Service Desk Considerations: A Closer Look at Critical Factors to Improve Performance

If your company has a service desk, then you know how important it is to ensure that everything within that environment runs smoothly. There are several service desk considerations to take into account when you are looking at your processes and how well they are working for your users. After looking at these considerations and putting your own company into the equation, you can determine if there are areas for improvement or if you already have your processes optimized.

Service Desk Considerations: What Challenges Does Your Service Desk Face?

Service desks can vary by company, yet there are specific challenges that many service desks and staff will face. Three specific challenges that have been identified in service desk considerations include a lack of any knowledge about the customer; managing the complexities inherent in change; and the pressure to handle increased call volumes at faster rates and across various departments in different time zones. Your service desk likely has specific performance goals to meet, yet a lack of information, proper processes, and effective call handling methods can turn any service desk environment into a challenge.

Service Desk Considerations: How does Your IT Staff Affect Your Results?

Your service desk handles many calls daily regarding technical support and customer service. You must ensure that you have the right employees on the job that can handle the questions. When you search for the right individuals to staff your service desk, look for great phone skills, technical know-how, and customer service capabilities. As a manager you want to find someone who may have a lot of technical background on their resume, but your customers may actually put this second in line to customer service abilities. Your IT staff should be fluent in customer service and excellent in IT issues. Have your IT staff work to avoid long wait times as it can directly affect your results. Customers want someone who is friendly, knowledgeable, and capable of handling their calls. Customers also tend to prefer layman’s terms, so avoid jargon.

Service Desk Considerations: What Elements Will You Need to Run a Great Service Desk?

Help desk ticket software is an excellent tool and something to include in your service desk considerations. Help desk tickets will allow your employees to manage each call in the order in which it was received, while also prioritizing the most urgent calls. Service desk considerations should also include help desk tracking software. This platform will allow you to keep track of all tickets, enabling a search and retrieve function if a similar problem should arise again.

Service Desk Considerations: What Technology Will Help You Manage Your Service Desk Properly?

There are a lot of different technology factors to look at when you are evaluating your service desk considerations. Self-service portals are a major factor to consider if your company handles a large volume of calls each day. These portals will allow your customers to keep track of their own issues without having to go through one of your IT staff. A knowledgebase is another thing to think about in your service desk considerations because it will help to build a database of questions and answers that your users can go to for simple questions.

Service Desk Considerations: Find a Vendor who Fits Your Needs

Finally, if you have decided to outsource any of your service desk operations, you need to search until you find a vendor who fits all of your business needs. Consider the size of your company, the type of questions asked of the service desk, primary challenges, and current processes. Once you have these things on paper, you will have a guide to use so that you may eliminate vendors who do not fit the criteria you are looking for.

As you look over your service desk considerations, you want a provider who can not only meet your needs, but also fit well into your culture, provide the necessary support, scale according to your anticipated growth, and deliver the flexibility you need to be successful.