Properly learning how to manage a help desk is crucial for the success of any organization, both internally amongst its different departments, and with external customers. Smoothly operating one is no easy ride; it requires juggling multiple tasks and coordinating diverse teams.
From workload management to fostering motivation among team members, a well-rounded approach and a comprehensive set of strategies and tools are essential for maintaining productivity, minimizing burnout, and delivering exceptional service.
In this article, we will present you ten invaluable tips to help you efficiently manage your help desk, and how to easily implement them with InvGate Service Management. Whether you're a seasoned help desk manager or new to the role, these tips will provide you with practical insights to enhance your help desk operations and make sure everything is being taken care of.
So, let’s dive in!
How to manage a help desk? 10 tips to succeed
We know that there are no magic formulas when it comes to operating a help desk, and each organization and industry has its own special requirements. But these actions have proven to help manage and reduce workload, encourage agents, and improve customer satisfaction.
1. Configure automatic ticket assignment rules
Before creating a help desk and a service catalog on your InvGate Service Management instance, plan out in advance which agent or team will be in charge of solving each type of ticket.
After that, create the necessary help desks and configure automatic ticket assignment rules so that, whenever a new request is created, it falls into the hands of the right agent. This will improve the ticket routing process, help you better allocate resources, and reduce the need for ticket escalation.
2. Enable self-service options
Customers love it when things get solved fast and effectively. Plus, it gives agents plenty of time to focus on more complex issues. So, apart from offering omnichannel options to communicate with IT support, self-service options are the perfect way to allow users to self-solve the most common issues, and channel the requests that couldn’t be solved with a knowledge base article to the right agent – or help desk, if you have several of them.
You can make use of InvGate Service Management’s:
- Knowledge base to provide end-users easy tutorials so that they can fix simple issues by themselves – you can also create internal articles to foster a knowledge-sharing environment among your agents.
- Self-service portal for end-users to create and track tickets in real time, as well as access the knowledge base.
3. Use canned responses
Canned responses are another way in which InvGate Service Management helps your team increase efficiency (and decrease their First Response Time).
You can configure two or three reply alternatives for repetitive requests, which will also ensure the quality of the response by providing pre-approved options that align with the service desk’s tone, manner, and Standard Operating Procedure.
In addition, they are super useful for training new agents on the right way to reply to tickets, speeding up the onboarding process and avoiding frustration.
4. Set Global Service Desk Hours
If your organization offers multi-site or remote support to different time zones, you can set the Global Service Desk Hour for each help desk on your InvGate Service Management instance. This way, agents will receive new tickets during their work hours. This will optimize your human resources, improve your Time to Resolution, and contribute to SLA fulfillment.
5. Balance automation and agent autonomy
By avoiding manual tasks, agents can thoroughly improve their work efficiency. But it's also important for agents to feel empowered to stay motivated and engaged with their job.
InvGate Service Management has robust automation and workflow capabilities to steer clear of repetitive duties. And for the issues that need human interaction to support them, administrators can choose how much autonomy agents have to solve requests. So, make sure you find a balance and don’t over-automate processes, giving agents enough power make their own decisions.
6. Use gamification
Gamification can be a great and fun way to encourage agents to adopt positive behaviors and train them on new processes. So, don’t waste any more time: configure InvGate Service Management’s module to create a gamification strategy that compensates agents with points for accomplishing tasks.
7. Monitor your team’s performance
Constant monitoring is the best way to see which processes are running smoothly and which areas might need some improvement. On InvGate Service Management, not only can you create periodic reports with your chosen help desk KPIs, you can also download and share them with your team and stakeholders so everybody has easy access to this valuable information.
8. Create an internal knowledge base
You can’t expect agents to always know exactly how to respond to everything that comes up. Knowledge sharing is key for IT teams to avoid relying on one expert. Moreover, it contributes to avoiding burnout and minimizes the impact of agent turnover on your team. In addition, an internal knowledge base for your help desk technicians helps with their training.
InvGate Service Management allows you to create knowledge base articles with practical information on how to address tickets and establish clear procedures for them to follow.
9. Design a ticket triage strategy
As far as customers are concerned, their issue is always urgent and needs to be solved as soon as possible. Although sometimes this can be the case, other times things can wait.
This is why designing a ticket triage strategy within InvGate Service Management is so important. It will not only allow you to determine urgency, but it will also help you to accurately classify the problem, so tickets go into the right hands and are solved properly.
10. Always follow ITIL best practices
ITIL best practices make sure that clear and standardized ITSM processes are put in place and working smoothly. They are made up of guidelines that shine a light on how to handle essential Service Management processes, such as Problem Management, Knowledge Management, and Change Management.
And guess what? InvGate Service Management is certified in seven of them! By using the tool you can stay clear that your organization is aligned with the worldwide recognized framework.
Final thoughts
Managing a help desk requires constant hard work, assessment, and improvement. It’s not an easy job; you have to simultaneously deal with agents, customers, and requests and make sure they are all working as coordinated and smoothly as possible.
Clear knowledge sharing amongst teams and end-users, thorough performance monitoring, and well designed automation processes are some of the key pieces that must be in place to keep the machine running at a high a competitive level.
But implementing and improving the practices we've seen throughout this article wouldn't be possible without the support of an all-round ITSM tool such as InvGate Service Management. Ask for a 30-day free trial and give it a go!
