DWS Service Desk Rescue Series: How To Leverage Data, Analytics, and AI To Improve The Client Experience (CX)

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Clients, both internal and external, expect products and services to be accessible when they need them. Any disruptions, such as unscheduled outages or decreased performance, can have a substantial impact on the Clients' ability to run their businesses efficiently. This, in turn, can have a negative impact on business performance through reduced revenues, profits, and customer/employee satisfaction.

The Service Desk Client Experience Series tries to uncover characteristics that have an influence on the Client Experience, both positively and negatively. We will look at the aspects that influence the Service Desk Client experience. We will go over client use cases where innovative ideas were used to improve the Client Experience. In addition, we will address data, analytics, and AI breakthroughs that can better position you to improve the Client Experience.

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Let us start by understanding what a service desk is and what is its primary function.

A service desk is typically a single point of contact for IT support. Most customers will not interact with or have any idea of what is happening behind the scenes. How many teams are there? What Those teams do. Who is on those teams? All the customer will know is that they contacted the service desk regarding a problem and the service desk owns the resolution of the problem.

So, in the world of IT, whenever customers and these are the internal customers, have issues with their laptop, desktop, printer, email, applications, the Internet, and for that matter, any issue they have, they will contact the service desk through phone, chat, email, web ticket, or self-service. When the service desk gets contacted, they typically begin working on the issue to resolve it at first touch. Meaning, resolving it right then and there and not transferring it to a higher level support team to solve it.

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So what happens when the Service Desk does not provide a timely or quality service? You prolong the client's issue and move the client towards dissatisfaction. Let's ask ourselves a few questions:

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1. What happens if you do not have any intelligent automation in your organization? You will have more calls to the service desk. This will result in you having to hire more people, resulting in increased costs. Not to mention dissatisfied clients.
2. What happens if your self-service portal is not user-friendly, not content-rich, or intuitive? You will have more calls to the service desk.
3. What happens if there are quality issues with your service desk toll-free number?
4. What happens if there are too many menu options that a client has to go through to get support?
5. What happens if the service desk is not staffed to handle the calls that are coming to it?
6. What happens if your service desk is receiving hundreds or thousands of calls and they’re not able to connect the dots and realize that those calls are tied to a single issue. A global outage.
7. What happens if you do not have proper staffing coverage? What happens if the service desk agents don’t have the skills and capabilities because they have not been trained properly? What Happens if their tools are not working?
8. Although not a comprehensive list, the list of issues you see on the slide once again highlights the common global issues that every service desk faces.
9. Why is this important?
10. If you understand the types of issues that IT operations can face.
11. if you understand the types of issues a service desk will face, and if you can understand the types of issues a hot dog stand can face, you will be in a much better position to respond to and resolve those issues promptly.
12. This Is where domain experience becomes essential. Knowing the business and the types of challenges the business is facing or can face, will enable you to help that business.

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Approach: 

The Service Desk Client Experience series content is for both Operational and Senior Leaders. It will touch on key challenges that operational leaders are facing day to day in their struggle to improve the client experience. And It will touch on an innovative technology roadmap that will highlight how data, analytics, and AI can be used to improve the client experience.

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What Impacts Client Experience - Top 10 Service Desk View?

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1. High Wait Times leading to prolonged downtimes, negative business impact, high abandonment rates, and client frustrations. (https://www.jnanaipc.com/blogs/guiding-principles-of-reducing-service-desk-wait-times)
2. Low First Call Resolution rates leading to delayed resolution, prolonged downtimes, and poor client experience. (https://www.jnanaipc.com/blogs/what-is-first-call-resolution-fcr)
3. Employee Experience issues leading to poor client interactions and experience. (https://www.jnanaipc.com/blogs/m3-employee-engagement-enablement-empowerment-processes-assessment)
4. SD Skills, Capabilities, and Capacity issues leading to prolonged talk times, dead air, hold time, and shooting in the dark
5. Ticket documentation issues leading to delays as client callbacks need to take place to obtain necessary information
6. Ticket Reassignment/Bounce issues leading to prolonged downtimes and interaction with multiple teams
7. Premature Closure issues leading to Repeat/Chronic Issues
8. Lack of timely updates leading to client frustration
9. Ageing Ticket Backlog issues leading to prolonged downtimes and productivity impact
10. Response/Resolve Time issues leading to delays in issue resolution

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Noteworthy Mentions: (Could be seen as an area of impact and an area of action to take)

