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Customer experience is the number one priority for most organisations and their contact centres — a fact evidenced by the considerable investment being made in training, experience-led technology, data collection and analysis of customer engagement.
The case for ensuring customer interactions are positive, efficient and effective is pretty clear: when customers are happy, there is a direct positive impact for the organisation including greater loyalty and higher customer spend. But why is the same focus not given to creating positive experiences around IT service desks and the employees they serve?
Traditional IT service desks operate predominantly as break/fix. They are set up with technology at the forefront and often the service desk as an accessory – simply a number to call when something goes wrong. Employees are at the mercy of wait times, complex technology, and rigid procedures or processes.
Datacom has been leading the way in delivering quality experiences through our customers' contact centres for over thirty years. In recent years, our focus on experience has expanded beyond contact centres to include IT service desks and helping organisations reap the benefits of offering great IT experiences to their employees.
We've all been through a lot of change in the last few years. As customer and employee environments change, the way organisations deliver services needs to evolve too. A range of factors including technology changes, an increase in remote and hybrid working and the competition for great employees mean that now is the right time to consider reinventing your IT service desk. The focus needs to be on the employee experience and how the service desk can be a technology enabler rather than your traditional break/fix.
For some, refocusing on experience might initially come at the cost of efficiency, which is obviously an important goal for IT service desks. If we can see past the short-term though, a focus on experience will deliver a range of valuable benefits for the business in the long-term. For example, reducing pressure to close calls quickly and prioritising time to talk and explain issues with employees in a way they can understand will mean fewer IT issues down the line.
To drive a change in the way organisations think about service desks, Datacom is working with clients to share what their teams have learned from 30 years of working in contact centres and service desks. Here are four areas companies need to consider to create a service desk that provides better experiences for their employees — and better results for the business:
Contacting service desks via phone and email might work for some, but other communication channels should exist. Implementing a proper channel strategy allows employees to interact in a way that suits them. It also enables solutions like automation to cut out the need to speak to a human in cases where that is the best path.
What if service desks could stop issues before they occurred? Our proactive approach focuses on helping employees better use technology and designing an experience that allows multiple ways to do the same thing. We're also trialling technology built into the service management structure to monitor, identify, and address IT events early.
Automating basic tasks provides faster service for users and allows IT teams to focus on more complex and technical work. Surveys have shown that automation can give the IT service desk team a better sense of their worth and leave them feeling valued.
Speech analytics is used to analyse the tone, sentiment, and words used in calls, providing insights into the quality of service and informing the next development or change required. Deep analytics help identify issues causing high volume at the service desk, enabling organisations to address them proactively and efficiently.
Datacom has already shaken off the traditional idea of the service desk, instead embracing the concept of 'service hubs' focused on proactive resolving issues before they create problems. The opportunity exists for 95% of processes to be proactive, with service desks becoming an enabler to the technology, rather than a reactive response to something that is already broken.
At Datacom, we believe the future of service desks can and should look very different. We are already taking some of Australia's most prominent organisations on the journey with us. Find out more about Datacom's Service Desk offering.
