How do you handle service requests, problems, or incidents? Do people walk up to your desk interrupting that thing you were working on? Alternatively, do they just call/text you on your cell? Maybe they just send you an email stating their computer is broke. Of course, most of those emails, texts, or voicemails probably do not accurately describe the nature of the issue. If any of these scenarios describe your workday, maybe it is time to consider implementing service desk.
Not only do you have to try to manage the various user needs and request, but your employer probably has a list of wants too. Typically, management will want you to track various issues and request along with the amount of time to resolve those issues. Many will want service level agreements (SLA) for various problems and a method to track if those SLA’s are being met. Of course, all these things need to be accomplished without additional personnel.
By utilizing a service desk solution you can save time, manage service levels, ensure consistency, and report on service desk items. Your time is valuable and with constant interruptions by users, it is difficult to get anything done. With a fully implemented service desk, users can submit tickets by various methods. A self-service portal is usually the best method for submitting tickets, however utilizing a dedicated service desk email account is also a good method. Setting up a self-service portal will stream line ticket creation and ensure consistent information gathering for issues and request. Setting required fields, customizing categories, and various fields will make creating tickets easier for the end user and easier for your technicians to work the tickets. Directing users to the self-service portal will save you time by reducing interruptions and gathering needed information initially from the users. The use of customized tickets will ensure consistency by having each user enter the same types of information each time an issue or request is reported. Since all the data is in the service desk, reporting on issues will be much easier than trying to manually keep track of issues.
Along with using a service desk another time saving feature to be sure and use is a knowledge base system. A knowledge base system can store solutions for issues or request and should be created for each solved service desk ticket, if one does not already exists. This may take a little additional time initially, however as you know a large percentage of issues are repetitive in nature. Creating an article the first time will allow you to provide the predefined solution quickly and efficiently going forward. For example, someone opens a ticket asking how to connect to an office printer. Typically, you may spend say 10 minutes creating a response to the user. Now let us say you have that same request 10 times per week. That can add up quickly over time, however you created an article that the user can find themselves on the self-service portal. You now get all that time back. Even if they still open a ticket you can send the link to the article and reduce you have still saved time.
A good service desk solution will save you time and reduce your workload while delivering consistent results. It will also have a method to track and report on SLA’s so you can measure your work. Ticket creation can be deflected by also implementing a knowledge base system along with the service desk implementation. Together they will reduce your daily interruptions, and workload, letting you work on other items of importance. I would invite you to look at our KACE Systems Management Appliance, which has a service desk, knowledge base, and reporting module. Let us know if you would like a free 30-day trial, we are happy to help.
