With IT Service Desk struggling with too much work and scarce resources, there is no option other than, to constantly look at ways to relieve pressure on Help Desk and the associated agents. However, while reducing the workload the tool has to ensure that the desired level of support quality is not compromised.
IT is an area that has developed rapidly for more than a decade now, but no matter how advanced the field is, the issues are always prevalent. Telephone calls are one common and standard practice for customers to report their IT issues and also to make various kinds of requests.
There are times when all agents are available and are able to take the calls immediately without making the customers wait in queue. However, there are also times when all the agents are busy, especially on Monday mornings when there are so many calls waiting and so much pressure to absorb for the executives. So, it becomes really hard to manage and handle the IT help desk.
Here are 5 easy and significant ways to reduce call volume of your IT help desk, which will free your agents and also provide a satisfactory experience for customers.
#1. Craft a Proper Knowledge Base for Customers
A knowledge base is an all-in-one solution for customers. You can create a knowledge base and provide access to all your customers and technical staff. It will hold the information about various types of guides, technical documentation and the list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).
As you provide self-service documentation for the end users, you can encourage them to search the available information present in the knowledge base to resolve any kind of IT queries that they have.
It would be great if you provide an option in this knowledge base where customers can share their queries. If you see any query asked again and again, you can write a document or even shoot a video to troubleshoot that issue and post it on the knowledge base.
Marketing the Knowledge Base (KB) is equivalently important than having a good KB. If you want this knowledge base to become a success, market it to the end user community; bring awareness among them about the knowledge base and how to use it for their issues. Ensure that the knowledge base is user friendly and interactive such that customers will go to the knowledge base first whenever they encounter any kind of issue or else the customers will end up calling the help desk again.
#2. Provide Self Service Community Portal
A community portal where your end users will be discussing complaints and issues and try to resolve the same using another person’s experience. This way the customer will be resolving their own issues, which means they won’t be calling your help desk any more.
Make sure that you get all the information regarding any issue or request on this portal directly. You can use the mandatory fields to get all the required answers from other users.
#3. Analyze existing Issues to Recognize Top Service Requests
The employees and end users face a plethora of issues, from resetting the passwords to getting on board with any software. But there would be a list of issues that will occur again and again. It is important to recognize the tickets that are repeated for most of the time and categorize the most common ones out of them.
You have to identify the following things
- Which of these problems, need more standardization?
- What type of knowledge base is missing that users are unable to access or understand?
- Who will be able to fill in the knowledge gaps?
If you analyze where the issue lies, it will be easier to provide them with a solution.
#4. Use Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
The Interactive voice response is nothing less than a boon for help desks. If your company is facing any major issue with the IT service management, you can just craft an interactive voice response and play it whenever the customer calls you.
Usually when there is a major crisis, the help desks will be flooded with calls. In such scenarios, these voice responses will deliver the message to your customer. You can use the same response to give them guidance on how to solve particular issues. Interactive voice response is beneficial in either way.
#5. Enable Well Trained Agents with Effective Scheduling
If you have well trained agents at your organization, a lot of headache will be taken care. This is a tried and tested method. The agents will be handling customers and it is important to train them with the prerequisite knowledge to address user queries.
Inculcate high spirit into the minds of your agents to make them work better and faster. There would be certain situations where emergencies pop up, in those situations make sure that you have provided with enough training to your agents so that they act promptly in emergency situations and get everything under control.
The managers should schedule the agents effectively. It is important for you to have all hands-on help desk right after a public holiday because queries will be pouring in.
Key Takeaways
These are some of the ways in which you one can control the desk call volume at IT desks. If you make the end customers or users who are in need of support wait in lines for long hours, they will get irritated and it is not good as it is imperative for the help desks to deliver an optimum experience to their varied customers. This is where Motadata ITSM helps you address all your Service Desk / Help Desk challenges.
