Standardize the Service Desk
Improve customer service by driving consistency in your support approach and meeting SLAs.
- Not everyone embraces their role in service support. Specialists would rather work on projects than provide service support.
- The Service Desk lacks processes and workflows to provide consistent service. Service desk managers struggle to set and meet service-level expectations, which further compromises end-user satisfaction.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- Service desk improvement is an exercise in organizational change. Engage specialists across the IT organization in building the solution. Establish a single service-support team across the IT group and enforce it with a cooperative, customer-focused culture.
- Don’t be fooled by a tool that’s new. A new service desk tool alone won’t solve the problem. Service desk maturity improvements depend on putting in place the right people and processes to support the technology.
Impact and Result
- Create a consistent customer service experience for service desk patrons, and increase efficiency, first-call resolution, and end-user satisfaction with the Service Desk.
- Decrease time and cost to resolve service desk tickets.
- Understand and address reporting needs to address root causes and measure success and build a solid foundation for future IT service improvements.
Member Testimonials
After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this blueprint and what our clients have to say.
9.5/10
Overall Impact
$31,015
Average $ Saved
26
Average Days Saved
Client
Experience
Impact
$ Saved
Days Saved
Monroe #1 BOCES
Workshop
8/10
$12,999
5
Facilitator was fantastic; most challenging aspect was solidifying internally what is within and outside of scope.
Sedgwick Cms
Workshop
9/10
$129K
55
Mahmoud was courteous, knowledgeable and took time to explain and walk the team through the workshop sessions also engage the team in completing ta... Read More
EndUser
Guided Implementation
10/10
$5,000
5
Allegheny County, PA
Guided Implementation
10/10
$64,999
50
Working with Sandi Conrad was truly a gift as she was so well versed on all of our needs for a new ITSM application. Her guidance and expertise wa... Read More
Parks Canada
Guided Implementation
10/10
$300K
50
As the Project Lead and National IT Manager, Service Management, standardizing our service desk is a very important priority for the Digital Servic... Read More
Cameron County, TX
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
50
Ms. Sugerman was patient and explained the processes in great detail. Her personality made her a great consultant to work with.
The City of Daytona Beach
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
N/A
I put N/A for the time and financial impact because without this engagement this would not have been done! I expect the benefits will be more stre... Read More
Field Law
Guided Implementation
8/10
$2,000
2
Pascua Yaqui Tribe
Guided Implementation
9/10
$2,469
5
Working with Frank has been an excellent experience since I'm a first-time manager. I have learned a lot and have gained new tools. The worst part ... Read More
Municipality of Chatham-Kent
Guided Implementation
8/10
N/A
N/A
The best part of the experience was getting to speak with David, Frank and Darrin. They provided excellent strategies and resource material. Ther... Read More
STgenetics
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
N/A
I want to thank Frank Trovato for this his expertise in help us with Standardization of Service Desk process. Best: Knowledge and expertise, un... Read More
DP World Australia Limited
Workshop
10/10
$42,999
10
What a fantastic facilitator Benjamin is. Best workshop. Knowledgeable and easy to work with and know how to get the best out of the participants. ... Read More
Erie 1 Board of Co-op Education Services
Workshop
10/10
$5,199
12
Jeremy was a good listener and worked to understand our process. It’s much different from other service desks and he took the time to listen and a... Read More
Highlands County Clerk of Courts
Guided Implementation
10/10
$6,499
2
Sun River Health
Guided Implementation
10/10
$12,999
20
Sandi is a great consultant. I like very much to work with Sandi.
City and County of Broomfield
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
N/A
Emily was extremely helpful and was able to provide tangible action items for me to take to my team.
Pima County Community College District
Guided Implementation
10/10
$22,749
120
Ben is simply the best! To make the most out of our service desk transformation, we needed the expert advice of an outsider. Ben filled the role ... Read More
The St. Thomas-Elgin General Hospital
Workshop
9/10
$50,000
35
BEST: - Knowledge acquired from the workshop - The workshop facilitator did an excellent job (knowledgable, prompted appropriately, gave relevant... Read More
Alcoholic Beverage Control
Workshop
10/10
$64,999
20
The best part was motivating the team to start envisioning what the Service Desk can be and laying out the roadmap for the journey.
