit this role as well. After talking to both of them, the conclusion was that it was a good fit and I could start."
"People here care about you and you can honestly tell your story"
What was the deciding factor for you to say 'yes' to our company?
"Small company and flat organisation, that was it. I come from a very large organisation and there you were really a number, here you are a person. People care about you and you can honestly tell your story. For instance, if I indicate that I'm not feeling well one day and want to work at home, that's OK. Things like that are very important to me."
And... good choice?
"Yes, actually, IT Local is a nice company. As I said, you're not a number but a person and you can see that everywhere. Take lunch: you can have a conversation with everyone about anything and everything, with a sandwich in your hand. Your function doesn't matter and everyone is equally important. At my previous job, it was different and I lunched alone. We had a break schedule with breaks on the second. If you were 30 seconds late you got a warning. Not nice... Whereas at a bigger company you are usually seen as someone who just has to do his job, at IT Local it's about you first and then your work. In the end, I think this allows you to perform better."
"Tightening procedures, adjusting working practices... a great task for me"
What struck you in the first few weeks?
"I really had to get used to this new culture that you belong regardless of your position. As a manager you were much higher, much cooler, I was used to that. So here that is not the case and I am happy with that. As a team leader, I also think my team is just as important, maybe more important, than myself. I'm here to support them, whereas in my previous job, the staff were there - flat out - to make our manager look good. That's a completely different mindset.
Another thing that struck me in the first weeks was the busyness. IT Local is growing very fast, which is reflected in the workload on the Service Desk. This was immediately a logical and nice task for me as team leader: tightening procedures, adjusting working methods... I was surprised at how much still needed to be done. Well, fortunately I am a person who enjoys doing this."
Are you getting more control of it already?
"Yes, it's a slow process, but the grass is starting to turn green. Instead of the old free-for-all, there is now more structure. With lots of new procedures, rules and routines and clarity in when we do what, how we deal with a particular problem and what the next steps are. Quite a lot has changed already."
"Improving by looking at patterns in customer tickets"
How did these new procedures come about?
"Mainly by looking at patterns in our customers' tickets. What is common, what do we see that people need and how can we also ensure that we make it as easy as possible for ourselves?"
Apart from developing the new procedures, are there other things you want to change?
"Increasing the quality of tickets I hadn't mentioned yet. This has since been picked up as well. First, we saw tickets with only a title, with the rest being empty. Users then got an email with nothing in it. Now they see more info in the ticket, such as the description of the problem and what we think it is. We find that users like this.
What I also hope to tick off soon: adjusting procedures so that they are more global, but also more secure to cover both ourselves and our users. So that we don't point fingers at each other who did something wrong, but solve a problem together.
I expect further changes, for example in documentation, but that will all come after the introduction of Autotask in March. This will allow us to spend more time on a ticket."
What helps you make all these changes?
"Especially the team, the good cooperation with everyone and the fact that you can be yourself. The latter keeps stress at bay, makes you dare to speak your mind and makes you do your job better."
"Communicating openly and fully, we do that well"
So what sets our Service Desk apart from those at other IT companies?
"I find that especially the guys here, but also the colleagues around us are pretty good at open and complete communication, which I see less of at other companies. For example, if we forward a ticket to the engineers, the users also get a message about it and they know to keep an eye on the e-mail for more information. Just those little things like naming a process makes us different from those other companies."
"A male team, but very diverse"
Your team has already come up regularly. What does your team look like?
"With Benjamin, Bryan, Paul, Sebastian and Sezer, it is a male team, but very diverse because of the different personalities. Like me, Benjamin, Sezer and Paul have only worked at IT Local for a short time. The mutual atmosphere is good and humour is never far away: everyone knows how to strike up a nice conversation and how to make it a bit more social in the office, but if someone doesn't feel the need for that for a moment, that's also allowed."
What is your most important role?
"Supporting the team. I do that by creating structure and organising things properly. Ultimately, I want to make it a well-oiled machine. so that when the guys go to work, they know what to expect and that they can carry it out. For example, that there is good documentation so that they can find solutions quickly when they have customers on the line."
Do you solve IT issues yourself?
"Sometimes, if there is a difficult situation or someone doesn't know something, I am usually the person who takes over. But basically, I stay out of line as much as possible. Because I'm there to support my team and not to take over."
Are there things you find exciting?
"Supporting personal growth, because you never know how someone is in it. But my biggest challenge of all is giving assessments. I always find that very scary and not fun to pass on bad news; then again, giving good news is fun."
Maybe there is only good news if you have everything on track?
"Ha, ha, of course that's where we want to go. And if there are areas for improvement or development that are about the content of the work, we are still lucky at the Service Desk to be able to say: get this certificate for a while. Then someone again has a clear goal and we can close that point."
"To help customers move forward, you have to be able to put yourself in their shoes"
With your team, you stand for good service to our customers. What is service to you?
