Organizations often face a plethora of best practices, ranging from simple to complex, which can be overwhelming and hinder their belief in making meaningful improvements. The key to improvement lies in understanding service consumers, their expectations, and the best ways to deliver services. Additionally, service providers must ensure that their services are provided optimally and have plans in place to continuously improve them.
Before embarking on service improvement, organizations must have a well-defined strategy for designing and delivering services. Monitoring performance is equally crucial to identify weak areas and address them logically and efficiently based on available resources.
In service management, the service desk plays a critical role as the first point of contact for users. Optimizing the service desk can significantly enhance the service offering. Borrowing from the “shift left” practice in software development, organizations can diagnose and solve problems at the front-end of the process rather than waiting for major incidents to occur. This approach reduces defects, saves resources, and improves overall performance.
Applying the “Shift left” practice to the service desk can empower less technically experienced resources to resolve issues earlier, reducing escalations, improving first-time fix rates, cutting service costs, and enhancing customer experience. For example, building core diagnostic questions into the user self-help portal can encourage users to apply fixes independently.
To embark on a successful “Shift left” program, align workflows, roles, responsibilities, and performance systems to support and reward these changes. Here are some basic best practices to consider when improving the service desk:
- Define relevant metrics and gather data for analysis.
- Focus on high-value targets for initial improvement.
- Empower service desk employees with policies, training, and tools.
- Establish clear escalation triggers.
- Test the new operational model before implementation.
- Continuously measure performance.
- Scale improvements based on performance results.
At Fifalde, our experienced specialists help organizations optimize their service offerings through a systematic approach of discovery, assessment, analysis, improvement planning, implementation, and validation.
We believe in empowering organizations to sustain improvement by providing them with the necessary resources, processes, tools, and partnerships.
Through training, we ensure that our clients can continue to enhance their services independently and create a more sustainable improvement process.