Standardize the Service Desk | Info-Tech Research Group

The service desk is functional but has room for improvement and needs to be more consistent in service delivery.
There may be plans to embrace new technologies, but concerns exist about moving poor processes into new solutions.
The team knows changes need to happen, but it’s difficult to know where to start.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

Use a data-driven strategy to standardize service desk processes for the benefit of both users and technicians.

Impact and Result

Focus on standardizing and driving consistency on the service desk to be able to optimize support and improve interfacing processes.
Without standardized processes, organizations become a mass of confusion, redundancies, and cost overruns. Standardization prevents wasted energy on reinventing solutions to recurring issues.

Standardize the Service Desk Research & Tools

1. Standardize the Service Desk Deck – A step-by-step document that helps you improve customer service and meet SLAs by driving consistency in your support approach.

Use this blueprint to standardize your service desk by assessing your current capability and laying the foundations for your service desk, designing an effective incident management workflow, designing a request fulfillment process, and applying these discussions and activities to make an actionable plan for improving your service desk.

2. Service Desk Maturity Assessment – An assessment tool to help guide process improvement efforts and track progress.

This tool is designed to assess your service desk process maturity, identify gaps, guide improvement efforts, and measure your progress.

This brief assessment will evaluate your process maturity across key areas of the service desk, including service desk structure, end-user feedback, ticket intake and handling procedures, incident management, service request fulfillment, ticket categories and priorities, documentation and workflows, and knowledgebase and self-service development. The results will allow you to prioritize process improvement initiatives.

3. Service Desk Project Summary – A template to help you organize process improvement initiatives using examples.

Use this template to organize information about the service desk challenges that the organization is facing, make the case to build a right-sized service desk to address those challenges, and outline the recommended process changes.

4. Service Desk Standard Operating Procedure QuickStart – a lightweight documentation of the service desk’s standardized processes

Use this lightweight template to document the service desk’s structure, roles, and the standardized processes for ticket prioritization and escalation, incident response and service request fulfillment, knowledge management and customer service.

5. Incident Management and Service Desk Standard Operating Procedure - An exemplar of a long-form version of the standard operating procedure in Word format.

The SOP exemplar identifies service desk roles and responsibilities, ticket management processes, knowledgebase practices, ticket prioritization scheme and SLO, and high-level ticket workflows

6. User Group Analysis Workbook

Use this template to help analyze the user groups who access your service desk.

7. Service Desk Queue Structure Template – This template is designed to help you map out your service desk ticket queues.

The template includes several examples of service desk queue structures, followed by space to build your own model of your optimal service desk queue structure and document who is assigned to each queue and responsible for managing each queue.

8. Ticket and Call Quality Assessment Tool – An assessment tool to check in on ticket and call quality quarterly and improve the quality of service desk data.

Use this tool to help review the quality of tickets handled by agents and discuss each technician's technical capabilities to handle tickets.

9. Workflow Library – A repository of typical service desk workflows.

The Workflow Library provides examples of typical workflows that make up the bulk of the incident management and request fulfillment processes at the service desk.

10. Service Desk Ticket Categorization Schemes – A repository of ticket categories.

The Ticket Categorization Schemes provide examples of ticket categories to organize the data in the service desk tool and produce reports that help managers manage the service desk and meet business requirements.

11. Service Desk Metrics Workbook

12. Knowledge Manager – A job description template that includes a detailed explication of the responsibilities and expectations of a Knowledge Manager role.

The Knowledge Manager's role is to collect, synthesize, organize, and manage corporate information in support of business units across the enterprise.

13. Knowledgebase Article Template – A comprehensive record of the incident management process.

An accurate and comprehensive record of the incident management process, including a description of the incident, any workarounds identified, the root cause (if available), and the profile of the incident's source, will improve incident resolution time.

14. Sample Communication Plan – A sample template to guide your communications around the integration and implementation of your overall service desk improvement initiatives.

Use this template to develop a communication plan that outlines what stakeholders can expect as the process improvements recommended in the Standardize the Service Desk blueprint are implemented.

15. Service Desk Roadmap – A structured roadmap tool to help build your service desk initiatives timeline.

The Service Desk Roadmap helps track outstanding implementation activities from your service desk standardization project. Use the roadmap tool to define service desk project tasks and their owners, priorities, and timelines.

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.

9.6/10

Overall Impact

$40,765

Average $ Saved

28

Average Days Saved

Client

Experience

Impact

$ Saved

Days Saved

Testimonial

Reiter Affiliated Companies

Workshop

9/10

$34,250

20

Best the customer service and willing to help the us.

