Together, people, process and technology create a strong IT service desk. There is often an evolution: first, an effort to organize requests, create a flow for addressing them and finally the pursuit of efficiency enhancements. There are endless ways to tweak service desk efforts, but how can you determine what level of support or functionality you currently need—and when to pursue a more mature solution? Probably the most deciding factor is when you need to do more than break / fix.
How the IT Service Desk Evolved
The function of the service desk has morphed over time. Initially, the goal was to support operations and fix whatever is broken in the form of a simple help desk (reactive troubleshooting). In time, Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) practices and the concept of IT service management provided structure for supporting business operations. As the proficiency of the help desk grew, so did its potential to deliver service to the business and end user. Where once outsourcing represented a step in creating efficiency, now artificial intelligence (AI) and self-service vehicles serve that function, enabling analysts to fix what is broken and identify patterns, whether they be the root cause of issues or opportunities to enhance productivity and user experience.
Break / Fix Service Desk Stage and Factors Inciting Maturity
Getting technology and processes to work is the primary function of a service desk. A simple ticketing solution like Microsoft Teams Ticketing provides structure to do this, allowing you to:
- Create tickets from chat or email
- Centralize and route tickets to resolve issues faster, introducing efficiency
- Speed response time and end user satisfaction using artificial intelligence
This setup should tame the volume of requests into a manageable flow, provide relief for analysts and create time for more complex problem-solving. But another wave of efficiency may be desired if you need:
- Data from disparate systems to understand and illustrate current dynamics
- Greater reporting capability and/or more comprehensive data
- Additional properties to extract more information from tickets
- Accommodation for sudden infrastructure changes
- Coverage for employee turnover or skill gaps
- The means to accelerate customer service
The hybrid work movement touches many of these areas, requiring its own strategy to support various devices as employees flex time between the office and home or other remote locations. It’s not just the workforce that can be decentralized—company infrastructure may be hybrid itself, caught in between on-prem and cloud-based statuses.
Companies may also be in the midst of overhauling culture, causing a rethink of how teams collaborate and execute, business processes and core values.
Any or all of these things may be affecting service desk operations and performance. Life on the service desk may become more challenging due to ticket volume and/or underlying complexity. Service desk analysts, admins and managers may be searching for:
- More ways to categorize, filter and sort tickets to find data in the ticketing solution
- Easy methods to identify trends and opportunities to add value
- More shortcuts and additional leverage from AI
- Easy ways to upskill new analysts and admins
- Expanded self-service opportunities
- Out-of-the-box processes or access to data that doesn’t require heavy (time consuming) development
More structure via IT service management (ITSM) processes and a ticketing solution offering greater functionality can shift your help desk into a new phase: service delivery.
Service Delivery Service Desk Stage
What elevates your service desk game is the ability to perform proactively and strategically, execute at a higher level to support business processes, provide integrated support and contribute greater business value. The service desk in a mature state is troubleshooting and fixing issues, but it is also pursuing technology, business intelligence and processes that empower the organization.
What does service delivery look like in this context? It’s as unique as each company’s business processes. But you’ll need access to data that APIs can provide, service level agreements (SLAs) to make sure you’re on target, wide-ranging integration capability, robust reporting and the ability to extract and analyze a wide range of ticket data.
Microsoft 365 Service Desk, the newest offering from Tikit, is a great example of a solution that provides simple execution but sophisticated functionality and greater efficiency. You can get a sense of its evolution from Tikit’s recent webinar.
Technology is one piece of the puzzle. Vision, strategic and critical thinking skills and knowledge of how to extract and use data to answer questions and illustrate points are soft-skill components of service delivery. With technology and personal development, it’s advisable to recognize your current state (strengths and weaknesses), determine your desired goal or outcome and chart a course to get there. We can help you assess technology needs. Talk to us!
What other features would help you better manage service desk ticketing? Tikit is particularly interested in your thoughts, ideas and feedback, since they serve as the foundation for product development. You can contribute ideas, vote and stay on top of product announcements in Tikit’s Roadmap site.
