The Service Desk is the face of IT to the business. This is or should be true in most IT organisations. Its importance to the IT support structure and the perception of the service provided by IT is often made or broken by the impression delivered by the Service Desk from the very first call. Not only are they the key customer facing body, but also, as we all know, “first impressions last”. Traditionally the importance of the Service Desk team, however, has been underestimated, presumably because the critical IT Service Desk Analyst role itself is perceived as a junior role. The leading practice experts who have defined ITIL through its 3 generations to date have worked to redress this inaccurate perception, to the extent that accompanying the high level Service Management processes of which ITIL is composed, there is only one ‘non-process’, one function: Service Desk.

Okay, so where do I target my efforts?

Depending on the maturity of the Service Desk structure in a given organisation, the first step may be to move to implement the Service Desk as the single point of contact into IT for Incidents (where functionality has been lost for a given IT service, application or system) and Service Requests. At any stage of maturity though, there are typically two key focus areas that drive the need for change and enhancement in Service Desk services:

1. Improved customer satisfaction
2. To help in identifying and then lowering the total cost of ownership for IT services.

The recognition that these two are usually the key drivers does not mean that operational excellence and employee satisfaction are ignored. Indeed, these two other areas generally underpin performance in the first two. Plus the tactics that address customer satisfaction and cost often facilitate improvement in employee satisfaction if they are implemented in the correct way.

Enhancing Customer Satisfaction – How?

Initially an assessment and analysis needs to take place to ensure that it is clearly understood where we are at with customer satisfaction, where we are going, and why. From this assessment the specific target areas and objectives should be defined. These may include management processes and tools to enhance the performance and customer service of the Service Desk Analysts, or it may be that improved processes or knowledge management need to be implemented to support the Analysts is performing their role. It may simply be that the business feels that important or critical issues are not being addressed and resolved in a timely manner. Various tools and processes can be used to effect the required changes. In addition, while there may be a need for investment up front to achieve improved customer satisfaction, the enhanced processes and tools that support the change can often aid in reducing costs in the medium to long term.

Identify and Reduce the Total Cost of Ownership for IT – How?

This area is sensitive and often misunderstood. Cost reduction is generally a scary term, interpreted to mean job cuts. In practice this is often not the case in the bigger picture. A more efficient Service Desk is in a position to reduce pressure in other areas of IT by taking on streamlined, repeatable tasks currently performed elsewhere. It may also position the Service Desk to help with IT projects. This offers development for Service Desk Analysts, and variety in the role. Reviewing people, process and technology, and potentially real estate usage(e.g. where are operational staff located, are they centralised etc.) in some level of detail, with appropriate risk management, should be performed; but must be undertaken with a view to the bigger picture. The cost saving may be to move some additional technical tasks to the Service Desk, ensuring that first they are clearly documented. It may be to review call patterns and structure the Service Desk tasks to take advantage of peaks and troughs. Depending on the initial assessment there are numerous avenues available.

In-House vs. Outsourced

Depending on the nature of the contract between a client and an outsourced service provider, it may seem that the drivers for the client may be very different in an outsourced environment. This arises particularly where the contract is billed on a per asset or per end-user basis, so the customer as a whole is less interested in the vendor reducing cost within the Service Desk. In practice the strategies and tactics that should facilitate an efficient and lower cost IT organisation should always be reviewed against customer satisfaction impact, and should generally be compatible. For example, a knowledge tool that allows a greater number of calls to be resolved on first contact reduces the burden on 2nd Level teams (potentially freeing them up for projects), and also enhances customer experience by getting them up and running again almost immediately.