How would you benefit from the Next Generation Service Desk?

Self service is everywhere – you can pay for your groceries without the need of a cashier, you can deposit money at the bank without speaking to a member of staff and now you can access IT support without speaking to a technical assistant. The robotic voice sounding “unexpected item in the bagging area” may be a nuisance to many, but the whole idea behind self service technologies is that they will make service transactions more accurate, convenient and faster; and nowhere is this more important in today’s society than in IT.

Improving the all-important service desk

IT support is indispensable to business. Technology has moved out of the back office and now sits at the core of an organisation; it has become a critical business enabler. However, this movement is putting added pressure on the Service Desk to provide a faster, more flexible service. Digital platforms, services and apps have significantly advanced, but many service desks are not catching up quickly enough.In fact, a whopping third of IT service desk customers say that the provision is failing to deliver the IT support they need – and this isn’t good enough.

Creating a NGSD involves gaining a clearer understanding of what users really want and need, which in turn, increases customer satisfaction

Time for Next Generation Service Desk

Here is where Next Generation Service Desk (NGSD) steps in. By giving customers the option to help themselves, IT support can instead focus on big-ticket items rather than small queries, such as password resets. Creating a NGSD involves gaining a clearer understanding of what users really want and need, which in turn, increases customer satisfaction. At SCC, we run an award-winning service desk, which not only benefits out customers from a significant cost savings point of view but also from our highly skilled IT specialists and operations that are supported by the ITIL framework and ISO 20000 accreditation.

What does NGSD involve?

To make NGSD successful you need to have the correct elements in play to allow customers the choice to resolve their own IT issues, or make their requests easier to solve.   NGSDs should include: • Accessible and user-friendly content: articles, FAQs and videos which encourages knowledge sharing and empowerment • A self-serve system: identifies the most common difficulties that can be then be transferred to systems that allow users to solve them without aid. • Omni-channel service: allowing employees access to IT support through their preferred channel, wherever they are, whatever device they are using. • Live chat: picking up the phone or typing a long email is time consuming, so a live, instant messaging service can be beneficial for those concerns that still need some support. For minor-to-medium problems live chat services are helpful. • Chat bots: making instant chat more efficient by using AI programmes that self learn. These can instantly provide answers to questions.

Advantages of NGSD

NGSD aims to reduce the number of minor issues which need to be resolved by a technical assistant and therefore prevents queuing, allowing bigger issues to be solved quicker. Nevertheless, there are even more advantages.

The service desk is here to stay and will no doubt grow considerably over the years to come

It’s quite clear that the Service Desk no longer has the control over the systems and technologies it supports that it once did. This is due to the growth of cloud technologies and initiatives such as bring your own device (BYOD), corporate-owned, personally enabled (COPE) and choose your own device (CYOD). But, NGSD allows users who can’t access remote support to be able to help themselves.NGSD also aims to be proactive and not reactive. In other words, it shouldn’t react to issues as they occur, but instead, will work harder to minimise disruption to user productivity by forestalling and averting IT issues before they arise.

Impending growth

The service desk is here to stay and will no doubt grow considerably over the years to come. Support will always be needed as IT issues will always crop up – big to small. Plus, when these issues do arise users will want resolutions, fast. Customer service is a priority in this area and NGSD can certainly boost it.