Standardize the Service Desk
Improve customer service by driving consistency in your support approach and meeting SLAs.
- Not everyone embraces their role in service support. Specialists would rather work on projects than provide service support.
- The Service Desk lacks processes and workflows to provide consistent service. Service desk managers struggle to set and meet service-level expectations, which further compromises end-user satisfaction.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- Service desk improvement is an exercise in organizational change. Engage specialists across the IT organization in building the solution. Establish a single service-support team across the IT group and enforce it with a cooperative, customer-focused culture.
- Don’t be fooled by a tool that’s new. A new service desk tool alone won’t solve the problem. Service desk maturity improvements depend on putting in place the right people and processes to support the technology.
Impact and Result
- Create a consistent customer service experience for service desk patrons, and increase efficiency, first-call resolution, and end-user satisfaction with the Service Desk.
- Decrease time and cost to resolve service desk tickets.
- Understand and address reporting needs to address root causes and measure success and build a solid foundation for future IT service improvements.
Standardize the Service Desk
Start here – read the Executive Brief
Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should standardize the service desk, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you as you complete the project.
1. Lay service desk foundations
Identify your service desk challenges and strengths, review service support best practices, determine your operations metrics, and identify ticket handling procedures.
2. Design incident management processes
Discuss the building blocks of incident management process, incident workflows, ticket handling guidelines, prioritization, and escalation guidelines.
3. Design request fulfilment processes
Better understand request fulfillment process including service request workflows, proceeding with better knowledge management, and developing self-service portal to support shift-left strategy.
4. Plan the implementation of the service desk
Establish a clear service desk roadmap for each task, define timeline and ownership, and build a plan to communicate the changes to key stakeholders.
Member Testimonials
After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this blueprint and what our clients have to say.
9.5/10
Overall Impact
$22,527
Average $ Saved
20
Average Days Saved
Client
Experience
Impact
$ Saved
Days Saved
RPC Inc.
Guided Implementation
10/10
$30,989
20
City Of Kawartha Lakes
Workshop
10/10
$25,000
10
Truckee Meadows Water Authority
Workshop
10/10
$2,479
10
Chief Industries, Inc.
Guided Implementation
10/10
$12,395
20
Lendmark Financial Services, LLC
Guided Implementation
10/10
$12,395
2
C2P Enterprises
Guided Implementation
10/10
$5,000
18
Brockton Everlast Management Limited
Guided Implementation
10/10
$42,870
32
Reedy Creek Improvement District
Workshop
7/10
N/A
10
Corporation Of The City Of Orillia
Guided Implementation
8/10
$2,000
5
San Manuel Band of Mission Indians
Guided Implementation
10/10
$12,395
2
Hitchiner Manufacturing Company
Guided Implementation
10/10
$17,973
20
California State University, Stanislaus
Guided Implementation
10/10
$123K
60
City Of Bakersfield
Guided Implementation
10/10
$7,437
5
Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office
Guided Implementation
10/10
$12,063
20
City Of Bakersfield
Guided Implementation
10/10
$12,395
9
Cobb EMC
Workshop
10/10
$29,130
95
Natural Resources Canada
Guided Implementation
9/10
N/A
N/A
Keyano College
Guided Implementation
10/10
$25,000
5
Keyano College
Guided Implementation
10/10
$25,000
10
Cross Country Mortgage, Inc.
Guided Implementation
10/10
$29,130
20
Knights of Columbus
Workshop
10/10
$2,479
20
Westmoreland Mining LLC
Workshop
8/10
N/A
5
Cayman Islands Health Services Authority
Guided Implementation
8/10
$11,156
23
General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists
Workshop
10/10
N/A
50
Utah Valley University
Workshop
8/10
$30,731
20
City of Virginia Beach
Guided Implementation
10/10
$14,255
20
Adler University
Guided Implementation
10/10
$20,500
120
Dark Fibre Africa
Guided Implementation
8/10
$29,130
23
Explore Edmonton Co. (ECC)
Guided Implementation
9/10
N/A
5
Clark Schaefer Hackett
Guided Implementation
9/10
$11,156
20
Service Desk
Strengthen your service desk to build a strong foundation for ITSM maturity.
This course makes up part of the Infrastructure & Operations Certificate.
- Course Modules: 5
- Estimated Completion Time: 2-2.5 hours
- Featured Analysts:
- Mahmoud Ramin, Research Analyst, Infrastructure Practice
- Allison Kinnaird, Research Lead, Infrastructure Practice
Onsite Workshop: Standardize the Service Desk
Onsite workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost onsite delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Module 1: Lay Service Desk Foundations
The Purpose
Discover your challenges and understand what roles, metrics, and ticket handling procedures are needed to tackle the challenges.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Set a clear understanding about the importance of service desk to your organization and service desk best practices.
Activities
Outputs
Assess current state of the service desk.
- Current state assessment
Review service desk and shift-left strategy.
- Shift-left strategy and implications
Identify service desk metrics and reports.
- Service desk metrics and reports
Identify ticket handling procedures
- Ticket handling procedures
Module 2: Design Incident Management
The Purpose
- Build workflows for incident and critical incident tickets.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Distinguish incidents from service requests.
- Ticket categorization facilitates ticket. routing and reporting.
- Develop an SLA for your service desk team for a consistent service delivery.
Activities
Outputs
Build incident and critical incident management workflows.
- Incident and critical incident management workflows
Design ticket categorization scheme and proper ticket handling guidelines.
- Ticket categorization scheme
Design incident escalation and prioritization guidelines.
- Ticket escalation and prioritization guidelines
Module 3: Design Request Fulfilment
The Purpose
- Build service request workflows and prepare self-service portal.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Standardize request fulfilment processes.
- Prepare for better knowledge management and leverage self-service portal to facilitate shift-left strategy.
Activities
Outputs
Build service request workflows.
- Distinguishing criteria for requests and projects
- Service request workflows and SLAs
Build a targeted knowledgebase.
- Knowledgebase article template, processes, and workflows
Prepare for a self-serve portal project.
Module 4: Build Project Implementation Plan
The Purpose
- Now that you have laid the foundation of your service desk, put all the initiatives into an action plan.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Discuss priorities, set timeline, and identify effort for your service desk.
- Identify the benefits and impacts of communicating service desk initiatives to stakeholders and define channels to communicate service desk changes.
Activities
Outputs
Build an implementation roadmap.
- Project implementation and task list with associated owners
Build a communication plan
- Project communication plan and workshop summary presentation