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If your support team is overwhelmed with repetitive tickets or your customers are still waiting for replies, as if it were 2004, it’s probably time to consider automating your service desk.
Now, before your eyes glaze over at the word “automation,” hear me out. This isn’t about replacing your team with robots, it’s about making life easier for your humans and your customers. The right automation can cut response times, eliminate human error, and let your support team focus on tasks that truly require human expertise.
In this post, we’ll break down how to automate your service desk without turning it into a soulless machine. You’ll get 8 super practical ideas (no fluff), some innovative best practices, and a few tool recommendations that even non-techy folks can get behind. Ready to stop putting out fires and start running a smoother, smarter support operation? Let’s dive in.
What is service desk automation?
Service desk automation is a process of automating repetitive tasks to improve the effectiveness of IT support services. The process can include automating tasks such as ticket creation, status updates, routing, and troubleshooting. Power tools can now use technologies like Machine learning and artificial intelligence to make the automation smoother. Service desk automation is crucial for companies, as it helps reduce manual intervention and enhances overall service quality.
Some use cases of automation can include:
- Use AI chatbots for automating user interactions
- Automate workflows for incident management
- Deploy self-service portals to empower users to solve issues independently.
Automation aims to optimise resources effectively and allow companies to deliver a consistent and satisfying user experience.
The benefits of an automated service desk
You can get the following major benefits after implementing an IT service desk automation:
Streamlined workflows
According to research, an average live agent can get 578 tickets per day and 16,630 tickets in a month. If an agent tries to solve all these tickets manually, then they may even have to put hours in solving simple day-to-day tasks, which can be easily automated. This is a situation where a company can utilise service desk automation software and allow its agents to focus on more complex tasks.
Moreover, if a company uses AI-driven automating software, then they are not only automating repetitive tasks but also training one of their future live agents. Because an AI tool can learn and improve with each interaction with the users.
In fact, Evvo, an online e-commerce company, used AI automation to solve ticket issues effectively, which helped them to increase their revenue by 7%. The tool helped them to automatically answer the repetitive questions and reduce human effort.
Improve employee and customer experiences
24/7 availability can be the best benefit of an automated desk system. As anyone can access a robot or an AI agent anytime and get an answer to their query.
If a company uses automation, then it is liberating its employees and customers from a 9 to 5 loop of asking queries. The automation will allow your employees to quickly find solutions to regular problems and continue the workflow without impacting productivity. Moreover, your customers can also find answers quickly without any interruption in their user experience.
Furthermore, it is important to implement automation since people are no longer ready to wait for an answer. For example, customers are now expecting companies to solve their queries within only ten minutes. So, it is getting crucial for companies to implement automation and provide a smoother customer experience.
Proactively identify and resolve issues
The best impact of service desk automation software is its ability to identify and solve issues. The basic AI tools can only automate regular workflows, however, advanced AI software can help you analyse and solve problems beforehand and maintain optimal performance.
How does this plan work? An AI-powered service desk may identify trends and abnormalities in help requests and system performance data to predict prospective issues. This proactive strategy enables it to address minor issues before they become large events that could violate SLA, such as security flaws, compliance complications, or critical system failures.
This predictive strategy not only decreases downtime, but it also reduces the manual effort of IT workers. Numerous studies on service automation that show shorter response times as well as how intelligent service automation increases customer happiness and loyalty.
How to automate the service desk with 8 simple ideas
- Automate ticket creation
With the advancement of technology, people no longer want to get stuck in the chains of emails to solve a simple query. Now, consumers like to get clear, to-the-point and quick solutions within minutes.
So, instead of relying on old support team methods, your company can deploy a service desk automation software and make things easier for the consumers. A software for automation can allow your consumers to easily generate a ticket and also offer its solution depending on the complexity.
- Assign tickets automatically
A medium-sizeed company can receive 500 to 1000 tickets regularly. Even if you have an automated system to handle these incoming queries, you will need to redirect complex tasks to the right team. An ideal software can also do this for you, so your productivity and customer experience are not affected at all.
