Automation, AI and chatbot technologies have emerged as a common trend for Service Desk organisations to focus on. Automation processes are top of the pile of business expectations to be implemented by the end of the year, increasing Service Desk performance as a key business priority. The adoption of cloud services is also continuing to expand, which means businesses are expected to keep up with the latest cloud trends and prepare to face upcoming challenges – all while continuing to protect their data from cyber threats. While these technologies have undoubted benefits for Service Desk operations – especially during the depletion of workforces and change in business processes during the Covid-19 pandemic – there are also certain challenges and threats brought about by these trends. Finally, a non-technological trend is now finally underway post-pandemic: ITIL 4®, which will be discussed further down.
Automation is rapidly becoming one of the most valued tools in the customer service and experience world. As a result of the pandemic, companies have been forced to look for new more effective solutions for boosting efficiency and productivity. Automation has proved to be extremely useful in those cases. With automation, companies are able to streamline and manage repetitive tasks without human input.
For example, an automated helpdesk system is able to inform staff members via notifications or reminders when there’s a need to follow up on a customer issue. This system could also be used to collect data on the most common employee and customer issues, enabling business leaders to create better FAQ guidance and AI self-service tools in the future.
Self-service support is at the heart of most Service Desk technology. Methods such as FAQ and knowledge-based articles are swiftly being replaced with intelligent systems, AI bots, and virtual assistants. Chatbots and Interactive Voice Responses (IVRs), with the functionality of natural language processing, can be much more efficient in resolving customer issues or presenting potential solutions.
Self-service portals, for both service users searching for common solutions and service agents looking for extra guidance, can be built by using Service Desk technologies. Chatbots are particularly useful in saving time by using keywords to pull up articles and resources that might answer various questions.
AI systems are proving to be a powerful enabler, but there is a need to ensure the AI data is constantly reviewed and improved in order to offer the highest level of support.
For Service Desk organisations, potential benefits of implementing AI services or chatbots service are:
Relying mainly on FAQ and self-help articles isn’t enough to meet the expectations of service users. In today’s highly digitised world, service users are expecting more advanced and immersive ways to receive information and resolve their issues. The use of videos, options for instant escalation, as well as a choice to request a call back from a user service operative, are expected options within a modern service technology toolset.
As a result of higher-quality solutions for support, the need for a large number of professionals who need to be called out to specific locations to assess and solve customer problems will be reduced.
With extended reality (XR) options becoming more mainstream, functionalities such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) guides that can talk customers through manuals and troubleshooting strategies is likely to be expected from service desk features in the near future.
The cloud helps organisations be more agile, achieve business goals, and increase revenue. Cloud adoption has already been expanding for several years – and has been accelerated by the pandemic – but, as a post-pandemic world begins to take shape, new trends in cloud usage are coming into focus.
Modern enterprises are focused on rightsizing cloud environments, optimising hybrid IT, leveraging consumption intelligence to plan cloud migrations, and looking for the best data to optimise spending through negotiation readiness. In a hybrid IT world, a siloed approach to IT management is obsolete. The consumption of cloud – whether public, private, or a hybrid approach – continues to expand across all industry verticals and disrupt the ways in which IT provisions, manages, and orchestrates resources. The question is no longer ‘if’ but instead ‘when’ for businesses that have not yet begun their cloud journey.
Due to the rapid increase of connected devices, the Internet of Things (IoT) in increasingly technology-reliant businesses, global connectivity, and cloud usage, business networks, and infrastructure come under constant threat of cyberattacks. Additionally, due to the recent pandemic, businesses have had to shift more to online infrastructures and remote working, which has potentially increased exposure to cybercrimes.
There has been an immense shift of processes, infrastructure, and business data to cloud computing over the last few years. The cloud helps businesses drive faster time-to-market, lowers operating costs, boosts flexibility and scalability, and increases productivity.
Cloud-based threats such as misconfigured cloud storage settings, vulnerable cloud applications, reduced visibility and control, migration concerns, incomplete data deletion, and compliance issues, to name a few, will continue to affect businesses throughout 2023.
Issues such as loss of control over critical data due to attacks levied against cloud services will continue to trouble businesses. Nevertheless, adopting a mature and streamlined cloud governance model can accelerate company security response capabilities.
Service Desks will have more opportunities to articulate their value and drive adoption and benefits of ITIL 4®. ‘ITIL 4® is an operating model that aligns IT services with the needs of business, and focuses on key concepts of value, cost, and risk. As such, this framework envelops the latest cost-saving and value-oriented technologies, as well as analyses the risks, mentioned in this blog, and thus is crucial for IT service management. ITIL 4® Service Desk guidance was first published in February 2020, but the timing was unfortunate. IT departments were under increased pressure and faced with the challenges placed on them during the Covid-19 pandemic. Mobilising operation and support left little bandwidth to consider and apply ITIL 4®.
In 2022, with service operations now able to focus more towards the future, we will see more service desks focusing on ITIL 4-driven improvements which will create effective value from IT-supported services and products.
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