What to Look For in a Mobile Help Desk – And Where to Find it

With mobile devices becoming ever more frequent in everyday work operations, ITSM solutions are incorporating a mobile help desk alternative to attend to the needs of remote support and faster ticket resolution. Both agents and end-users stand to benefit from its accessibility and enhanced operations. 

However, to work properly and encourage effective adoption, these solutions must include certain key features. So, come along as we explore how a mobile help desk application can benefit your organization and everything you need to look for when leveraging one.

Let’s go!

What is a mobile help desk – and why do you need it?

Essentially, a mobile help desk extends the capabilities of a traditional help desk to mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets. This enables all users to access its functionalities (such as tracking tickets or visualizing the knowledge base) without the need to sit down at the computer.

In today’s landscape, incorporating a help desk app will benefit almost any organization by improving their user satisfaction and operational efficiency. However, it can be particularly useful for companies with multiple locations or those that rely on remote work. 

4 benefits of having a help desk application

A mobile help desk app offers a wide range of advantages for your organization. Here are four key benefits you can expect from incorporating one:

1. Offer on-the-go support - Whether your team is working remotely, attending off-site events, or traveling for business, a mobile help desk ensures you can address customer inquiries and IT issues promptly.
   
   
2. Improve your team’s availability - A mobile help desk ensures that agents on duty can receive notifications about urgent tickets and provide support across different time zones. This will help accomplish their SLAs and improve customer satisfaction.
   
   
3. Get remote access to the knowledge base - Agents and end-users can access knowledge base articles from anywhere, enabling both of them alike to solve and troubleshoot issues in any circumstances.
   
   
4. Enhanced customer experience - A responsive help desk lets end-users  manage their tickets from anywhere, contributing to meeting customer expectations and improving overall experience.

7 features to look for in a mobile service desk

When considering a mobile service desk solution for your organization, it's crucial to ensure it offers a comprehensive set of features and capabilities to meet your support and IT needs on the go. 

For us, these are the most relevant things such an application should perform:

1. Create new requests - A mobile service desk should allow users to easily create new support or IT requests directly from their mobile devices. This way, they can report issues from any location.
   
   
2. Access the notifications screen - Agents and managers must have the ability to access the notifications screen to stay informed about critical updates, new assignments, or important messages in real time. This is especially helpful for urgent issues and workers that are on call.
   
   
3. Sort requests by status - The mobile service desk should also provide agents the option to view all support requests categorized by status (solved, unresolved, and unassigned) to improve organization. 
   
   
4. Sort requests by help desk - Managers and administrators (or agents that serve multiple help desks) should be able to sort and filter support requests by specific help desks or departments. In larger organizations, this streamlines communication, assignments, and gives a general overview of the tickets since users can have easy access to organized data.
   
   
5. Access custom Request Views - Flexibility is key. Agents should also be able to tailor and create the views according to their specific needs. This personalized approach can enhance the support experience and daily work.
   
   
6. View request details - The mobile service desk should provide insights into waiting times for request resolution, task assignments, collaboration threads, and approval workflows. Having easy access to this enables efficient tracking of progress and bottleneck identification.
   
   
7. Access the knowledge base - Access to a knowledge base is essential for both users and support agents. They should both be able to easily search for relevant articles, FAQs, and documentation to find solutions for common issues without the need to access a computer, reducing the need for support requests and resolution times. 

In short

Mobile applications provide users with enough flexibility to work from anywhere with no big issues. However, for the IT support department to be able to do their job in this context, they need tools that enable them to perform their tasks without the need of physical presence.

Solutions like remote desktop tools are perhaps one of the first things that come to mind, but a mobile help desk should also be considered a must. If packed with the right features, it’ll make the agents and managers’ work easier and the end-user experience much more satisfying. With it, all of them can access and manage requests from anywhere, consult the knowledge base, and, in the case of the IT team, monitor the help desk performance.

We hope you’re convinced by now, and start looking for a mobile service desk right away! Just remember to make sure the features listed above are covered.