Repligen Corporation
Guided Implementation
9/10
$32,499
20
Scott is a very knowledgeable service delivery professional. His advice and counsel on the topic has helped us to better understand the intricacies... Read More
Rosemont Pharmaceuticals Ltd
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
20
Emily's knowledge was excellent and she explained everything clearly and concisely
City Of Chesapeake
Workshop
10/10
$64,999
20
Dave did a fantastic job of highlighting salient points within our current environment that impact our ability to deliver exceptional customer serv... Read More
WSECU
Workshop
10/10
$38,999
12
Joes is a highly engaged partner and helped bring additional insights to our team. No worst parts.
Oregon Military Department
Guided Implementation
10/10
$64,999
50
Natalie is an excellent advisor and SME.
First Command Financial Services
Workshop
10/10
N/A
N/A
Best - Agenda layout Jeremy's facilitation style Jeremy's knowledge and experience around the subject Style of workshop was interactive - not ... Read More
Justice Institute of British Columbia
Guided Implementation
10/10
$50,000
20
Working with Mahmood was a pleasure, and very informative. Financial impact estimate was based on IT savings, but um sure impact to our customers... Read More
Washtenaw County, MI
Workshop
8/10
$12,999
10
I really appreciated Sumit's experience and knowledge. He really helped to facilitate valuable discussions among our team members. I would like t... Read More
Public Employees Benefits Agency
Guided Implementation
8/10
$10,000
10
Coherus Biosciences
Guided Implementation
8/10
N/A
N/A
The best part is the ability to get from you a blend of best practices plus what works best for our situation.
Dollar General
Guided Implementation
9/10
$12,599
10
Service Desk
Please note: This course will be updated in June 2024.
Strengthen your service desk to build a strong foundation for ITSM maturity.
This course makes up part of the Infrastructure & Operations Certificate.
- Course Modules: 5
- Estimated Completion Time: 2-2.5 hours
- Featured Analysts:
- Mahmoud Ramin, Research Analyst, Infrastructure Practice
- Allison Kinnaird, Research Lead, Infrastructure Practice
Workshop: Standardize the Service Desk
Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Module 1: Lay Service Desk Foundations
The Purpose
Discover your challenges and understand what roles, metrics, and ticket handling procedures are needed to tackle the challenges.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Set a clear understanding about the importance of service desk to your organization and service desk best practices.
Activities
Outputs
Assess current state of the service desk.
- Current state assessment
Review service desk and shift-left strategy.
- Shift-left strategy and implications
Identify service desk metrics and reports.
- Service desk metrics and reports
Identify ticket handling procedures
- Ticket handling procedures
Module 2: Design Incident Management
The Purpose
- Build workflows for incident and critical incident tickets.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Distinguish incidents from service requests.
- Ticket categorization facilitates ticket. routing and reporting.
- Develop an SLA for your service desk team for a consistent service delivery.
Activities
Outputs
Build incident and critical incident management workflows.
- Incident and critical incident management workflows
Design ticket categorization scheme and proper ticket handling guidelines.
- Ticket categorization scheme
Design incident escalation and prioritization guidelines.
- Ticket escalation and prioritization guidelines
Module 3: Design Request Fulfilment
The Purpose
- Build service request workflows and prepare self-service portal.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Standardize request fulfilment processes.
- Prepare for better knowledge management and leverage self-service portal to facilitate shift-left strategy.
Activities
Outputs
Build service request workflows.
- Distinguishing criteria for requests and projects
- Service request workflows and SLAs
Build a targeted knowledgebase.
- Knowledgebase article template, processes, and workflows
Prepare for a self-serve portal project.
Module 4: Build Project Implementation Plan
The Purpose
- Now that you have laid the foundation of your service desk, put all the initiatives into an action plan.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Discuss priorities, set timeline, and identify effort for your service desk.
- Identify the benefits and impacts of communicating service desk initiatives to stakeholders and define channels to communicate service desk changes.
Activities
Outputs
Build an implementation roadmap.
- Project implementation and task list with associated owners
Build a communication plan
- Project communication plan and workshop summary presentation
Standardize the Service Desk
Improve customer service by driving consistency in your support approach and meeting SLAs.
Analyst Perspective
"Customer service issues are rarely based on personality but are almost always a symptom of poor and inconsistent process. When service desk managers are looking to hire to resolve customer service issues and executives are pushing back, it’s time to look at improving process and the support strategy to make the best use of technicians’ time, tools, and knowledge sharing. Once improvements have been made, it’s easier to make the case to add people or introduce automation.
Replacing service desk solutions will also highlight issues around poor process. Without fixing the baseline services, the new solution will simply wrap your issues in a prettier package.
