Harness the Power of Automated Help Desk Ticketing

By Staff Contributor on July 12, 2017


web help desk, help desk

Harness the Power of Automated Help Desk Ticketing

Most companies don’t start as large, complex organizations with many employees. They grow over time. Virtually every business these days uses computers to some degree, which means you will need an IT help desk. A manual system of calling or emailing IT support staff to request help with hardware or software issues can quickly become cumbersome and lead to slow, error-prone, and difficult- to-administer service that frustrates employees.

Using an automated help desk ticketing system has multiple benefits for your company. Your IT staff can benefit from fast, reliable, standardized, and efficient ticket tracking and processing. The internal teams they support will appreciate the improved service they’re receiving. The result can lead to happier and more productive employees, which in turn will likely boost your bottom line.

The Challenges of Manual

Using a manual method of walking IT trouble tickets through from creation to resolution means unhappy end users. Let’s look at where problems occur in the process that illustrate the limits to manual ticket management.

  • Lack of accuracy. Without automation, every person at each stage of the help desk ticketing process is responsible for accurately completing every field and form. One minor error at any point—like leaving a box unchecked when it should be checked—can create a cascade of mistakes in the remainder of the management of the ticket.
  • Customer service bottlenecks. When manual tickets are filled out incorrectly or incompletely, bottlenecks in the system are created. The process stops while technicians resolve the error or send the ticket back to the creator to restart from the beginning, which is frustrating for both IT help desk staff and end-users.
  • Setbacks of a manual system. With a manual system, as more users create trouble tickets, it becomes harder to manage standardization across the process. One person might call, another sends an email, and a third uses a form someone created because they happen to remember where the forms are stored. Even if everyone uses the same method of ticket creation and submission, they often quickly begin to vary their approach in how they fill out their forms. Without a standardized method of creating and processing trouble tickets, IT problems can become difficult or impossible to resolve.

Benefits of Automation

Automated help desk software has several benefits that make it a worthwhile investment.

  • Automation of repetitive tasks.By automating ticketing, employees don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time they have an IT issue. When repetitive tasks, like filling in information about the user’s device, are automated, everyone involved can focus on the parts of the process that require higher-level thinking. Automation of these types of tasks can help make training and onboarding new hires faster and easier.
  • Dynamic ticket routing and escalation. With automation, trouble tickets are automatically routed to the appropriate technician. When the team needs to escalate service issues, rule-based automation can be applied to manage the escalation process. This approach improves efficiency, accuracy, and end user satisfaction.
  • Create self-service options. Some questions reoccur frequently. Often, the answer is simple and the same each time. By using an automated and standardized ticketing system, you can create a self-service system by linking to help documentation that allows your end-users to resolve common problems quickly. This self-service system can reduce ticket volume for IT support staff and help increase speed and satisfaction for your end-users. Not only does this help ensure that your techs are using their time to tackle the most significant problems, but the automation can lower your overhead costs.
  • Strengthen communication. Although your IT help desk staff can resolve some issues quickly and easily, many others require time and attention from technicians. By automating some of the communication between support staff and internal customers, help desk software can reduce the frustration that occurs when staff can’t locate their issue. This causes them to worry that perhaps it has been lost or overlooked. Also, technicians don’t have to stop their work to update statuses or respond to check-in inquiries. This can lead to speedier issue resolution and happier employees.
  • Knowledge management. With automated ticketing, you can create a process where critical data and information is readily available to technicians, instead of having to ask the end user every time a ticket is created. For instance, the manufacturer, model, and year of a user’s laptop can automatically populate in a ticket upon creation. When the format of information is consistent across tickets, IT support staff can resolve issues more efficiently and effectively.
  • Asset management. Automation of IT asset information allows technicians to immediately see the history of all service requests for a given asset, which helps you decide if and when to retire, repair, or replace hardware and software.
  • Web-based interface. A help desk solution can provide a clear view of the entire ticket-to-resolution process from start to finish. By centralizing the process in a web-based format, your whole staff can benefit from a unified and stable approach.

Ticketing is a crucial help desk function. The benefits of automated ticketing become apparent quickly once an organization starts to grow. Therefore, IT managers should prioritize selecting help desk software that boosts their ability to improve end user satisfaction and to lower operating costs.

Are you looking for an efficient ticketing system that automates and centralizes ticket creation and management? Learn how you can get all of these benefits and create happy end-users. Try the SolarWinds® Web Help Desk® solution for free. Download here.

 

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