Automating Your Help Desk Workflow
Do you know you can open, solution, close and report help desk info without human intervention?
Automation is a potent characteristic supplied by most enterprise level help desk items however, most organizations seldom take benefit of these features. Primarily based on a survey performed by RightStar Methods, only 5% of the help desk managers interviewed had been using automation to its fullest capability. Most use it to some degree whilst other people do not use it at all. Tom Jud, Emerging Growth Supervisor for BMC Software, has observed "?that the Business Guidelines Engine supplied by the Magic Assist Desk item, is the crucial characteristic that organizations ought to leverage to generate assistance efficiency and price cost savings." He explains that the two primary reasons for organizations not deploying workflow automation are 1) the perceived level of difficulty in implementing these capabilities and 2) The lack of workflow preparing used in developing the helpdesk system. As soon as organizations discover the significance of workflow automation and the benefit obtained, they embrace the characteristic and generate additional worth from their help desk item.
After getting performed more than 600 site visits and item demonstrations, I have recognized 4-primary focus locations where organizations can benefit from deploying workflow automation.
? Enforcing best practices through automation.
Businesses looking to supplied better and much less costly assistance services have adopted any number of help desk "best practices" suggestions. Automating workflow to enforce a help desk’s best practices deployment can generate even much more worth and efficiency. By pairing particular best practice locations with automated workflow, a help desk can offer a constant and predictable level of assistance.
? Improving incident response time through automation.
Incident response time is how most support assistance organizations are judged. In accordance to Beverly Wells, Assist Desk and Groupwise Supervisor for CarMax, "Of all the stats gathered by the CarMax Assist Desk, the one region reviewed with the most scrutiny, is how quick we responded to and resolve calls." Workflow automation can drastically improve incident response, problem resolution, and change requests, by incorporating predetermined "if, then" capabilities. For example, if a contact for a printer problem is received at the help desk, workflow automation can figure out the kind of contact and direct that contact to the right person or offer an automated solution to the requestor. In other words, "if" you obtain a request like this, "then" do this specific job.
? Increase Reporting Accuracy
Automating workflow offers the ability to capture correct help desk stats by removing the numerous inconsistencies injected through human error. I know help desk managers that spend hrs each month collecting, editing and refining help desk statistical reports. They spend most of there time correcting errors and adjusting the numbers that inform the actual tale of the help desk. Automating workflow is one main way to assist help desk managers prepare and create correct reporting.
? Create Consistency whilst Reducing Contact Quantity
Have you ever known as a help desk and received two or 3 different solutions for the same problem, or worse, no solution at all? It’s frustrating and it reflects poorly on the help desk. Several help desk resources offer the ability to provide solutions on numerous issues in a constant automated method. This offers the requestor with confidence that they received the right solution whilst taking the guesswork absent from the help desk analyst when answering concerns. In numerous cases, the solution can be supplied without human intervention. There are numerous methods of deploying these capabilities collectively they can offer a great reduction in contact volume and a greater degree of consumer satisfaction.
Incorporating automation in your help desk workflow offers numerous benefits. As with any undertaking, it requires forethought and preparing, but with the right help desk tool and the want to offer timely, correct solutions with little or no human intervention, the effort will off-load pressure from the help desk staff and integrate an atmosphere of help desk brilliance.
Dan Wilson presently works for RightStar Methods, a leader in Assist Desk Support and Supprot Consulting including problem, asset, change and desktop management.
Dan has more than fifteen many years of experience in assistance consulting.
You can attain Dan at dan.wilson@rightstarsystems