Help desk implementation plan: Scaling beyond IT

ManageEngine recently released the findings of its inaugural ITSM survey of organizations using service desk software. The survey reveals the high level of first-time IT help desk adoption as well as the high number of IT help desk implementations beyond IT.

What stands out is that about 47 percent of the respondents implemented help desk software for the first time, moving away from emails and spreadsheets.

Ninety-eight percent of respondents indicated that they improved help desk productivity and attained incident management maturity with service desk software. Respondents stated that they were able to do so with increased end-user adoption of self-service portals for trivial issues, higher SLA compliance with the help of well-defined SLAs, easy SLA tracking and a streamlined ticket management process. This stresses the users’ need for the right help desk solution to replace their vanity tools, emails and spreadsheets.

An interesting trend is the proliferation of help desk software to departments beyond IT like HR, travel, and maintenance and facilities — with 20 percent of the respondents citing that they use the software for non-IT service departments. This stat is a validation of the fact that enterprise service management is rapidly moving to the center stage.

There is an increasing need for IT teams to build a knowledge base to help end users help themselves and reduce help desk turnaround times. It’s no surprise, then, that 39 percent reported they built their first-ever knowledge base using service desk software. As companies strive toward user-centric IT, there’s good news at that end as well. The survey reveals that a whopping 95 percent saw a significant increase in their end-user satisfaction levels. This has been brought about with the help of automated notifications, custom forms in the self-service portal, end-user surveys and, of course, the knowledge base implementations.

The industry’s growing appetite for reporting capabilities within help desks was also brought to light. Nearly three of every four respondents (71 percent) use a built-in reporting module to optimize their help desk performance by identifying and tracking key metrics. A vast majority of these respondents also use custom reports to generate advanced reports tailored to their needs, not to mention others who make use of out-of-the-box reports for basic reporting.

This article was originally published in APMdigest.