"Service to me is helping and reassuring someone when they have the courage to step up to you. Because many people find it scary to ask for help. Then there needs to be someone who understands that and takes the stress out of the IT problem. We're going to look for it, we're going to look at it together, I'm going to support you, I'm here for you, it's going to be fine, we'll solve this together... that's service to me. Only by putting yourself in the other person's shoes can you help them. We have to sense that well. If someone calls and doesn't feel at ease, they immediately shut down, they are not open to help and there are longer ticket runs. If we go into a conversation relaxed and show by our tone and attitude that things will be fine then that brings calm and gives confidence."
Which question is number one?
"I can't log in. Full stop. Ha ha. That could be down to anything, mind you: the laptop or the password that has expired or been forgotten."
"Easy questions fall away because of good manuals"
To what extent are the questions that come in to the Service Desk today different from a few years ago?
"The more easy questions are starting to fall away, because our Customer success department has created good manuals for them and communicated about them. For example, Windows 11 used to get a lot of questions, now we don't hear so much about it anymore."
The Service Desk is mainly there for technical questions. Do you always refer functional questions to Customer success?
"Depends on the question. If someone has a question about Copilot that happens to have been the subject of a webinar, we refer them to Gaby who presented it. If a question comes up about, say, how something works in Excel and we can answer it, we will do that. If we see a pattern in a certain type of question, we contact Customer success. Perhaps our colleagues there can then create and distribute a manual, for example, to prevent more of these kinds of questions. In any case, there is no wall between Customer success and us; we are open to everything. I think if we were to forward all functional questions to them they would be overloaded with work. And I don't want to send customers from pillar to post either."
"With a ticket, you always have a record of the issue"
Creating tickets when you have a help request... some users don't like that. Why is creating a ticket so important?
"A ticket is actually a kind of cheat sheet. With a ticket, you always have a file of the issue: a description and all the history. This is handy for the customer as a reference, but also for the people in my team, who can easily take over a ticket during a break or illness or use the information from the ticket to solve similar issues. The ticket system is also indispensable for accounting for our hours and for monitoring common questions."
Creating a ticket is very simple
... via our portal, it's self-explanatory and you can also send an email to *protected . Our Service Desk staff can also create tickets, but it is preferable that you do this yourself, otherwise our phone lines will be overloaded.
"Just rebooting often helps"
What can users easily solve themselves, without approaching your team?
"What often helps with a problem is simply restarting the computer. Not physically turning it off and on, but clicking on the Windows icon at the bottom, then clicking on the power icon and choosing Reboot. Doesn't help? Then don't hesitate to call I would say to our users. Because we don't bite and we are here for them."
IT is still largely a man's world, what is it like for you as a woman to work in it?
"In the beginning it was very strange, I come from a female background and had to get used to it. Because you are taken less seriously and often, compared to a man, you have to work twice as hard to prove yourself. I also noticed that certain jokes were made of which I thought, ooh, I don't think that's very decent. But... here, that's not an issue. In my previous company I did experience some nasty things."
Now, IT Local employs a relatively large number of women, just not in your team. What's that like as a manager?
"Yes, you'll just see... all men. But it feels good on all fronts though."
How does your leadership style contribute to this?
"We really do it together. I'm not delegating like a team leader, which makes it more fun and more relaxed. That way you can move towards nicer goals together. Furthermore, my style is up to here and no further. I quickly cut off a conflict and look for areas of improvement. And I don't let people walk all over me so quickly either."
"I'm very nerdy, ha ha"
Of course, as a woman in IT, you don't immediately fit the stereotypical picture of the average IT professional. Do you still fit that picture anywhere?
"Anyway, because I'm very nerdy, ha ha. I like to larp with my friends and then you mostly see me in medieval princess dresses that my friends make. I don't play, but I do watch Dungeons & Dragons(D&D for intimates). I also game a lot, build my own computers and am up to date with RAM prices and graphics card prices. Enough examples like that?"
Plenty! You also sing in a band?
"That's right, along with my best friend. Once there were six of us, now there are two of us as a kind of temporary duo. Where we play for fun, the rest have moved on to other bands. We really enjoy making music and actively writing songs. In our teens, we used to perform in youth centres and at small music festivals. Full-time work means there is no room for that these days. We rehearse twice a week now, so we have become mostly a kind of garage band."
A garage band, but not garage rock ...
"No, mostly punk. We've done rock before, but we like writing punk-pop better. We take inspiration from My Chemical Romance, 5 Seconds of Summerand, last but not least, One Direction.
Oh yes, by the way, we do have a gig lined up in the summer, but if I start giving details of that I'm afraid the whole of IT Local will come looking..."
You think that's scary?
"Yah!"
Is there another hook with your work?
"You have to be able to be very creative to write music, from the melody to the lyrics. I also need that creativity for my work: being creative in coming up with solutions, thinking beyond the obvious. And socialising with people here who also make music is a second hook."
What else would you like readers to know about you?
"Eeeh yahaa... I am a very open person, if someone wants to know something or has a question I am always open for a chat. I can tell a lot about myself, but ultimately it's more fun if people ask directly themselves."
It's not that nerdy side ...
"I can be quite social... but I can also be very anti-social, mind you, ha ha."
"The Service Desk success story"
Finally, if we are a year on and we make a follow-up article, what will the headline be?
"I hope TheService DeskSuccess Story. When I look at the changes in the past few months, I think we can go quite far."