Making Your Service Desk the GOAT

Imagine every time you visited the service desk to submit a ticket, you were greeted by the boisterous drums from the medley of the Olympics—you’d feel like a gold medalist! Though a theme song may seem far-fetched, rolling out white glove treatment can elevate the service desk in the eyes of your users.

Let’s explore how you can land a 10 out of 10 in service delivery by embracing more user-centric service management strategies.

Setting the Bar
The stage for our workplace continues to evolve from in-person to hybrid, and many organizations are now operating under a work-from-anywhere model. As teams have become more geographically dispersed, the service desk has been forced to revamp their focus on user experience. In theory, creating a meaningful experience through the service desk seems straightforward. But executing a tailored, positive engagement requires you to really know your audience.

To cement the service desk as a trusted and valued resource within the organization, it’s critical to understand who you’re supporting. Start by expanding your knowledge of their behaviors and expectations.

• What level of service do users expect from the service desk?
• What is the preferred method of communication when interacting with the service desk?
• How do users feel about the service desk?

Prioritize understanding your users' attitudes and behaviors to help refine your service management strategy, practices, and service delivery. Getting their insight can enhance the service desk’s output and broader adoption, becoming an integral part of your service design.

Sticking Your Landing
Reflecting on ITIL 4’s heightened focus on culture and value co-creation, the beliefs shared by the organization at large should be woven into service management practices. Much of what drives your consumers’ behaviors and expectations can be correlated to your organization’s culture.

Establishing the service desk as a vital resource to the business pushes service providers to think and work holistically. From the initial implementation of the service desk to ongoing maintenance, collaborating with your service consumers helps align service objectives and outputs with cultural needs.

How can the service desk foster a dynamic partnership with users? Solicit transparent and ongoing feedback. IT service management (ITSM) shouldn't be a one-way street—inviting constructive criticism drives understanding and innovation, helping the service desk identify opportunities to optimize their offerings. One way to nurture ongoing feedback is through customer satisfaction surveys.

To capture impactful insight from your user base, keep surveys short and meaningful. Respect your requesters’ time with concise questions and advocate for changes in processes based on their responses. As you continue to send questionnaires, highlight what was amended because of their feedback. Amplifying the voice of your users through holistic operations helps ensure the long-term adoption and success of the service desk.

Going the Distance

Creating a user-focused service desk isn’t predicated only on open communication. Odds are, users want help and knowledge conveniently at their fingertips, especially in remote environments. What are some of the ways you can incorporate your understanding of users' attitudes and typical behaviors to enhance the usability and adoption of the service desk?

Consider positioning ITSM assets—like the knowledge base or a service catalog—in a central service portal to help users quickly find the assistance they need on their own. While promoting self-service, identify ways to make the service desk highly accessible. Implementing single sign-on or enabling mobile access helps bridge the gap between requesters and support. To enhance visibility for users, provide dashboards with real-time data to contextualize the status of open or previously closed requests.

Fostering a strong, collaborative relationship between internal service providers and service consumers is essential to working holistically. Striking this balance helps teams deliver exceptional, user-centric support, elevating your service desk to the podium with the title “greatest of all time.”