It’s not uncommon for IT service desks to be under pressure. Working in IT has always been fast-paced and challenging for people, but the increased business and employee expectations have impacted workloads and collective stress levels. Sadly, this isn’t going to go away. For example, ITSM.tools survey data found that 88% of people think working in IT will get harder over the next three years. So, IT professionals must get used to increased workloads, different working conditions, more remote and hybrid support calls, and new technology solutions and delivery mechanisms.

All of this adds up to an industry-wide feeling of being out of control and in a perpetual struggle to meet targets. To help, this blog looks at seven opportunities to improve things when your IT service desk is struggling.

This @SysAid blog looks at seven opportunities to improve things when your IT service desk is struggling #servicedesk #ITSM #ITsupport Click To Tweet

1. Be realistic about the situation

Sometimes we can’t help being in a particular situation. For example, the circumstances that cause an incident backlog – perhaps incidents are linked to problem records that are still under investigation. Maybe open service requests are for something we don’t have a budget for yet or that we’re unable to support. Perhaps the person calling in needs to speak to a different team, like facilities or procurement.

The temptation in IT is “but we can fix that,” but sometimes we can’t. In our experience, most IT service desk techs don’t want to disappoint the end user, but at the same time, we need to be realistic about where we are and what we can handle.

'If your IT support team receives requests they can’t directly help with, ensure they know they won’t be penalized for redirecting the call to the correct department or offering an alternative.' – @SysAid #servicedesk #ITSM #ITsupport Click To Tweet

If your IT support team receives requests they can’t directly help with, ensure they know they won’t be penalized for redirecting the call to the correct department or offering an alternative. Sometimes that’s all we can do – we can only provide the customer what is in the realm of capability to deliver, either by providing an alternative if there is one, or if not, acknowledging the situation and emphasizing with the end user.

There’s also a need to be realistic about the need for something to change in order for things to get better. Otherwise, you’ll only reduce the pressure for it to reappear in a few months because you haven’t fixed the underlying root cause(s).

2. Keep focused on your team

Your IT service management (ITSM) processes and technology will work sub-optimally if your people aren’t “OK.” If your IT service desk is struggling, the most important thing to do is start with people.

Check in with your team and make sure everyone is OK, but they might not be. Not everyone feels comfortable voicing their concerns or letting their colleagues know when they’re struggling, so talk to your people. Tell them it’s OK to ask for help, and they can come to you if they struggle. Let them know they’re appreciated and that things will improve as a team.

'If your IT service desk is struggling, the most important thing to do is start with people.' This @SysAid blog explores. #ITSM #ServiceDesk #ITSupport Click To Tweet

It might be a lot of extra work for a while, but you’re working on a plan to improve things. Ask for their input because they’re dealing nonstop with colleagues, customers, and suppliers – they may have suggestions you haven’t thought of. But before you do anything else, make sure your people are OK.

3. Talk to key business stakeholders

Continuing with the theme of people – talk to the business. Chances are, if your IT service desk is struggling, the organization will already know that something’s not quite right.

Good relationships work both ways – there has to be give and take – so if things are hard, let people know so they can set their expectations accordingly. We have service level agreements (SLAs) and service reviews for a reason, and sometimes with the best will in the world, things go wrong. Being unlucky with sick leave, a new service going live with defects, a batch of faulty equipment – any one of these could cause your IT service desk to struggle with ticket volumes.

Chances are, if your IT service desk is struggling, the organization will already know that something’s not quite right. This @SysAid blog offers up some suggestions of ways in which you could ask for help. #servicedesk #ITsupport #ITSM Click To Tweet

Most people are inherently kind and reasonable, so be clear about the IT support challenges and ask for help. Some things to ask for could include the following:

• A temporary relaxing of SLAs
• An amnesty on outstanding low-priority service requests – could things be put on hold until we have the time/equipment to deal with them?
• Additional funding for temporary staff to help clear the backlog

4. It needs to be a numbers game – use data to understand the issues and root causes

When times are tough, it can be hard “to see the wood for the trees,” so do some basic, high-level trending to help identify the issues, perhaps even the root causes, and a way forward.

Some trending opportunities to consider include the following:

• Filtering by incident category to see if there are any common pain points
• Assigning a few team members to review high-priority incidents to ensure there are no potential major incidents or angry senior managers
• Checking on anything that’s on hold with a supplier

When your #servicedesk is overwhelmed with a high volume of tickets, it needs to be a numbers game – use data to understand the issues and root causes. This @SysAid blog details some of the trending opportunities to consider. #ITSM #ITSupport Click To Tweet

5. Move into crisis mode if needed

This tip may not be for everyone, but it may be worth considering if you’re struggling to keep up with the IT support volumes.

For example, can you ask for a temporary amnesty whereby people don’t contact the IT service desk between certain hours unless it’s an absolute emergency? This will allow your service desk team significant chunks of time to tackle their backlog.

Unfortunately is you are really struggling to keep up with #ITsupport volumes then you may need to move into crisis mode. Read more on this here, via @SysAid. #ITSM #ServiceDesk Click To Tweet

If the thought of this approach is too much (and we don’t love it either), can you split your team so that only a percentage are dealing with new tickets and the rest are dealing with the backlog? This will increase customer wait times and potentially abandoned calls, but you’ll have more time to focus on the existing queue. However, this can only be a short-term solution to get your service desk through the worst times.

6. Push self-help when appropriate

Self-help can be a game changer for taking the pressure off the IT service desk. If customers can log and update their own tickets, and even self-resolve or self-provision, the IT service desk can focus more on activities like troubleshooting and resolution.

This approach can tie in with the earlier “crisis” mode point – could we ask people to use self-service and only contact the service desk by phone/instant message if it’s a genuine emergency?

We don’t love this approach regarding customer experience, but if your IT service desk is struggling so much that the basics aren’t being covered, then we need to do what we can to move forward. Explaining the challenges and asking customers to use self-help even temporarily will give your technicians and analysts time and space to focus on getting the numbers down and attacking the aged-ticket mountain that’s likely built up.

If your IT service desk is struggling so much that the basics aren’t being covered, then we need to do what we can to move forward, this @SysAid blog shares 7 steps to help. #ITsupport #servicedesk #ITSM Click To Tweet

7. Focus on the customer and their outcomes, not the mechanics of IT support

The end user doesn’t care about ITIL, Artificial Intelligence, automation, or ITSM best practice. All they want is to be acknowledged and have their issue fixed. It’s as simple as that.

So let’s make it simple for IT support teams. Make your IT service desk approach more customer-centric by moving your focus to outcomes rather than ITSM practices and technology. In an ideal world, IT support fixes the issue permanently at the first point of contact. If you’re reading this blog, you’re likely not in a perfect world, so let’s get creative. Some examples could include the following:

• Proactively notifying an end user when the status of their incident has been updated
• Having alerts so you can take action before a call breaches SLA
• Swapping out the device entirely rather than troubleshooting to save time (but this only works if you have a standard build and a supply of spare devices)
• Suggesting webmail if an email app isn’t cooperating

'The end user doesn’t care about ITIL, Artificial Intelligence, automation, or ITSM best practice. All they want is to be acknowledged and have their issue fixed. It’s as simple as that.' – @SysAid #ITSM #ServiceDesk #ITSupport Click To Tweet

So that’s my list of steps to take when your IT service desk is struggling. What would you add? Please let me know in the comments.