Ultimately, the service desk needs to be the entry point for users to get help and the rest of IT needs to provide the appropriate support to ensure the first line of interaction has the knowledge and tools they need to resolve quickly and preferably on first contact. If your plans include optimization to self-serve or automation, you’ll have a hard time getting there without standardizing first."
Sandi Conrad
Principal Research Director, Infrastructure & Operations Practice
Info-Tech Research Group
A method for getting your service desk out of firefighter mode
This Research Is Designed For:
- The CIO and senior IT management who need to increase service desk effectiveness and timeliness and improve end-user satisfaction.
- The service desk manager who wants to lead the team from firefighting mode to providing consistent and proactive support.
This Research Will Also Assist:
- Service desk teams who want to increase their own effectiveness and move from a help desk to a service desk.
- Infrastructure and applications managers who want to decrease reactive support activities and increase strategic project productivity by shifting repetitive and low-value work left.
This Research Will Help You:
- Create a consistent customer service experience for service desk patrons.
- Increase efficiency, first-call resolution, and end-user satisfaction with the Service Desk.
- Decrease time and cost to resolve service desk tickets.
- Understand and address reporting needs to address root causes and measure success.
- Build a solid foundation for future IT service improvements.
Executive Summary
Situation
- The CIO and senior IT management who need to increase service desk effectiveness and timeliness and improve end-user satisfaction.
- If only the phone could stop ringing, the Service Desk could become proactive, address service levels, and improve end-user IT satisfaction.
Complication
- Not everyone embraces their role in service support. Specialists would rather work on projects than provide service support.
- The Service Desk lacks processes and workflows to provide consistent service. Service desk managers struggle to set and meet service-level expectations, which further compromises end-user satisfaction.
Resolution
- Go beyond the blind adoption of best-practice frameworks. No simple formula exists for improving service desk maturity. Use diagnostic tools to assess the current state of the Service Desk. Identify service support challenges and draw on best-practice frameworks intelligently to build a structured response to those challenges.
- An effective service desk must be built on the right foundations. Understand how:
- Service desk structure affects cost and ticket volume capacity.
- Incident management workflows can improve ticket handling, prioritization, and escalation.
- Request fulfillment processes create opportunities for streamlining and automating services.
- Knowledge sharing supports the processes and workflows essential to effective service support.
Info-Tech Insight
Service desk improvement is an exercise in organizational change. Engage specialists across the IT organization in building the solution. Establish a single service-support team across the IT group and enforce it with a cooperative, customer-focused culture. Don’t be fooled by a tool that’s new. A new service desk tool alone won’t solve the problem. Service desk maturity improvements depend on putting in place the right people and processes to support the technology
Directors and executives understand the importance of the service desk and believe IT can do better
Source: Info-Tech, 2019 Responses (N=189 organizations)
Service Desk Importance Scores
- No Importance: 1.0-6.9
- Limited Importance: 7.0-7.9
- Significant Importance: 8.0-8.9
- Critical Importance: 9.0-10.0
Service Desk Effectiveness Scores
- Not in Place: N/A
- Not Effective: 0.0-4.9
- Somewhat Ineffective: 5.0-5.9
- Somewhat Effective: 6.0-6.9
- Very Effective: 7.0-10.0
Info-Tech Research Group’s IT Management and Governance Diagnostic (MGD) program assesses the importance and effectiveness of core IT processes. Since its inception, the MGD has consistently identified the service desk as an area to leverage.
Business stakeholders consistently rank the service desk as one of the top five most important services that IT provides
Since 2013, Info-Tech has surveyed over 40,000 business stakeholders as part of our CIO Business Vision program.
Business stakeholders ranked the following 12 core IT services in terms of importance:
Learn more about the CIO Business Vision Program.*Note: IT Security was added to CIO Business Vision 2.0 in 2019
Top IT Services for Business Stakeholders
- Network Infrastructure
- IT Security*
- Data Quality
- Service Desk
- Business Applications
- Devices
- Client-Facing Technology
- Analytical Capability
- IT Innovation Leadership
- Projects
- Work Orders
- IT Policies
- Requirements Gathering
Source: Info-Tech Research Group, 2019 (N=224 organizations)
Having an effective and timely service desk correlates with higher end-user satisfaction with all other IT services
On average, organizations that were satisfied with service desk effectiveness rated all other IT processes 46% higher than dissatisfied end users.
