Running a healthy, efficient organization in a hyper-digital era means fueling the business engine properly. Getting to the finish line requires strategic pit stops and budgeting for the proper kinds of fuel. This can include anything from internal initiatives to refreshing your approach to an organizational strategy— and that includes your service desk.
For many organizations, their employees’ day-to-day work is so inherently intertwined with their technology stacks that providing the proper desktop and mobile support is almost always a non-negotiable part of efficient and healthy operations. This health will rely on the quality of service that an IT service desk can provide.
Even as recently as a few years ago, the discussion around outsourcing was still relatively fresh. However, now, relying on a partner-provided solution is the new normal. According to the Service Desk Institute, the global market for remote support software alone is expected to reach $5.4B USD by 2028. The demand for proper remote support appears in everything from knowledge management to how emerging technologies like AI are applied to service desk tasks.
However, a new normal means new standards, and your service desk is no exception. Here’s what you might be currently seeing:
- End users expect a high degree of efficiency and personalization.
- Service desk technicians being required to know a vast sea of apps, tools and networks to properly manage and maintain the end-user experience.
- More remote and hybrid environments, which create more opportunities for technical issues to arise.
These constantly evolving needs and demands directly impact not only end users and their experience, but also, the ability for your service desk to be cohesive and strategic about their approach. And, if you rely on a partner-provided solution, these factors can be felt more as a painful pinch on your operations rather than simple realities. For example, the Service Desk Institute also reports that 80% of employees perceive that lost productivity is caused by a mere 12.8% of tickets— meaning that the minority of reported issues take up the most time during the day. Data like this shows that without a strategic approach to implementing and maintaining an outsourced solution, you may wind up in a frustrating loop of missed goals and displeased end users.
For any leader or decisionmaker looking to maximize the benefits of their service desk, keep reading to explore:
- The way your unique perspective intersects with your day-to-day pain points when it comes to managing and executing service desk initiatives— and what might be lacking in your current setup and/or partnership
- Facts and tips on how to execute an excellent SWOT analysis to identify opportunities for improvement
- Some top metrics and analytics you can leverage to take full strategic advantage of your service desk partnership
How Your Pain Points Shape Your Perspective
First, look at your role and how it affects your perspective on maximizing the effect of your service desk dollars. What does your unique IT service desk perspective look like?
Depending on what you’re responsible for on a day-to-day basis, your pain points will shift and evolve. And, depending on the way you’re using your service desk solution or team, you could be experiencing these day-to-day tasks far more as acute concerns, rather than mere duties.
When it comes to checking up on the health of your current service desk setup— and especially if you’re using a partner-provided solution— it’s beneficial to be able to compare the common “checkered flags” and “red flags”, or what does or doesn’t work in a service desk setup.
See if any of these ring true about your current service desk setup:
Red Flags
- Dissatisfied leadership
- Unnecessary switching of service providers, wasting precious dollars in the process
- Constant rerouting of tickets
- Data isn’t kept up to date, causing “firefighting mode” and making it difficult to prove incrementality
- Displeased end users
Checkered Flags
- Leadership leverages the data and power the service desk provides to make informed strategic decisions
- Budget is easy to manage, because the service provider is treated as a fixture or extension of the team
- Most tickets are resolved on first contact
- Data is maintained and updated daily
- End users give glowing reviews about service
Does your service desk stack up? If you find you have more cons than pros when it comes to the health of this aspect of your business, it’s important to take a strategic look at why this is occurring.
How to Conduct an Invaluable SWOT Analysis
A SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) is a great way to both get a pulse of where you currently are, and how you got there. You can use this kind of analysis to tackle some of those “red flags” you may have identified already. This kind of audit can be run on anything from existing processes to the way your team is structured.
The best kinds of SWOT analyses are democratic in nature; that is, everyone should have a say. By playing on the unique individual strengths throughout your team, you’ll reveal far more details and insights. This overview outlines the kinds of details and information a SWOT analysis can reveal:
Because so many organizations have already made the switch to partner-provided service, a strong match in a partner means that you’ll have an outside set of eyes and ears to strategically transform the results of your SWOT analysis into positive impact on your goals and bottom line.
The Metrics that Matter
Results in hand, you’ll now be able to determine the best course of action when it comes to the metrics that make the most sense for influencing your long-term business goals. Before determining your new mix of metrics, take a good look at what data you currently gather, and how you measure it.
Some examples include:
- IT Management: End-user satisfaction surveys to elicit current, relevant feedback on experiences with the support team.
- IT Directors: Ticket escalation analysis to identify the types of issues that could be solved by the Service Desk
- C-Suite: Contact volume by hour and day of week to better identify peak periods for staffing and budget planning.
As you approach solidifying the updated metrics on which you want to focus, you’ll want to commit to battling your perceptions versus seeing the reality when it comes to picking your top KPIs. For example, how do you encourage participation to accurately measure end-user satisfaction? What are the essential indicators to determine the success of the Service Desk? Support personnel quality and efficacy? It’s important to properly analyze this kind of data without reinforcing negative and/or false perceptions that can potentially harm your bottom line— or your job security.
At Mechdyne, we’re committed to enabling the process of discovery. Part of this means objectively comparing key data points to see which are truly revealing the facts we want to know to encourage improvement.
Here are two key examples of metrics that can be helpful or harmful, depending on how you perceive what they’re truly saying:
1: Speed & Efficiency
WATCH OUT: SLA performance can be impacted by a misalignment of support tier handling. For example, SLA performance can be diminished because agents stay on calls longer than is necessary under the premise of delivering good customer service. This may also impact the overall solution price, as a support provider needs to staff additional agents to achieve SLAs.
GOOD TO GO: By aligning tiers of support correctly between Level 1 and Level 2, more complex issues will be handled by a team with the correct skill level. This allows Level 1 support to focus on answering calls and triaging common issues, which creates an avenue to deliver a far greater first contact experience.
2: End-User Satisfaction Ratings
WATCH OUT: Dissatisfied and/or frustrated end users are simply less likely to contact their Service Desk for support— which means that more support requests are pushed back to the on-site team through “shoulder tapping”. As a result, the highly skilled technicians (Level 2 or above) are distracted from delivering projects that will bolster and drive business goals like ROI.
GOOD TO GO: When end users are happy with the support they are receiving, they will call more often and have greater confidence in the Service Desk’s ability to take care of their needs. This may increase volume to the Service Desk, but it also promotes an environment where the right work is being paired with the correct team and/or skill level.
Knowing how to accurately see the story behind the metrics and data you analyze will equip you with the necessary information to strategically evolve the way you approach your service desk setup. You’ll be able to objectively make decisions based on facts, rather than what you hope to see.
Reaching the Finish Line (and Beyond) With A Winning Partner-Provided Solution
Technological trends, organizational shifts, common end-user pain points — these are all factors that can be elegantly and efficiently handled through the intersection of the right outsourced service desk solution focusing on the right metrics and goals. By examining how your unique role in an organization effects the way you see the story being told by service desk data, you’ll be able to make far more empowered and strategic decisions when it comes to bringing polish and finesse to your service desk efforts.
At Mechdyne, we’re proudly committed to waving the ‘checkered flag’ by being a partner-provided solution that enables broad, strategic discovery within IT service desk efforts. By choosing a partner like us, you’ll be able to overcome your existing pain points, accurately analyze your current standing, and leverage the exact story the data is presenting— all while increasing how happy your end users are along the way. So, start your engine and get ready: Reaching your IT service desk’s goals is just a (strategically planned) finish line away.
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