Service Desk Ticket Handling Process – 10 Best Practices

A service desk is as crucial as the digitalization of your business. Modern users think that technology eases our lives. However, the truth is that there are people working day and night behind the power of technology. Hence a service desk is vital for your IT infrastructure to be as effective as you have expected.

The most crucial part of any service desk is its ticket management system. Different business types require different approaches to outsourcing IT service desks. The tools and software may vary based on your business operation, but every business needs a perfect ticket-handling process.

You can use any ticketing software according to your budget and business type. However, what matters the most is how you manage your ticketing system. You should be able to use your service desk ticketing system to provide the best customer service experience. It will ensure an organized IT help desk for your business.

We have come up with 10 ticket-handling best practices that you can consider. These tips will help you improve your customer satisfaction metrics while enhancing the performance of your support team.

More and more enterprises are becoming dependent on IT each day. Consequently, managed IT services have become a vital part of businesses. Your users will experience IT issues and be required to fix them. So, they will send a service request to generate tickets for your service desk to provide resolution.

Your support team has to handle the tickets efficiently. Otherwise, there may be unattended tickets resulting in service downtime. Further, unresolved requests can cause a breach of SLA and lead to additional costs and business loss. Here is how to handle service desk tickets efficiently.

• Always Follow the Ticket Status
• Confirm the Validity of Service Requests
• Send Event Notifications to Technicians
• Control Excessive Escalations
• Create a Multi-Tiered Support System
• Build a Workflow Structure
• Strengthen your Support Team with Suitable Tools
• Track the Metrics and KPIs
• Provide a Self-Service Portal to Reduce Ticket Volume
• Provide Training to the Support Age

Your support team needs to assess and observe the status of every ticket without any errors. It helps to prevent repeated tasks and confirm that you are attending prioritized tickets. You can prioritize the tickets as below:

• Current
• Working
• On Hold
• Resolved

All service desk executives should create uniform standards and allocate them to every state of tickets.

Validating the facts of a service request is a crucial step to avoid wasting time on unnecessary tasks. The support team must ensure the below points before initiating the ticket resolution.

• Ensure the ownership of the user who has made the request
• Ensure the facts and requirements of the request

Many organizations employ other staff to approve and validate service requests before assigning them to the support desk. In this case, the approving department is accountable for confirming the validity of requests. The request validation ensures that the support team is putting its efforts into resolving reasonable tasks.

One of the best features of service desk outsourcing is the off-hour services. If an incident occurs, the technicians should receive a notification to deter any possible downtime. So, your managed service provider should support an event notification system for technicians on holidays or beyond work hours.

Support executives shouldn’t escalate a ticket to a higher level before putting all effort into resolving it themselves. Instead, the IT service desk can set up an automatic escalation system if there is a chance of an SLA violation.

Unnecessary escalations increase the cost of resolution, impacting the profitability of service desk outsourcing. Many IT help desks rely on a software solution that facilitates a simplified and adequate ticketing process.

Based on the volume of tickets, IT support desks can have multiple tiers to address the requests precisely. Tickets that require a high level of skills may be assigned to upper-tier executives. In the same way, low-grade technicians can resolve simple issues.

This system will ensure that your skilled staff performs tasks that demand knowledge and experience. You can create a multi-tiered support system to specify that the support team productively invests their time and skill.

You can create a workflow structure using the tools that will allow you to compare the predicted and actual results. It will help you analyze the productivity of your support team.

The workflow system will make the entire process organized. Each team member will be aware of the steps to follow while resolving a ticket.

Access to the right tools can empower your team to resolve complex issues efficiently. This process will ensure the precise assignment of tickets attached with proper information.

Further, the customer information and the resolution steps stored in the system will ease future tasks of similar types. In ticket managing software, agents can update every new information and knowledge earned while solving an issue. It will work as a knowledge base and future reference for other agents.

To achieve excellence in providing managed IT services, you must follow the help desk metrics. The first step in handling service desk tickets efficiently is to measure the metrics and KPIs accurately. You can measure the below KPIs to analyze the team’s performance:

• First response time
• Total resolution time
• The number of tickets escalated
• The usage rate of the self-service portal

A survey by Microsoft reveals that 90% of international customers desire their favorite brands provide an online self-service portal. A self-service portal can help prevent repetitive tasks as users can find resolutions for common issues themselves. It will not only reduce the ticket volume but also enhance the user experience. People will immediately get their tickets resolved.

Your ticket management tool cannot provide resolution, but your support agents need to use it effectively. So, it is crucial to provide proper software training to them. It will ensure the agents actually use all the features of the tool and provide a flawless service experience to customers.

A service desk is a vital part of your IT setup. The most crucial part of any service desk is its ticket management system. Your support team has to handle the tickets efficiently. Otherwise, there may be unattended tickets resulting in service downtime. You may consider the tips described above to manage your ticketing system efficiently.