Can Your Service Desk Be A “Net Value Generator”?

If you are running a business organization, one of your primary concerns while making an investment would be the value it generates and adds to your company. Naturally, you would want to invest your valuable funds in a way that you get the best returns.

This is how you generate the net value of your investments.

There are multiple areas in which an organization makes investments and expects good returns, be it inventory, marketing, recruitment, or mergers and acquisitions. However, companies often overlook the investments they make towards their most valuable assets – their employees.

It is your employees that are directly or indirectly responsible for the products/services you provide and the revenue you generate. It is important for an organization to invest in the right employee service desk that not only provides wholesome support to their employees but also generates value for the money spent for implementing the same.

A traditional employee service desk cannot be called a “net value generator” as it is fairly limited in its approach. These service desks make organizations pay for separate tools and services without a centralized platform in place. On the other hand, the modern service desks provide a range of services to organizations by implementing a single platform.

Before understanding what makes your service desk a “net value generator”, let us discuss how the traditional service desks fail to provide you wholesome value for your money.

Why Can’t Traditional Service Desks Generate A Decent Net Value For Your Organization?

1. Fragmented Employee Support
   
   When you are investing in traditional service desks, you do not get a unified platform for all your departments. The support provided by these desks is fragmented which requires you to invest in multiple service desks to cater to the needs of all your employees.
   
   This often results in confusion and chaos within an organization as employees become clueless as to whom to approach and where to go for help. Most traditional service desks serve the purpose of being ITSM tools. They rarely cater to the needs of employees working in different departments and provide them with suitable solutions.
   
   Read More: An effective employee service desk can boost employee productivity and business ROI
   
   
2. No Process Automation
   
   Irrespective of the industry you operate in, there is always the need to automate a few repetitive processes to get the work done faster. This allows your employees to focus on the core business issues. However, the traditional service desks do not offer process automation along with the help desk. In order to avail of these features, you will be required to implement separate software platforms.
   
   
3. Complicated Ticketing System
   
   The ticketing system offered by a traditional service desk may seem complicated to a few of your employees. While the employees who are well-versed with programming and handling software platforms can raise and manage their support tickets, the ones with little to no technical knowledge struggle to do the same.
   
   This would result in you not being able to generate enough value from your service desk as your employees would not be able to get their issues resolved through the ticketing system. The complicated nature of the manual ticketing system is likely to make your employees resort to the fundamental ways of making calls and sending emails to obtain answers to their questions.
   
   
4. Lack Of Personalized Support
   
   If you are spending a fortune on implementing a service desk within your organization, you would expect it to provide personalized support to your employees. In 2021, just like customers need personalized services, your employees need personalized attention to their needs. This helps them perform their tasks better after obtaining help tailored just for them.
   
   However, with a traditional service desk, your employees are likely to obtain support that is fairly generic. The traditional system would provide a few specific template solutions to your employees, no matter how specific their questions are. Yet again, they would have to stick to making calls and sending emails to get precise answers.
   
   
5. Delayed Support
   
   There may be situations when your employees require prompt support, the lack of which could have dire implications. In such circumstances, you cannot always rely on a traditional service desk. This is essential because the agents are often overburdened and exhausted with service requests. It is very likely that your employees would receive delayed support if they follow the approach of using traditional service desks.
   
   Moreover, traditional service desks are likely to make employees with basic issues wait. The agents will always prioritize handling cases that are complicated and hold greater importance for the organization. While this approach is fair, it makes employees with basic issues wait while their problems could have been resolved within seconds.
   
   
6. Lack Of Knowledge Base Optimization
   
   The traditional service desks are often unable to optimize the use of your enterprise knowledge base in providing quick and personalized support to your employees. They are not able to utilize the treasure of enterprise knowledge to provide context-based support to your employees. This often results in your team getting half-baked support on implementing a traditional service desk.
   
   
7. Making Your Service Desk A “Net Value Generator”
   
   You need to go beyond the traditional support processes to make your employee service desk a “net value generator”. This can be done by implementing a modern AI-driven service desk.
   
   The modern service desks make use of AI and machine learning to provide quick and personalized support to your employees. They understand the individual needs of all your employees and offer quick resolutions to their problems without them having to approach anyone. With a modern service desk, you can adopt the self-service approach in letting your employees solve their issues and automate their processes in the best way possible. 
   
   

Here are some of the key features of an AI-driven employee service desk that makes it a “net value generator”: 

1. A Unified Platform For All Employees
   
   With an AI-based employee service desk, you do not need to invest in implementing different help desks for different departments. A single unified platform acts as an ITSM tool, marketing/sales help desk, HR help desk, finance help desk, and a project management tool. Irrespective of the departments your employees work in, they can all log in to a centralized application for getting their work done and obtaining seamless support.
   
   
2. AI Chatbots
   
   The modern employee service desks make use of conversational AI to provide effective support to your employees. The virtual assistants facilitate smooth interaction with the employees, providing them with an ideal blend of human-like conversation and the precision of a machine.
   
   Instead of directly routing cases to agents to obtain the first level of support, the AI chatbots resolve the basic cases themselves. As soon as your employees give specific commands or ask questions, the chatbots scan your knowledge base and provide them with a suitable solution. This helps your employees resolve the majority of their cases within a few seconds.
   
   Further, if your employees are not satisfied with the solutions provided by the chatbots, they can then get their cases routed to suitable support agents. These agents will look into the matter and provide personalized help to your employees through AI chatbots. This streamlines the entire process of getting employee issues resolved via conversational AI.
   
   
3. Process Automation
   
   Apart from providing a personalized solution to your employees’ problems, the modern service desk also helps you automate a number of repetitive processes. The traditional system required the management to have dedicated employees carry out repetitive tasks such as setting and changing passwords manually.
   
   With an AI-driven service desk, you can set up triggers that connect your employees with the back-end whenever they need to change/reset their passwords. The system would automatically ask them to verify their identity and ask them to set new passwords with no human interference. This way, you no longer need to have your employees perform these tedious tasks and have them focus on more pressing issues.
   
   
4. Engaging Microlearning
   
   With a modern employee service desk, you do not need to spend additional money on getting your employees trained in specific micro-skills. You can make your employees train themselves by feeding training resources in your knowledge base. This allows them to access these resources and get trained according to their convenience.
   
   Moreover, the microlearning feature of the modern service desk allows you to train your employees in an engaging manner. Instead of making them read manuals with long texts, you can provide them with interactive videos, pictures, infographics, and other engaging formats of content for increased retention of information.
   
   Further, when your employees become self-reliant in learning new skills, it boosts their confidence and increases their productivity. This leads to improved employee retention as your team would feel genuinely driven to work with you every day. 
   
   

The Final Word 

When you implement the modern AI-driven service desk within your organization, a single investment would provide you with a number of benefits. Right from obtaining quick, personalized, and context-based support to automating a number of business processes, you can rest assured that these service desks are excellent “net value generators.”