Do you know why your IT guys are Stressed Out & Exhausted? Find out now!

NSPL SOlution Advisor

Improve the Customer Remote Experience

For many businesses, IT service desks, budgets are under pressure while end-users and customers demand both increased competence and a better quality of service.
Thus the streamlining and development of the service desk, and IT support overall, should now be a critical part of any IT organization’s service desk approach and roadmap.

It was shifting left. It is moving support closer to the client. And the closer it gets, the more professional, and hopefully less costly, it becomes. The change to the left will use a number of the other opportunities listed here.

We are using new ways to communicate. The service desk started with two main methods of communication and access. The telephone and face-to-face “walk-ups.” Over the years, it has evolved, web forms and adding email in particular. In 2015, however, there are several extra access channels to be considered, leveraged and offered. These contain social media, live chat, and self-service portals – with each present different levels of customer service and a separate price profile.

Live Chat

Its instant messaging for IT and it is often used in conjunction with remote maintains technologies. End-users may already use live chat outside of work to chat with friends or to quickly get product opinion and support – it can be a set quicker than waiting in a phone queue or for an email to respond.

Remote Support

It’s clear as it sounds using technology to remotely attach to the end user’s device to maintain them remotely. Offering a faster fix or the installation of the latest software, at a lower rate than sending out desk side support, and confidently with a better customer understanding too.

Service Request

Your IT service management implement might have a native service catalogue but just populating it with IT services and products, then launching it to end-users will possibly not be enough for adoption success. Expect a long blog offering information on this.

 

Self-help. It’s as easy as allowing end users to help themselves. It may be how-to guides, common fixes, workarounds for known issues, and even the use of YouTube videos for those that choose visual rather than written assistance. Be warned though; self-help prepared poorly can cause longer decision times and worse customer experience, at a higher cost to the company.

 

We are offering a customer-facing knowledge base. It’s the backbone of self-help, produced by a variety of people: internal technology specialist, service desk agent resolutions, third-parties, and maybe still end-users (say for unusual workarounds for new problems).

Knowledge management. Efficient knowledge management will support not only the customer-facing knowledge base but also service desk agent and other IT staff – as it’s impossible for service desk agent, in particular, to know everything about every corporate technology. Sadly, struggling to cause the right information when desired can be a real productivity killer wherever you work. And don’t expect knowledge management to be limited to the design and use of documented knowledge articles – sometimes the most excellent knowledge management knows who to speak to and how to get in touch with them.

They are empowering super users. In the 1990s, these were the community who used personal productivity products, such as MS Excel, more than most and who might offer advice to less-frequent users. The same standard can be applied today, this time leveraging business application super users and the power of the online community. However, as with self-help as a whole, make sure that being a superuser isn’t at the expense of the end user’s. Day job particularly if super users get extra recognition for, and praise from, being a superuser than they do in their actual role.