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Let's once again refer to our Operational Management Reference Framework to see what gaps in the framework are contributing to the issues:

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1. ‍Lack of Service Performance Management - Reporting and Measurements process leading to lack of awareness  (Processes & Procedures & Technology & Tools)
2. Lack of Service Performance Management - Analytics and Optimization process leading to lack of insights (Processes & Procedures & Technology & Tools)
3. Lack of a Total Quality Management process leading to poorly handled calls and tickets and lack of awareness of negative surveys (Processes & Procedures)
4. Lack of Continual Service Improvement process leading to lack of improvement (Processes & Procedures)
5. Lack of Growth/Workload Management process leading to call spikes and resource availability (Processes & Procedures)
6. Lack of Skills/Training Management process leading to skills deficiencies (Processes & Procedures)
7. Lack of Resourcing/Staffing Management process leading to inadequate staff to handle the workloads (Processes & Procedures)
8. Lack of Issues and Escalation Management process leading to lack of insights into client frustrations (Processes & Procedures)
9. Lack of Queue Management leading to delays in responding to client issues (Processes & Procedures)
10. Lack of Self-Service Management leads to clients' inability to help themselves (Processes & Procedures & Technology & Tools)
11. Lack of Automation/Self-Heal Management leading to client calls for issues that could be handled via automation (Processes & Procedures & Technology & Tools)
12. Lack of a Knowledge Management process leading to skill gaps and prolonged downtimes (Processes & Procedures & Technology & Tools)
13. ‍Lack of Employee Engagement, Enablement, and Empowerment systems. (People Management)

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What Impacts Client Experience - Comprehensive Service Desk View?

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1. Lack  of Automation / Problem Avoidance
2. Self-Service site not  user-friendly or content-rich
3. Availability and quality of 1-800  #, IVR Options confusing
4. Call Arrival Patterns not being understood
5. SD not making correlations  regarding emerging issues
6. SD not staffed adequately or  prepared to handle the types and volume of calls
7. Off-hour coverage lacking
8. SME Availability / Coverage
9. Technology and Tools issues –  Ticketing tools, Remote Takeover tools, jump server issues, etc.
10. Queue Management lacking at the  Service Desk to manage inbound contact volume and switch statistics - ABDN,  AHT, Hold, Dead Air, Filler Words, ACW, AUX Usage, Inbound/Outbound Talk  Times
11. Triage  skills lacking at the service desk to properly identify, resolve, or route issues to appropriate 2nd level resolver groups
12. SD resisting upgrading tickets to P1 status
13. SD resisting flagging the tickets as escalated
14. SD not classifying or  prioritizing the tickets properly
15. SD not documenting all details  accurately
16. SD mis-assigning tickets
17. High rate of dispatch to L1.5/DSS/L2+
18. High rate of SLA Hold usage
19. Backlogs  not being managed
20. SD not keeping Clients updated on Status
21. SD not calling clients back as  requested
22. SD not updating IVR in a timely manner
23. SD not updating portal with MI information
24. Tickets getting closed prematurely
25. Closed tickets lacking details on actual resolution steps taken
26. Top Drivers not being acted on
27. Repeat and chronic issues
28. Automation not in place
29. Sense and Remediate not in place
30. SD Utilization rates not being  monitored

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BONUS: What Impacts Client Experience -  Enterprise View?

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1. Self-Service Ease of Use Issues
2. Service Desk Skills, Capabilities, & Capacity Issues
3. Service Desk IVR and Wait Time Issues
4. Issues with Timely Status Updates
5. High P1/P2 Outage Volumes
6. High Response & Resolve Times
7. Declining CSAT/Increasing Escalations
8. Repeat / Chronic Issues
9. Premature Ticket Closure Issues
10. High Ticket Reassignment/Ticket Reopen Volumes
11. HighAging Backlog Volumes
12. High Volume of Password Reset Issues
13. High Volume of Dispatch Rates toL1.5 or Deskside
14. High Volume of Email Issues
15. High Volume of Printer Issues
16. High Volume of VPN Issues
17. High Volume of Application Issues
18. High Volume of Printer Issues
19. High Volume of Issues related to Performance & Capacity
20. High Alert (false) Volumes related to Monitoring & Alerting
21. Quality of RCAs & Age of Problem Tickets Issues
22. Failed, Implemented with Problems, & Unauthorized – Changes Issues
23. SLA Hold Issues
24. Missed SLAs
25. Lack of Automation / Problem Avoidance
26. Knowledge Management Issues