Organizations that were satisfied with service desk timeliness rated all other IT processes 37% higher than dissatisfied end users.“Satisfied” organizations had average scores =8.“Dissatisfied" organizations had average scores “Dissatisfied" organizations had average scores =6. Source: Info-Tech Research Group, 2019 (N=18,500+ respondents from 75 organizations)
Standardize the service desk the Info-Tech way to get measurable results
More than one hundred organizations engaged with Info-Tech, through advisory calls and workshops, for their service desk projects in 2016. Their goal was either to improve an existing service desk or build one from scratch.
Organizations that estimate the business impact of each project phase help us shed light on the average measured value of the engagements.
"The analysts are an amazing resource for this project. Their approach is very methodical, and they have the ability to fill in the big picture with detailed, actionable steps. There is a real opportunity for us to get off the treadmill and make real IT service management improvements"
- Rod Gula, IT Director
American Realty Advisors
Info-Tech’s approach to service desk standardization focuses on building service management essentials
Info-Tech draws on the COBIT framework, which focuses on consistent delivery of IT services across the organization
The service desk is the foundation of all other service management processes.
Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs
DIY Toolkit
“Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful.”
Guided Implementation
“Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track.”
Workshop
“We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place.”
Consulting
“Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project.”
Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options
Standardize the Service Desk – project overview
Info-Tech delivers: Use our tools and templates to accelerate your project to completion
Project Summary
Service Desk Standard Operating Procedures
Service Desk Maturity Assessment Tool
Service Desk Implementation Roadmap
Incident, knowledge, and request management workflows
The project’s key deliverable is a service desk standard operating procedure
Benefits of documented SOPs:
Improved training and knowledge transfer: Routine tasks can be delegated to junior staff (freeing senior staff to work on higher priority tasks).
IT automation, process optimization, and consistent operations: Defining, documenting, and then optimizing processes enables IT automation to be built on sound processes, so consistent positive results can be achieved.
Compliance: Compliance audits are more manageable because the documentation is already in place.
Transparency: Visually documented processes answer the common business question of “why does that take so long?”
Cost savings: Work solved at first contact or with a minimal number of escalations will result in greater efficiency and more cost-effective support. This will also lead to better customer service.
Impact of undocumented/undefined SOPs:
Tasks will be difficult to delegate, key staff become a bottleneck, knowledge transfer is inconsistent, and there is a longer onboarding process for new staff
IT automation built on poorly defined, unoptimized processes leads to inconsistent results.
Documenting SOPs to prepare for an audit becomes a major time-intensive project.
Other areas of the organization may not understand how IT operates, which can lead to confusion and unrealistic expectations.
Support costs are highest through inefficient processes, and proactive work becomes more difficult to schedule, making the organization vulnerable to costly disruptions.
Workshop Overview
Contact your account representative or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.
Phase 1
Lay Service Desk Foundations
Step 1.1:Assess current state
This step will walk you through the following activities:
- 1.1.1 Outline service desk challenges
- 1.1.2 Assess the service desk maturity
This step involves the following participants:
- Project Sponsor
- IT Director, CIO
- IT Managers and Service Desk Manager(s)
- Representation from tier 2 and tier 3 specialists
Outcomes
Alignment on the challenges that the service desk faces, an assessment of the current state of service desk processes and technologies, and baseline metrics against which to measure improvements.
Deliverables
- Service Desk Maturity Assessment
Standardizing the service desk benefits the whole business
Embrace standardization
- Standardization prevents wasted energy on reinventing solutions to recurring issues.
- Standardized processes are scalable so that process maturity increases with the size of your organization.
Increase business satisfaction
- Improve confidence that the service desk can meet service levels.
- Create a single point of contact for incidents and requests and escalate quickly.
- Analyze trends to forecast and meet shifting business requirements.
Reduce recurring issues
- Create tickets for every task and categorize them accurately.
- Generate reliable data to support root-cause analysis.
Increase efficiency and lower operating costs
- Empower end users and technicians with a targeted knowledgebase (KB).
- Cross-train to improve service consistency.
Case Study: The CIO of Westminster College took stock of existing processes before moving to empower the “helpless desk”
Scott Lowe helped a small staff of eight IT professionals formalize service desk processes and increase the amount of time available for projects.
When he joined Westminster College as CIO in 2006, the department faced several infrastructure challenges, including:
- An unreliable network
- Aging server replacements and no replacement plan
- IT was the “department of no”
- A help desk known as the “helpless desk”
- A lack of wireless connectivity
- Internet connection speed that was much too slow
As the CIO investigated how to address the infrastructure challenges, he realized people cared deeply about how IT spent its time.
The project load of IT staff increased, with new projects coming in every day.
