The Mobile Service Desk – Workers want choices and because of this, companies are tossing ticket and response IT processes and embracing the idea of empowering employees “to make tech choices at work and away from traditional IT departments,” CIO notes. Not all technology problems can be solved independently, however, and many businesses are now making the shift to mobile service desks, which let technology pros and tech-savvy staff easily communicate, collaborate and close IT tickets. But that’s just the beginning. Here are six benefits of the mobile service desk model.
Anytime Access
By opting for mobile devices instead of traditional ticket models, both front-line staff and IT professionals get anytime, anywhere access to necessary resources. This empowers users to track down the information they’re looking for on their own while still notifying IT pros that they’ve encountered an issue. Support techs, meanwhile, get mobile access to user ticket histories along with real-time network status updates, in turn making them much more responsive to emerging concerns. The result? Decreased resolution time and increased overall satisfaction on both sides of the ticket queue.
Eliminating Email
Another key benefit of going mobile with your service desk? You can virtually eliminate the need for email. While this productivity tool remains critical for conducting day-to-day business, it’s easy for email to bog down the IT resolution process. If users don’t include enough information about their issue or the message gets lost in the often-overflowing inbox of IT service personnel, problems can go unresolved for days or even weeks. Mobile solutions, meanwhile, empower real-time access to problem data and the ability to text as needed rather than wait for email reply. As noted by BMC, leveraging mobile-enabled platforms, such as the BMC Remedy 9 suite, to help eliminate email and empower direct connections can deliver up to 75 percent productivity gains for IT personnel.
Contextual Insights
Implementing a mobile IT service strategy also sets the stage for contextual offerings rather than general solutions. For example, the BMC Remedy 9 platform includes knowledge management capabilities, which deliver key information to support personnel and users when they need it using context-aware capabilities, which detect current workloads and tailor IT insights to address potential issues.
Read also: Types of Telecommunication Systems
Broad Compatibility
Choosing mobile service solutions also lets your support personnel reach as many users as possible, regardless of their preferred device or location. For example, employees working from home on their tablets or laptops can easily reach out for guidance or access self-service tools, while those at their desks can fire off a text message on the smartphone. Even staff on the go for business travel aren’t cut off from the help desk, so long as they have their IT-approved device in hand. Bottom line? IT issues never go unsolved, no matter how distant the user.
Social Collaboration
IT support is rapidly becoming a crowd-sourced initiative; users experiencing similar issues may have insights to offer about how to improve service delivery or minimize the impact. By integrating social collaboration tools into your service desk model, it’s possible to take advantage of broad employee knowledge to diagnose and quickly repair common issues, or rapidly fan out information that’s critical to all users — such as information about upcoming network disruptions or IT security policy changes.
Customized Experience
Want to make sure users are engaging with your mobile support solution? Give them the ability to customize and “consumerize” their experience with value-added features such as an approved service app store, formless IT requests and straightforward scheduling. Tools like BMC’s MyIT provide employees the kind of unfettered access they’re used to from public cloud and social sites, but under the auspices of your IT staff.
