Blog

The software is constantly evolving and always changing in order to meet the rapidly changing needs of the business world. In all walks of life and every single industry imaginable, software plays an absolutely crucial role.

From the can of soda that you’re drinking, to the car you’re driving and the phone you’re reading this on; all of these functions had software heavily involved somewhere along the line.

The same can be said for help desk and companies that use ticketing help desk software. The software is changing, but the issues are usually the same. The system has been the same for quite some time. User has an issue, user calls service desk and service desk assists with the problem. They fix the issue at first level or assign to a support group who can resolve the issue. The problem is when the agents are getting calls for the wrong things:

“I want this new software that my colleague has”
“I need access to this database”
“How do I use this function in Excel?”
“My salary is wrong”

As a big company with employees of varying levels of IT skills, how do you decide what level and type of support you will need from your IT support?

Metrics and Analytic

The best way to get a great overview of how the IT in your company has been working is to look at the tickets that have been raised in the past year. Look at patterns and decide if there is something you can do to avoid unnecessary calls to the Service Desk. Even in the 21st century, not everybody is tech savvy and not everybody will know what to do if the computer says “press any key” but that shouldn’t mean the employee spends half the day at the Service Desk on the phone learning how to use Microsoft Word. The Service Desk is not a learning tool for employees and should not be employed to provide educational assistance.

This process is called looking at metrics and you can ascertain a great deal of information from here. You will be able to see what the issues were, why they were occurring and whether they could have been prevented.

Can we do it another way?

Because of the lack of IT knowledge among some employees, we can’t replace Service Desk agents with robots. It might be cheaper to have an automated system but we are not yet advanced enough in AI or robotics to troubleshoot issues on a daily basis and our customers would be deeply unhappy with this service. Customers do want a human response when things go wrong but is there a way we can get the service without spending unnecessary time on the phone?

Workflow Management (WFM)

The answer could be in a ticketing system where the users can create their own tickets and send them to the Workflow Management. Workflow Management (WFM) can then distribute the ticket to the specific team that it needs to go to. If there is insufficient information in the details provided then an agent will have to call the user back and gather the requested info.This is a workflow system and can be accurately monitored and tracked using a workflow system. There are many systems available but a company should always look at developing its own system because they are the only ones who truly know their own systems.

Live Chat

Another function that is becoming popular among service desks around the world is the chat feature. Some users are shy to talk to agents and some need to deliver long codes. The easiest way here is to communicate through the chat portal. Details can be accurately passed between each other and the agent can speak to multiple people at the same time. The user can get on with his or her own job while having the chat function open.

Requests

Sometimes, employees will need an expensive piece of software to perform their daily duties. Sometimes, an employee will not need this software but he will call the service desk and ask to have it installed anyway. Calls cost money, and if the company has a process of obtaining software, and even hardware, it can make the entire system run more smoothly. Additionally, software often costs money and software distributed unnecessarily can cost a company millions. If you have a strict request process and the request needs to go through levels of approval then it can be accurately determined who needs the software and who doesn’t. The tip here is to have a portal where employees can request what they need and this can be approved and delivered once it has been accepted.

Conclusion

Within a company that has its IT service handled by somebody else, costs are crucial. If you are paying x amount of money per contact and users are calling the service desk for extremely minor and irrelevant issues then the management would need to take a look at what is going on. This can be done through the ticketing software.

The company in question also needs to look at what services are provided and whether or not they are sufficient for the company’s needs. You might need an email service that is 24/7 or a chat service that works well.