How to tackle the 5 biggest ITSM challenges

IT Service Management (ITSM) can help IT teams to make the most of their available resources, improve transparency, and deliver faster, smoother services. But it certainly isn’t without its hurdles. Here are 5 common ITSM challenges that service desks face and how you can tackle them:

ITSM challenge 1: Your processes are all over the place.

Your service desk agents are working around the clock to work through and resolve incidents as they come in. The problem? There's no consistency in how you solve issues and no documented processes, so you’re reinventing the wheel every time an incident gets logged. This doesn’t just waste valuable time because your agents are starting from scratch with each request — it can be seriously confusing for end users, who may have a completely different experience with your service desk, depending on the day.

Solution: Standardize, standardize, standardize.

Implementing standard processes for handling incoming requests will save your agents a whole lot of time and headache. As a starting point, you can look into ITSM best practices and read up on IT frameworks like ITIL. From there, you can pick and choose elements that work for your organization’s needs. Once you’ve landed on something that works, make sure to document these processes so that all agents are in the know.

ITSM challenge 2: Your agents are totally swamped.

If your service desk agents are dealing with more incidents than they can handle, they don’t have time to think about making continual improvements to your services — they’re too busy trying to keep the fires out. Response times stay longer than they should, leading to low customer satisfaction. And agents are overwhelmed, putting them at risk of service desk stress. It’s a lose-lose situation.

Solution: Automate your services and keep it moving.

If your service desk is dealing with too many requests, service automation should be your first port of call. By letting automation take care of straightforward, repetitive requests like password resets, you’ll free up a significant chunk of time for your service desk agents — and maybe even give them some room to work proactively and make improvements.

Take the University of Ottawa, for example. Since implementing service automation with TOPdesk, they’ve been able to clear more than 45,000 (and counting) service desk tickets without the need for service desk intervention. Now, their service agents have the time to work proactively and troubleshoot issues before they get out of hand.

ITSM challenge 3: Getting end users on board isn’t easy.

Picture the scene: Your IT department has spent time and effort building a brand-new Self-Service Portal (SSP) that allows end users to easily log incidents themselves. And with a knowledge base at their disposal, they can even fix simple problems themselves.

But there's one problem. Nobody is actually using these tools. Instead, they’re walking up to the IT service desk and asking for help, like they always used to.

Solution: Communication is key.

Implementing ITSM is a big change, both for your team and your end users. If you’re struggling to get customers on board with your new way of working, then you first need to look at how you’ve communicated with them up until now. A mass email isn’t going to cut it — end users need to know what’s in it for them.

Demonstrating the benefits of ITSM processes through training can be very helpful here. And you can actively reach out to end users for feedback on your service delivery, just like the University of St. Andrews did. They used several methods to gather feedback from their end users (including enticing them with free coffee) and saw fantastic results, with an 8% response rate and 100% overall end user satisfaction.

We have an 8% response rate, and in January 2014 we had 100% overall customer satisfaction.

ITSM challenge 4: Your IT team doesn’t get the recognition or resources they deserve.

The way that IT departments deliver services can have a huge impact on a business. Let’s face it, most organizations rely on IT to keep their daily business operations running. But unfortunately, many IT professionals feel that their work isn’t being recognized on a management level. In fact, according to a recent survey, 69% of respondents said that they feel their efforts aren’t recognized enough by management. And if your organization doesn’t see the value of ITSM, then getting the budget and resources you need to make continual improvements can be an uphill battle.

Solution: Demonstrate the value of ITSM.

ITSM doesn’t just help your IT team to close more support tickets and meet customers' expectations. It can add a whole lot of value for your organization. But management won’t be able to see that unless you can show them some numbers. TOPdesk’s ROI calculator gives you everything you need to justify time, money and resources, so you can turn ITSM skeptics into ambassadors.

ITSM challenge 5: Service teams aren’t on the same page.

Because ITSM is all about creating value for the organization as a whole, your IT team has to be connected to the rest of the business. Think about a process like onboarding a new employee. This process requires collaboration between multiple departments, including HR, IT and maybe even Facilities Management. But working together with these other departments can be a real struggle if you’re using totally different processes and you’re working across different tools.

Solution: Bring service teams together with ESM.

To be able to deliver the best services possible, service departments have to find some common ground. This is where ESM comes in.

Enterprise Service Management (ESM) basically means extending principles to enable better service delivery for teams like HR, Facilities, and Finance. For some organizations, this means using a common ITSM platform to process calls. For others, like Utrecht University, service departments create a single point of contact for their customers. And some take it a step further by aligning all service departments’ processes in a shared approach.

Want to learn more about the benefits of ESM? Check out our handy guide.

Give your ITSM implementation a head start with TOPdesk

With over 25 years' worth of ITSM implementations under our belts, we’ve seen it all — from messy processes to service teams working in silos. Our easy-to-use ITSM software combined with our experts’ best practices, has helped thousands of organizations like yours overcome their ITSM challenges.