With a long project list, it became increasingly important to improve the transparency of project request and prioritization.
Some weeks, staff spent 80% of their time working on projects. Other weeks, support requirements might leave only 10% for project work.
He addressed the infrastructure challenges in part by analyzing IT’s routine processes.
Internally, IT had inefficient support processes that reduced the amount of time they could spend on projects.
They undertook an internal process analysis effort to identify processes that would have a return on investment if they were improved. The goal was to reduce operational support time so that project time could be increased.
Five years later, they had a better understanding of the organization's operational support time needs and were able to shift workloads to accommodate projects without compromising support.
Common challenges experienced by service desk teams
Unresolved issues
- Tickets are not created for all incidents.
- Tickets are lost or escalated to the wrong technicians.
- Poor data impedes root-cause analysis of incidents.
Lost resources/accountability
- Lack of cross-training and knowledge sharing.
- Lack of skills coverage for critical applications and services.
- Time is wasted troubleshooting recurring issues.
- Reports unavailable due to lack of data and poor categorization.
High cost to resolve
- Tier 2/3 resolve issues that should be resolved at tier 1.
- Tier 2/3 often interrupt projects to focus on service support.
Poor planning
- Lack of data for effective trend analysis leads to poor demand planning.
- Lack of data leads to lost opportunities for templating and automation.
Low business satisfaction
- Users are unable to get assistance with IT services quickly.
- Users go to their favorite technician instead of using the service desk.
About Info-Tech
Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.
We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.
What Is a Blueprint?
A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.
Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.
Need Extra Help?
Speak With An Analyst
Get the help you need in this 4-phase advisory process. You'll receive 8 touchpoints with our researchers, all included in your membership.
Guided Implementation 1: Lay service desk foundations
- Call 1: Conduct current-state assessment. Review shift-left service support strategy.
- Call 2: Identify operations metrics, and reports. Review ticket handling procedures.
Guided Implementation 2: Design incident management processes
- Call 1: Map out incident management workflows.
- Call 2: Design categorization and identify escalation points.
- Call 3: Design prioritization guidelines and service-level objectives.
Guided Implementation 3: Design request fulfilment processes
- Call 1: Differentiate between requests and projects, build request workflows, and make a self-service portal plan.
- Call 2: Design processes and workflows to produce a targeted knowledgebase.
Guided Implementation 4: Plan the implementation of the service desk
- Call 1: Build a communication plan and implementation roadmap.
Contributors
- Jason Aqui, IT Director, Bellevue College
- Kevin Sigil, IT Director, Southwest Care Centre
- Lucas Gutierrez, Service Desk Manager, City of Santa Fe
- Rama Dhuwaraha, CIO, University of North Texas System
- Annelie Rugg, CIO, UCLA Humanities
- Owen McKeith, Manager IT Infrastructure, Canpotex
- Rod Gula, IT Director, American Realty Association
- Rosalba Trujillo, Service Desk Manager, Northgate Markets
- Jason Metcalfe, IT Manager, Mesalabs
- Bradley Rodgers, IT Manager, SecureTek
- Daun Costa, IT Manager, Pita Pit
- Kari Petty, Service Desk Manager, Mansfield Oil
- Denis Borka, Service Desk Manager, PennTex Midstream
- Lateef Ashekun, IT Manager, City of Atlanta
- Ted Zeisner, IT Manager, University of Ottawa Institut de Cardiologie
Standardize the Service Desk
Optimize the Service Desk With a Shift-Left Strategy
Reduce Shadow IT With a Service Request Catalog
Build a Service Desk Consolidation Strategy
Design a VIP Experience for Your Service Desk
Improve Service Desk Ticket Intake
Improve IT-Business Alignment Through an Internal SLA
Implement Systems Management to Improve Availability and Visibility
Build a Chatbot Proof of Concept
Incident Management for Small Enterprise
Analyze Your Service Desk Ticket Data
Deliver a Customer Service Training Program to Your IT Department
Accelerate Your Automation Processes
Build an ITSM Tool Implementation Plan
Right-Size the Service Desk for Small Enterprise
IT Service Management Selection Guide
Manage the Active Directory in the Service Desk
Staff the Service Desk to Meet Demand
Define Service Desk Metrics That Matter
Improve Service Desk Ticket Queue Management
Transform Your Field Technical Support Services
Define Requirements for Outsourcing the Service Desk
Take Action on Service Desk Customer Feedback
Transition Projects Over to the Service Desk
Build Better Workflows