The IT service desk is a crucial part of any organization. It’s the environment where you can offer useful help and guidance to your customers. In some cases, it may also be where your end-users can come to check on their software solutions, and deal with problems through self-service systems. In a world where customers are making more purchasing decisions based on the promise of a good experience alone, no company can afford to cut corners on the service experience. Knowing how to use everything from your IT service management ticketing software to your analytics solutions properly is the key to maintaining customer relationships.
Give Your Customers a Voice
The best help desk and service solutions today don’t just allow your employees to issue a request for help whenever something goes wrong. They can also be a place to gather useful feedback from your users. Consider adding a component to the technology that allows your users to submit any thoughts or feelings they have about your customers, without needing to submit a support ticket. It’s also worth making sure that when your customers do need to ask for help, they can provide as much valuable information as possible. Don’t just give your clients a box to tick to determine what kind of software they need help with. Provide them with room to elaborate on the issue and give you more details when necessary.
Automate Crucial Processes
Solid ticketing management within the organization is an essential part of running a good service team. You should be able to use your software solution to automatically route issues to the right department, depending on things like who’s available to answer a call, and who has the right skillset. Make sure that your chosen technology knows how to route requests based on the department that they apply to. Ensuring that you have a way to track which requests are being handled at any given time is important. You should be able to have a complete overview of how many tickets you have at any moment, which are in progress, which are in the queue, and so on. Advanced analytics that allow you to examine things like how quickly your team can process these issues will help you to spot any bottlenecks in your processes that are sending customers away.
Be Consistent
Finally, it’s common for an IT service desk to sometimes find itself with a single agent that seems to go above and beyond the others. However, that can mean that all of the queries end up getting directed to this agent, because your automated system sees him or her getting through more work at a faster rate. Think about how you can help all of your employees to become as good as that single individual. Is extra training necessary, or can you create a knowledgebase where your employees can go to find additional information when they’re not sure what to do next? Do you have a documented plan for new starters who are coming to the desk for the first time? Encouraging a culture of accountability and good knowledge sharing can help you to provide a more consistent level of support.
