Wake up! No one likes opening service desk tickets or using ITSM tools. Employees expect self-service capabilities and easy to use technologies. Business leaders and managers assume that technology improves productivity and quality, and they believe that the service desk should operate like a genius bar.But the reality is that many service desks are short-staffed, and employees are raising more complex incidents and requests. It’s harder to prioritize, research, and resolve issues when they aren’t highly procedural operations like resetting passwords or installing basic applications. Addressing the long-tail of employee requests and incidents requires capturing more detailed information about the issue, but, without overcomplicating the experiences and user interfaces designed to open tickets.

You probably have an ITSM tool such as Cherwell, ServiceNow, or Jira Service Desk in place; however, the challenge of providing faster ticket resolutions probably goes beyond the capabilities of these tools. What’s the best way to integrate a mobile helpdesk, ITSM software, and other enterprise systems such as ADP and Workday to automate or simplify fulfilling requests?

Integrating systems to improve ITIL KPIs such as percent incidents resolved on time or request backlog growth is vital for IT organizations that have workforce enablement as one of their digital transformation strategies.

What is ITSM? Tailoring a Mobile Experience with Guided Navigation

We’ve all seen complex forms where you have to answer a ton of questions to make a purchase or request assistance. We’ve also bought, searched, and learned from websites that focus on customer experience. These sites are designed for mobile-first user experiences and ask people to input just enough information to help them buy or resolve their issues.

The design of IT service management experiences should be comparable. Instead of asking users to fill out a lengthy data entry forms detailing their incident or request, the designed experience should present simple questions based on the type of ticket and the user’s initial answers. The approach is called guided navigation, and it is essential to creating easy-to-use mobile experiences.

And there are many good reasons to focus on ITSM mobile experiences. Capturing the employee’s location, enabling them to share photos, simplifying data capture with barcode scanning, and using the phone’s notifications to update them on progress are all capabilities people expect from modernized workflows.

IT teams looking to enable the workforce and modernize ITSM must take steps beyond upgrading the experiences and enabling a mobile ITSM application. IT leaders should market and train users on how to use new capabilities.  Consider developing and sharing specific examples that are important to successful operations and departments such as

• Getting help on standard business applications such as Office365, Google Suite, or Slack
• Requesting access to applications and data specific to the department
• Enabling remote employees to escalate issues with connectivity and collaboration
• Providing VIP services to executives that are on the road
• Scanning laptop and other device barcodes to simplify escalating equipment issues

How ITIL Organizations Deliver Agile Service Desks

If you’re following the ITIL framework and seeking a more agile service desk, then upgrading the service approver and fulfiller workflows are essential steps to improving key performance indicators. ITIL 4 practices focus on value co-creation including customer experience and interactive relationships. The latter implies that approvals can review relevant information quickly and approve tickets with minimal input.

But that’s not good enough! IT staffers should have in hand the specific information and tools to address incidents or fulfill requests.  For example, if a user claims they have a broken laptop, then having the barcode of the device and photo showing the damage can help IT quickly prescribe a course of action.

Both of these workflows can be simplified and improved when delivered through mobile applications.

2020 should be the year for ITSM mobile apps and helps transform the IT service desk to one that delights employees with exceptional service and new capabilities. The transformation requires the following three-steps performed iteratively:

1. Improve the user experience so that employees escalate more of their incidents and requests
2. Enable faster resolution of incident and request tickets through integration, automation, and collaboration
3. Capture service desk metrics and identify where user experience, data collected through guided navigation, or fulfillment processes can be improved

Using Low Code Platforms to Enable ITSM Mobile Experiences

Developing specialized mobile applications with guided navigation tailored to different types of requests and incidents is a daunting proposition. Service desks are understaffed and rarely have the time or skills to develop custom mobile applications.

Smart, fast, and agile IT organizations are leveraging low code technologies in their digital transformations. Instead of developing a custom mobile application in Javascript or complex system integrations, they are leveraging low code and citizen development platforms to build, support, and host mobile apps that integrate with their back-office systems of record.

Too many digital transformation programs target moonshots and innovation without improving the day to day services that make employees and IT happy and more productive. If you’re not convinced, reach out to me, and I’d be glad to answer your questions.

This post is brought to you by PowWow Mobile.

The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of PowWow Mobile.