County of Los Alamos

Guided Implementation

10/10

$34,250

20

Extremely happy to be working with Theo. His expertise and advise on this topic has been very valuable to to our team as we make decisions on creat... Read More

Kentucky Housing Corporation

Workshop

10/10

N/A

50

The best part is that the entire team expressed their satisfaction with the workshop and participated throughout the week. The team left motivated... Read More

Goodwill Industries of Middle Tennessee, Inc.

Guided Implementation

10/10

$34,250

20

Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat - Data and Digital Policy Sector

Guided Implementation

10/10

$200K

120

The best part of our experience was how Frank took the time to work with us and how he "met the team where they were in their learning journey". Fr... Read More

Los Angeles County Public Defender

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

5

Worst part of this experience is to float high and low in how i wanted my Service Desk to flow and function efficiently. The best part was that Be... Read More

City of Conroe

Workshop

10/10

$68,500

32

Very informative, general where it needed to be while specific enough information to be useful in our unique environment.

The Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority

Guided Implementation

8/10

N/A

N/A

Ben did a good job of discussing how the service desk methodology and tools would translate for our use case which is a customer facing contact cen... Read More

City of Williamsburg, VA

Guided Implementation

10/10

$13,700

20

Emily was fantastic to work with. She knew every aspect of the engagement and ensured we stayed on track. I will request her again for future wor... Read More

Clark County Water Reclamation District (CCWRD)

Workshop

10/10

N/A

N/A

Best part: Instructor, Joe Riley. Joe gets it. His experiences, wrapped in his passion for service, teamwork, and excellence, empowered and chall... Read More

City of Winter Park

Guided Implementation

10/10

$13,700

5

Allison is very knowledgeable in the subject area. The experience so far has been built on collaboration and knowledge sharing.

City of Miramar

Workshop

10/10

N/A

10

The best part was how tailored it was for our environment. There was no bad experience in my honest opinion.

Monroe #1 BOCES

Workshop

8/10

$13,700

5

Facilitator was fantastic; most challenging aspect was solidifying internally what is within and outside of scope.

Sedgwick Cms

Workshop

9/10

$137K

55

Mahmoud was courteous, knowledgeable and took time to explain and walk the team through the workshop sessions also engage the team in completing ta... Read More

EndUser

Guided Implementation

10/10

$5,000

5

Allegheny County, PA

Guided Implementation

10/10

$68,500

50

Working with Sandi Conrad was truly a gift as she was so well versed on all of our needs for a new ITSM application. Her guidance and expertise wa... Read More

Parks Canada

Guided Implementation

10/10

$300K

50

As the Project Lead and National IT Manager, Service Management, standardizing our service desk is a very important priority for the Digital Servic... Read More

Cameron County, TX

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

50

Ms. Sugerman was patient and explained the processes in great detail. Her personality made her a great consultant to work with.

The City of Daytona Beach

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

N/A

I put N/A for the time and financial impact because without this engagement this would not have been done! I expect the benefits will be more stre... Read More

Field Law

Guided Implementation

8/10

$2,000

2

Pascua Yaqui Tribe

Guided Implementation

9/10

$2,603

5

Working with Frank has been an excellent experience since I'm a first-time manager. I have learned a lot and have gained new tools. The worst part ... Read More

Municipality of Chatham-Kent

Guided Implementation

8/10

N/A

N/A

The best part of the experience was getting to speak with David, Frank and Darrin. They provided excellent strategies and resource material. Ther... Read More

STgenetics

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

N/A

I want to thank Frank Trovato for this his expertise in help us with Standardization of Service Desk process. Best: Knowledge and expertise, un... Read More

DP World Australia Limited

Workshop

10/10

$45,500

10

What a fantastic facilitator Benjamin is. Best workshop. Knowledgeable and easy to work with and know how to get the best out of the participants. ... Read More

Erie 1 Board of Co-op Education Services

Workshop

10/10

$5,480

12

Jeremy was a good listener and worked to understand our process. It’s much different from other service desks and he took the time to listen and a... Read More

Highlands County Clerk of Courts

Guided Implementation

10/10

$6,850

2

Sun River Health

Guided Implementation

10/10

$13,700

20

Sandi is a great consultant. I like very much to work with Sandi.

City and County of Broomfield

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

N/A

Emily was extremely helpful and was able to provide tangible action items for me to take to my team.