Good service desk automation tools like Trengo allow you to automate the ticket routing. This automation can identify the task and redirect it to the relevant team immediately without putting the customer on hold. However, initially, you will need to train your AI software so that the transition is smooth and accurate.
- Set automated reminders for unresolved tickets
When tickets are not solved quickly, the user feels frustrated, which is not good for a reputable company. Automated service desk tools set reminders that automatically inform the agent about the pending tasks. Reminders help your agents handle all the complex and pending queries on time without impacting the support system of your company.
- Integrate communication channels
Build a more intuitive workflow by combining your communication channels with your ticketing system. This will centralise your efforts and make it easier for agents to track and manage tickets. This makes it easier for consumers to obtain support because it takes place within the apps they use regularly.
Slack is a fantastic example of a communication channel that can serve as the foundation for a support desk. Millions of workers in countless enterprises around the world spend their days engaging with colleagues using Slack.
- Integrate self-service portals
Automation service desk is good for your company’s support system as it minimises the user-to-agent interaction. For instance, you can provide your users instructions for simple tasks using AI and allow them to quickly solve their issues without waiting for a manual response. Some of the self-service options can include:
Automated knowledge base access
Create knowledge and triggers or keywords for the issue. When the user enters a similar the system will provide them with a link to the knowledge base. Now the consumer should be able to solve the query using the information provided.
Canned answers
You can also create pre-vetted answers to repetitive questions. This will help users quickly find the answer to their query without even opening a link.
Chatbots
Chatbots are now smart enough to act like a live agent and help users find solutions to their simple queries. These chatbots are available 24/7 and can reduce the workload of IT staff massively.
- Create real-time monitoring and alerts
You can also use an automated service desk to help your consumers know that they may need the support team’s assistance even before they contact your support team. Such monitoring and alerts help you manage IT problems effectively and allow you to build a positive reputation among your consumers.
- Add automated role-based access controls
IT agents and companies have a responsibility to protect consumers’ personal and sensitive information. So, it makes it crucial for them to ensure that not all agents have unlimited access to users’ data. The company can set limited data access for chat agents depending on their experience, role and authority.
You can use a service desk automation software to control data permissions on ticketing platforms. You can limit access by assigning roles to agents, like admin or observer.
- Automate periodic reports
Automation is good, but you can make it even better with the help of relevant reports. For instance, your automation software should allow you to see common queries, ticket volumes, and the average time your team takes to resolve the issues. These reports help you analyse the current performance and make better plans for the future.
Service Desk Automation Implementation Best Practices
Assess the current process
It is ideal to first assess your current process, including the average time an agent takes to solve an incoming query, repetitive tasks, and the current bottlenecks. After identifying, highlight the area that can be automated using the software.
Define automation objectives
Next, you will need to set your goals and objectives for automation. Your goals can look like:
- Reducing ticket-solving time
- Improve user satisfaction
- Cut down operation costs.
Now, use the set goals to plan for future success and software implementation.
Select the right tools
Select right tools forthe automation of service desk that aligns with the needs of your organisation, the allocated budget, and the technical capabilities of your employees.
Moreover, before finalising software, consider different factors like:
- Scalability
- Integration capabilities
- Ease of use
- Prioritise automation opportunities
Prefer software that can help you increase efficiency, business outcomes, and the overall experience of employees and customers.
Pro Tip: Start by automating the simplest tasks and then move towards complex tasks.
Design effective workflows
Create clear and easy-to-follow workflows that outline the sequences of automated tasks, the exception handling process, and decision points. But ensure that workflows are not complex so both staff and users can easily utilise the automation.
Develop automation scripts and rules
You can use automated scripts to provide quick solutions to your users. These automated responses are ideal for handling repetitive tasks without needing manual effort.
Integrate systems and tools
Ideal automated service desk tools supports integration so you can streamline your workflow without moving from dashboard to dashboard. For instance, Trengo allows you to integrate with WhatsApp and maintain fluent communication.
