Roadmap to a Proactive Service Desk

A proactive service desk is one that anticipates and resolves issues before they become a problem for Users. Organization follows various strategies in adopting a proactive service desk. Roadmap to a Proactive Service Desk .

 Here are some of the attributes of Proactive Service Desk

Build and Manage star team:

This is the rst pillar for any formidable Service Desk. Identifying and hiring the right talent and having a strong leadership is the key to success of the function. A leader sets the tone and he plays in instrumental role in grooming the team and develop them consistently. Service Desk is the face of IT Organisation and being in the Service Desk can get stressful considering the volume of tickets the team member needs to handle, they also bear the emotions of the User with an up-tone attitude. Hence, it’s imperative for organisations to invest in developing and retaining the team to have an ecient Service Desk.

Close integration with cross function team:

Having a consistent engagement with cross function teams would be valuable in understanding the IT nuances of the organisation as a whole. This practice would help Service Desk team to have a bigger picture of the IT ecosystem. Regular governance with the Backoce team on the queue status would help the Service Desk in being better prepared for eventualities and oer suggestion to improve the queue management and resolution timeline. Service Desk can work with the Process team with the ITIL framework to redene the process to make it ecient for the User and its internal customers who are processing and resolving tickets.

Identify repeated ticket drivers focus on shift left:

This is continuous activity which involves identication of repeated queries/issues faced by the User. User reports, conversational history from the ITSM, User touch points of omnichannel media and feedback though CSAT Survey are all potential sources. Once done the next step will involve analysis of these reports identify drivers which could be potentially result in training the Service Desk team with the shift left approach. This strategy helps: 

Freeing up back oce technical teams and helps them to focus on critical issues and maintenance. Front line Service Desk teams become more technical oriented and able to address resolve sizable sum of tickets which was dispatched earlier, this helps in nding a greater purpose for the Service Desk team and hence improve Employee satisfaction. Reduction in cost per ticket: Earlier the ticket was routed from Service Desk team to Backoce team, now these tickets getting addressed by the Service Desk team rst hand result in reduction of cost per ticket. Improvement in CSAT: Users are most happy when their tickets are addressed at the rst instance

Implement a knowledge Articles to promote Self Service:

Knowledge articles facilitates self-service. By allowing access to a well-organized and easy-to-use knowledge article, Users can rapidly nd solutions to common issues and queries without having to wait for assistance from a support agent.

Here are some key points to keep in mind when creating and using knowledge articles for Users:

Content: A primary goal of content is to solve users’ queries/issues and demonstration how to overcome them; Knowledge articles should be written in simple language that is easy for Users to understand. They should be focused on common issues and questions that Users may encounter, and should include step-by-step instructions and relevant screenshots or diagrams.

Searchability: Knowledge articles should be easily searchable using keywords or phrases that Users are likely to use when looking for assistance. They should also be organized into categories or tags that make it easy for Users to nd relevant articles.

Feedback: Users should be encouraged to provide feedback on knowledge articles, including suggestions for improvements or additional information that would be helpful. This feedback can be used to improve the quality and relevance of the articles over time.

Accessibility: Knowledge articles should be easily accessible to Users through a self-service portal or other channels, such as email or social media. They should be available in multiple formats, such as text, video, or audio, to accommodate different learning styles.

Use Automation:

Implement automation tools such as chatbots, auto-responders, and ticket-routing rules to help Users address their queries/issues with zero touch. These tools can provide instant solutions, freeing up Service Desk agents to focus on more complex issues Implementing automation tools such as chatbots can be a powerful way to improve the eciency and eectiveness of a Service Desk operation.

Here are some key points to be considered for implementing chatbots or other automation tools:

Determine Use Cases: Identify the specic use cases where chatbots can be most eective, such as common issues or questions that can be easily resolved using pre-dened responses or workows.

Design Conversation Flows: Create conversation ows that guide Users through a series of questions or prompts to gather the information needed to resolve their issue or answer their question.

Incorporate AI/ML: Use AI/ML technologies to enable chatbots to learn and improve over time based on User interactions, improving the accuracy and eectiveness of the chatbot over time.

Integrate with Service Desk: Integrate chatbots with the Service Desk software to enable seamless hando to a live support agent when needed, and to ensure that chatbot interactions are logged and tracked for analysis and reporting.

Test and Iterate: Test chatbots with real Users to identify areas where improvements can be made, and iterate on the design and functionality of the chatbot based on feedback

By implementing chatbots or other automation tools, Service Desk operations can reduce the workload on support agents, improve response times, and provide a more consistent and streamlined support experience for Users.

Conduct proactive outreach

Use proactive outreach to notify Users of potential issues before they occur. For example, if the Service Desk team know a system update will cause downtime, notify Users in advance to reduce the noise caused by them.

Conducting proactive outreach to Users can help to build trust and improve the overall User experience. Here is an example of how proactive outreach can be used to notify Users of system updates and downtime:

Identify Upcoming Downtime: Infra/NOC Monitoring team identies an alarm which was an outcome of Server utilisation exceeding the threshold. Though the User is not impacted as yet, the monitoring team informs the Service Desk about the Alarm which could have User impact, this in addition to alerting the Server Operations team for issue resolution. This could proactively manage the impact on the User community.

Service Desk Team can correlate the issue and set up upfront message in the IVRS and Email notication to all possible potential impacted so that Users don’t panic and call Service Desk fanatically. By notifying Users in advance of system updates and downtime, Service Desk operations can demonstrate their commitment to transparency and User satisfaction.

Ticket Prioritisation

Priority/ Impact matrix and ticket priority assignment may be tricky task if the urgency and impact is not clearly understood. This could result in delays in ticket creation and assignment. Such cases would result in dissatisfaction of the User. To alleviate this issue, Service Desk team should collaborate with User management community and agree upon the Ticket priority and impact of Incidents. If this practice is implemented in agreement with the User Management and the Service Management would help improve the customer satisfaction and help restore the services in an expedited manner, this practice may have a bearing on the resource utilisation prompting to increase the head count, hence one need to deploy this practice prudently. Like other practice this one would need regular review with both User and Service Management team.

Forecasting change in User landscape

Forecasting impact on Service Desk due to change in User landscape would prepare the team to draw an appropriately plan and build knowledge assets to respond to User interaction. This action is performed by conducting workshops with the User management.

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