We know that we are in the era of hyperdigitization. This implies that companies must invest in technologies to stay ahead of the curve and provide quality services. Among the technologies echoing in the market are IT service and management desks and one of the most important features we must take into account before acquiring this software or any technology is: can it improve the productivity of your employees?
What is a service desk for?
First, you should know that a service desk is a unifying tool. That is, it has the ability to bridge and connect departments and customers, especially the service provider (IT) and users (internal employees) for day-to-day activities.
Their primary function is to provide services. However, these services are not limited only to IT services, but it also integrates other business processes such as: document management, requests for the human resources department, onboarding of new projects and their management, reporting and performance analytics. All this through highly configurable, transparent and visible tickets and assignments in a single platform.
Let’s see how a service desk can increase the productivity of your employees through 3 simple strategies:
1 Incorporating predictive intelligence
The world is changing, and so are people. This is why it is necessary to know the future and always be one step ahead. The only way to achieve this is through something called Predictive Intelligence.
A service desk equipped with predictive intelligence is one that can help you know first-hand and without the need for human calculations, what incidents are coming up, if requests need to increase, or if you need to equip yourself with a tool before a certain day. So you can have more agents on standby or have time to set up the right tools to better resolve issues.
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning have made it possible for organizations to take a proactive approach to problems. This is a direct benefit to employee productivity: an AI-enabled service desk allows IT to take a proactive approach to predict and prevent problems before outages or interruptions occur.
Predictive intelligence makes it easier to stay ahead of problems. At the same time, it decreases the noise of events and the time it takes to decipher the reason behind incidents. For example, in a given event, you can predict how many tickets an IT team will receive. Taking into account the number of active agents to anticipate and manage tickets and maintain SLAs.
“An AI-enabled service desk allows IT to take a proactive approach.”
Also, if your organization needs to hire several employees at the same time. You don’t have to delay reviewing every hardware and software requirement of new employees. An AI-equipped service desk can help agents be more productive. Quickly identifying different requirements by taking into account multiple variables. Such as which department they need to work in, what type of role they play, and which tools they need to install. Making the most of historical data from past tickets and events for greater productivity and speed.
2 Setting up an ecosystem with integrations
One of the most arduous tasks in online work is keeping employees in the same ecosystem across applications. Even in the office, whenever employees need to communicate or use digital tools. It is important to have an ecosystem where those tools are under the control and protection of your organization.
A service desk can provide this advantage. By enabling tool integrations, your agents can quickly collaborate with their teammates on an incident. In the case of using tools like Slack or Microsoft Teams, your employees can act together right within the integrated platform, incidents can be automatically posted to the relevant channels, so everyone can be aware, and you can count on full visibility and real-time updates.
On service desks like Freshservice messages in a ticket thread can be synchronized with Slack so that context is preserved for future reference. It also allows agents to perform quick actions on tickets, such as submitting a reply or adding a private note, directly within Microsoft Teams.
By purchasing a service desk, you have a network that allows you to centralize incidents and service requests. Combined with your daily use integrations, it can generate an ecosystem that increases the productivity levels of your employees.
3 Establishing service level agreements (SLAs)
Service level agreements (SLAs) are an important part of IT service management (ITSM). They are agreements that define the goals and expectations for service providers; and provide all stakeholders with regular feedback on how services are meeting those expectations.
The reason why establishing service level agreements can improve productivity is because you can use this information to drive improvements. The use of SLAs can support effective working relationships between IT and the rest of the business. Since both should be involved in the creation, maintenance and use of SLAs.
A service desk, by providing this feature, serves as a guideline, to maintain clear objectives that are visible to all. This boosts employees’ sense of ownership and level of commitment. Since an SLA is a formal, structured agreement between two parties at a mutually agreed level. Designed to provide a minimum level of quality and guaranteeing service performance.
“A service desk is a unifying tool”
These and more strategies are possible through the Freshservice service desk. Because it has its own highly configurable artificial intelligence solution. Also, integration options with multiple tools commonly used in business. In addition to SLA management options for teams working in different time zones or work schedules, and other variables.
If you want to learn more about this tool and how it can help your company and employees be more productive, with seamless service desk operations, contact the experts at GB Advisors.
