The market study revealed most of the survey respondents, an overwhelming 73 percent, consider self-service adoption a key initiative to mitigate resource constraints. This is no surprise, as self-service is one of the easiest, most effective ways an IT department can maximize limited resource availability.
Self-service is the practice of providing a knowledge base within a portal that users can go to and find answers to common questions and problems – allowing them to solve their own problems without having to put in a ticket or contact the help desk.
The benefits of self-service are improved customer satisfaction and a reduced cost-per-incident for IT teams. In addition, it can help lower ticket and call volumes.
Creating a knowledge base and self-service portal is a great first step to better ITSM delivery, but without continually updating the knowledge base to contain relevant and helpful information and implementing the service portal in a way that generates a lot of buy-in, neither will be able to serve their true purpose. This means that organizations need to put more focus on creating self-service experiences in a way that makes people want to utilize them.
At North East Ohio Medical University (NEOMED), they’ve seen great success with self-service adoption.
Prior to using TeamDynamix for their ITSM needs, NEOMED students and employees had to call or email the university’s help desk to log service requests. Using TeamDynamix, the university built a comprehensive service portal with knowledge base articles explaining how users can resolve their own IT issues. If users can’t find what they’re looking for within the knowledge base, they can submit a ticket request through the service portal — and requests are routed automatically to an appropriate technician for a response, saving valuable time.
“With our client portal, we have been able to wean people off (of calling the help desk),” project manager Geri Hein said. In turn, this allows the talented IT division to focus on more resource-intensive projects.
The City of Buffalo has also made self-service a priority as part of its ITSM strategy, “Creating an employee self-service portal was a pivotal step in streamlining IT service for the city,” says System Support Analyst Nathan Ignatz.
Powered by TeamDynamix, the portal allows city employees to find answers to their IT questions online. This provides instant gratification for employees and eliminates the need for further assistance in many cases.
If employees can’t resolve their own IT issue, they can submit a service request through the portal by choosing from an online service catalog. Their request is then routed automatically to an appropriate IT staff member for a response, based on the nature of the problem or request.
Aided by the dynamic workflows built into the TeamDynamix platform, a small team of IT staff members create and maintain knowledge base articles for the city, ensuring that this information always remains relevant and up to date.
“Before the service portal existed, employees would call or email the help desk to ask questions or request service,” Ignatz says. This tied up IT staff time in fielding questions, creating service tickets, and getting them into the hands of the correct team members. Having employees enter service requests directly through the portal ensures a faster resolution to their issue and frees up IT staff to work on other tasks instead.
“It allows us to provide service quicker,” Ignatz observes. Resolving support tickets faster not only empowers city employees to be more effective; it also creates more time for IT staff to complete other work, such as installing new hardware and software and making other enhancements to IT operations.
“Resolving tickets quickly is critical,” Ignatz concludes, “and that’s a key benefit of using TeamDynamix.”