Pima County Community College District

Guided Implementation

10/10

$23,997

120

Ben is simply the best! To make the most out of our service desk transformation, we needed the expert advice of an outsider. Ben filled the role ... Read More

The St. Thomas-Elgin General Hospital

Workshop

9/10

$50,000

35

BEST: - Knowledge acquired from the workshop - The workshop facilitator did an excellent job (knowledgable, prompted appropriately, gave relevant... Read More

Load More Testimonials

Service Desk

Please note: This course will be updated in September 2024.

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

Now Playing:
Academy: Service Desk | Executive Brief

An active membership is required to access Info-Tech Academy

Workshop: Standardize the Service Desk

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 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: Current and future state, and service desk structure

The Purpose

Define current state and develop a service desk vision. Define service desk structure and ticket intake.

Key Benefits Achieved

Alignment on goals for workshop. Improved service desk structure and ticket intake and triage.

Activities

Outputs

1.1

Assess current state of the service desk and define objectives

Current state assessment.

1.2

Build a user experience-driven service desk

1.3

Define service desk structure, roles & responsibilities

Service desk structure and roles and responsibilities.

1.4

Improve ticket intake & triage

1.5

Improve ticket prioritization

Ticket prioritization guidelines.

Module 2: Service Desk Data and Incident Resolution

The Purpose

Capture and report on the right data. Improve incident resolution.

Key Benefits Achieved

Establish the foundation needed to capture useful data through effective ticket categories and metrics that enable continuous improvement.
Documented and improved incident management workflow.

Activities

Outputs

2.1

Improve ticket categories

Ticket categorization scheme.

2.2

Enable metrics and KPIs

Metrics and reports.

2.3

Ensure ticket data quality

2.4

Improve incident management process

Incident workflow.

Module 3: Service requests and shift left

The Purpose

Improve service request fulfillment and enable shift-left.

Key Benefits Achieved

Clear differentiation between standard service and non-standard service requests and projects.
Established process for building out and maintaining an internal and external knowledgebase.
Increased self-service options.

Activities

Outputs

3.1

Build service request workflows

Sample service request workflows and SLAs.

3.2

Build a targeted knowledgebase.

Knowledgebase article template, processes, and workflows.

3.3

Prepare for a self-serve portal project

Action items for portal improvements.

Module 4: Develop the roadmap

The Purpose

Communicate and implement the vision for a standardized service desk.

Key Benefits Achieved

Align on the vision for the next steps of the service desk.
Develop effective messaging for key stakeholders.

Activities

Outputs

4.1

Articulate a service desk vision statement

Service desk vision statement.

4.2

Build a communication plan

Project communication plan and executive presentation.

4.3

Build implementation roadmap

Service Desk Roadmap.
Service Desk SOP/QuickStart.

About Info-Tech

Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.

We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.

What Is a Blueprint?

A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.

Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.

Table of Contents

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Guided Implementation 1: Lay service desk foundations

Call 1: Conduct current-state assessment. Review shift-left service support strategy.
Call 2: Identify operations metrics, and reports. Review ticket handling procedures.

Guided Implementation 2: Design incident management processes

Call 1: Map out incident management workflows.
Call 2: Design categorization and identify escalation points.
Call 3: Design prioritization guidelines and service-level objectives.

Guided Implementation 3: Design request fulfilment processes

Call 1: Differentiate between requests and projects, build request workflows, and make a self-service portal plan.
Call 2: Design processes and workflows to produce a targeted knowledgebase.

Guided Implementation 4: Plan the implementation of the service desk

Call 1: Build a communication plan and implementation roadmap.

Authors

Allison Kinnaird

Emily Sugerman

Mahmoud Ramin

Natalie Sansone

Sandi Conrad

Ken Weston

Contributors

Tracey Church, Revenue Operations Team Lead, Information Technology, City of Chesapeake, Virginia
Matt Beran, Senior Product Specialist, InvGate
Andrew Graf, Chief Product Officer & Co-Founder, TeamDynamix
Aaron Kennedy, Director of Information Technology, El Dorado Irrigation District
Katrina Macdermid, Co-founder & Director of HIT Global; Creator of Humanising IT™
Mary Mann, Queue Manager, City of Chesapeake, Virginia
Chuck Williams, Deputy Director of Information Technology, CTO, City of Chesapeake, Virginia
1 anonymous contributor

Search Code: 58871
Last Revised: October 15, 2024

TAGS:

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