3 considerations when implementing a service desk

The role of the CIO is to spearhead the adoption of innovation, or at least that’s one of the CIO’s roles, to support company growth and momentum. With the rate technology is evolving and the proliferation of different solutions in the market, orchestrating new technology adoption can be a veritable circus. For modern organizations, it takes a comprehensive IT service management strategy to meet these challenges. Thankfully, implementing a smart service desk can address many of the pain points CIOs experience when attempting to modernize their operations and become more employee-focused.

When upgrading their service desk solutions, CIOs have an opportunity to drive productivity and better meet employee needs. By leveraging smart service management functionality, CIOs can provide employees with a smarter and more user-friendly experience that lets employees stay productive, regardless of where they work in the organization and whatever service they need. Based on my experience helping companies simplify complex tasks and deliver services in seamless, smart and meaningful ways, there are a few best practices to consider when implementing a smart service desk – no matter if you are a startup or global market leader.

Find a solution that scales

The goal of internal service management has always been to provide employees with what they need to get their work done. Traditionally, IT service management solutions were not designed as enterprise-wide platforms. They were solely focused on helping IT department manage incidents and did not expand to other parts of the business. As new solutions have eliminated steps in the process that typically slowed down service desks, such as requiring a service desk manager to examine and route every ticket, organizations have come to recognize that best practices and better solutions for service management in IT also lead to improved employee services across departments.

Redefining employee service experiences require meeting employees where they work through integrations with enterprise tools such as Slack, email and on mobile devices to help employees submit requests and access company-wide knowledge. No longer a resource for IT alone, companies today are extending their service desks to departments such as HR, marketing, facilities and procurement. When implementing a service desk solution, it is crucial to find one that can scale across departments to allow employees to get their work done more effectively, how they want to work, no matter the service request.

Meet employee needs

The less time employees spend finding solutions, particularly to the same problems, the more time they have to focus on delivering business value. To serve the needs of employees, today’s service desks allow organizational resources such as employee onboarding processes and expense reporting to be shared across traditional silos and organized with tags and categories for company-wide search functionality. Shared resources help create visibility, which increases communication and prevents log jams, such as when members of the organization are unavailable to provide support.

Today’s employees are not only looking for a more tailored experience, but a smarter one. Much like employees have become accustomed to consumer applications that suggest movies or books they might enjoy, today’s service desks leverage AI to help route service requests to the optimal agent for resolution. For example, when a user isn’t sure whether an incident is the responsibility of engineering or facilities, AI can provide a suggestion based on the meaning extracted from the service request. As new AI and machine-learning capabilities continue to change the way employees interact with technology and devices, so will the service desk.

Leverage modern technologies

The drive toward a smarter and more seamless employee service experience is emblematic of organizations that, through their digital transformation, recognize that employees are their most important asset. Using new IT service management technology, CIOs have the opportunity to begin their journey toward digital transformation on familiar territory – the service desk.

The IT service desk team already supports customers and employees with problem resolutions for IT and digital operations, which makes it a great center for intelligence gathering or rolling out new digitized services and developing new approaches to using technology to drive greater operational efficiencies. With modern service management software, siloed service catalogs can be rolled into a single service platform from which CIOs can implement service desks that offer improved employee efficiency and drive larger digital transformation strategies.

No matter how hard we try to simplify scaling and company growth, we will always encounter obstacles. CIOs are swimming in new technologies and must constantly adapt to changes in strategy when adopting those technologies, all while focusing on how the company delivers an engaging and effective employee experience. A streamlined smart service desk goes a long way toward driving the operational processes and efficiencies that companies must provide to create greater employee experiences. While no two companies are built exactly alike, I feel strongly that checking these considerations off your list will help you drive your company forward while creating a frustration-free zone for your employees by easily addressing their service requests.