10 Service Desk Automation Ideas To Boost Performance

Service desk automation is the process of automating various tasks and procedures associated with a service desk. By automating these tasks, businesses can improve the efficiency and performance of their service desks.

Even Dave wasn’t sure about this until he saw it in action for himself. While managing the outsourcing IT service desk project for a large enterprise, he was amazed at how much more efficient and effective the team became after implementing service desk automation.

If you’re looking for insights into service desk automation, you’ve come to the right place. This article will explore ten ideas for automating your service desk to boost performance.

The top ten service desk automation ideas for BPOs are as follows –

• Automate Routing
• Activate Email Forwarding
• Set Up Auto-Responders
• Automatic Notifications & Alerts
• Password Reset & Account Lockout
• Canned Responses Won’t Hurt
• Implement a Knowledge Base
• Automatic Ticket Rating Mail
• Automated Reports for Better Decision Making
• Automate the Escalation Process

Automating the routing of requests can help ensure they are directed to the appropriate team or individual. This can save time and enhance the quality of service you provide to your customers.

For example, technical support issues are given to agents who understand the technology and how to fix it. Also, billing or returns transactions that need handling are sent to those agents familiar with return policies and processes.

Most service desks use the round-robin ticket assignment feature to assign tickets to available agents automatically. Doing this ensures that tickets are evenly distributed and do not get cluttered with a single customer service agent.

A business creates different customer support emails that users can use, like info@, sales@, support@ or even billing@. Users are then free to direct their queries to the most appropriate email, depending on their needs.

Now emails are coming from these different streams, but how can a single agent manage all of them? There will always be a chance of missing out on some important emails.

The best way to manage this is by activating email forwarding for all the customer support email addresses to a single inbox that is constantly monitored. Once you’ve consolidated all requests under a single platform, your customer service agent will be able to swiftly prioritize critical issues. They can even tag or label tickets and ensure no ticket goes unanswered.

While managing a huge number of tickets, there are chances that some customers might not get a response immediately. This often happens when the customer service agent is dealing with a complex issue or trying to find a solution.

In such cases, it’s always helpful to set up auto-responders. These automated messages are sent to customers when their ticket is received. The message usually contains information about the estimated time to resolve the issue or an update on the ticket status.

Auto-responders help manage customer expectations and update them on their request status. This can go a long way in reducing frustration and improving customer satisfaction.

Another great way to automate your service desk is by setting up automatic notifications and alerts. This way, you can track all the requests that come in and ensure that they are resolved promptly.

With automated service desk software, you can send and receive email notifications under the following conditions:

• Notify when an auto-response is sent to a customer on new ticket creation
• Notification of clients’ reply
• When a new ticket is created
• Assigning a new ticket
• When a staff member replies
• Any internal note is added

Passwords! We all know how important they are. But, at the same time, we even know how often we forget them.

Forgot passwords and account lockout are some of the customers’ most common issues. In fact, a study conducted by Gartner Group showed that about 20%-50% of service desk calls are related to password reset requests.

This is where automation can be beneficial. Automating password resets can save a lot of time and effort. You can also set up automatic account lockout in case of multiple failed login attempts. This will ensure your customer’s account is secure and prevent unauthorized access.

Not every query is unique. Most of them are repetitive.

For example, a customer might have forgotten his password or want to know an order’s status. These are common queries that can be quickly resolved with the help of canned responses.

Canned responses are pre-written answers to commonly asked questions. They can be easily inserted into the email conversation and help resolve customer queries quickly.

Another amazing way to automate customer service is by implementing a knowledge base. A knowledge base is a collection of all the information your customer service team needs to resolve customer queries. It can include FAQs, troubleshooting guides, product manuals, etc.

By making this information readily obtainable, you can help your team resolve customer queries more quickly. This, in turn, will improve customer satisfaction.

Moreover, a knowledge base can also provide customers with self-service options. Customers can simply search for the information they need and resolve their issues without having to contact customer support.

The BPO industry considers customer feedback as one of the most important indicators of quality service. After all, it is only through feedback that you can find out what your customers think about your service.

But, sending an email to each client upon completion of a request and asking for feedback can be really tardy. But it’s just a breeze if it’s automated.

You can create a template or choose a pre-structured template from the software that’ll be shared with customers. For example, you can use a 5-point rating system or a Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey.

Without analyzing team performance, it is difficult to identify areas of improvement. This is where automated reports come in handy.

You can generate a report that shows –

• Total Ticket Volume
• Number of Open Tickets
• Average Ticket Rating
• Average Resolution Time
• First Contact Resolution

Escalating a particular ticket to the concerned department is vital to the customer support process. In most cases, it is manual and includes a lot of back-and-forth communication between different departments.

This not only takes up plenty of time but can also lead to miscommunication and errors.

With automation in place, you can easily set up a quick and error-free escalation process. For example, you can set up rules that automatically escalate a ticket if it remains unresolved for a certain period.

You can also specify the departments to which the ticket should be escalated and the priority level of the ticket. This will ensure that the right people are working on the issue and resolving it as quickly as possible.

Service desk automation can be a great way to boost performance and improve efficiency. By automating certain tasks, you can free up your team’s time so that they can focus on more important things. If you’re not sure where to start, try out some of the ideas on this list. With a little bit of effort, you’ll be well on your way to improving your service desk’s performance.