Manual processes place a significant burden on IT service desks. They hinder efficiency, consume time, and expose customer service teams to avoidable errors and unwanted outcomes. As businesses look for ways to avoid these risks, they are turning to automation in ITSM, which promotes productivity, enhances customer experiences, and boosts employee satisfaction.
What is ITSM Automation?
ITSM automation is the term describing programs and digital methods for delivering ITSM best practices. Creating and monitoring tickets, providing self-service responses to simple questions, and striving to enable enterprise-wide digital transformation are all examples of these operations.
ITSM automation involves software that focuses on structures, stored knowledge, and AI technologies like chatbots and virtual agents. The primary purpose of ITSM automation is to increase efficiencies across different teams and departments by using automated workflows, a knowledge database, and ITSM software as the foundation.
Advantages of Automation in ITSM with ServiceNow
There are many potential benefits to ITSM automation that every company might consider critical for their service desks. However, the following seven are the most common and often most valuable:
1. Improved Ticket Routing
Routed tickets should reach the correct customer service contact on the first attempt. A roundabout or daisy-chained delivery process often leads to delays, confusion, and a poor customer experience.
Additionally, service desks typically benefit from automated workflows that correctly address tickets in real-time. This feature shortens the conflict resolution time and improves overall efficiency.
2. Efficient Incident and Problem Management Processes
All businesses need insight into the best practices for managing change, incidents, and resolutions. However, they might struggle to identify how and where an ITSM automation solution fits into the process.
One such scenario is when a single team oversees both incident and issue management, each a time-consuming task. That group is investing too many resources into incident response to devote the necessary time and effort to problem management analysis.
However, implementing ITSM automation software can help address this over-extension of duties. It provides that team insight into incident management and the necessary support tools to effectively resolve those incidents and implement long and short-term solutions.
3. Elimination of Repetitive Tasks
ITSM automation helps eliminate lower-level tasks by shifting level-1 tickets to self-help and removing lower-level requests, reducing the time spent on those tickets. This process assists in maximizing the ROI on the cost-per-ticket.
4. Comprehensive Analytics and Reporting
Effective analytics and reporting help service desks identify opportunities for improvement both within and outside their workflows.
Service Analytics and Reporting through ITSM automation extend beyond flat service desk reports by capturing historical data. This process stores it for the long-term and visualizes trends with pre-built reporting capabilities. The result: more actionable and efficient delivery service strategies.
5. More Flexibility in User Experiences
Automation does not have to be one-size-fits-all; in fact, it can create a more flexible and personalized user experience. Because various users may have vastly different requirements, an ITSM portal with automation capabilities will provide greater user flexibility. Each user can quickly and flexibly reach their goals by utilizing predictive technology, historical data, and bespoke flows.
6. Proper Escalation of Major Incidents
ITSM automation flags incidents the same way it routes tickets to the appropriate entity for resolution, beneficial for organizations that do not have 24-hour support.
Customer service representatives are not necessarily available to monitor system issues or tickets throughout evenings or over weekends. At those times, having an automatic system that escalates significant problems and incidents to the appropriate individuals is critical if systems were to go down.
This safeguard can save considerable money in the long run because disruptions are typically too short to affect the bottom line.
7. Easily-Obtained Customer Feedback
The successful collection of user feedback, whether from those who submit tickets or those who complete them, can assist leaders in bridging the gap between what tasks their business can and should meet.
Automation can make getting ideas, feedback, and suggested modifications to processes more accessible without a need for a lengthy team or firmwide discussion. After each encounter, it can trigger a brief poll, allowing management to see which areas are targets for better streamlining. Automation also provides insight into which areas are overly complicated and warrant further review.
ITSM automation can relieve an overworked service desk and keep teams on pace by reducing repetitive duties, improving self-serve capabilities, and simplifying administration.
Improve Your ITSM Automation with Cask
With ITSM automation, businesses can dramatically improve operational efficiency and overall productivity by streamlining processes and eliminating repetitive manual chores. Automation frees up the personnel to focus on core business activities while lowering costs, increasing efficiency, and speeding up procedures.
Request a quote today and discover how Cask ServiceNow solutions can help you automate your ITSM processes and boost the customer experience.
