Moving from in-house IT Support Systems to Service Desk Software

Many organisations IT support processes are built via in-house “bespoke” developed systems or use generic Office applications for example Outlook and Excel for their service desk support. Smaller enterprises favour this approach as it initially helps the IT Department to deliver IT Service Support.

However, IT service desk requirements evolve as organisations grow and their service delivery can be severely restricted using in-house systems. Their service desk support processes need to develop in-line with the business needs.

Typical limitations that companies experience consist of:

Lack of management information to predict trends in call volumes.
Being able to manage increasing call volumes due to inefficient call handling processes.
Scalability issues to manage increases in end-users and multiple locations to access the service desk facilities.
Lack of management reporting used to measure and identify trends in support demand, staffing, fulfilment, training and equipment requirements.
Training new staff in how to use the support systems; in-house applications usually require staff to use the system in a rigidly defined way and there is an over-dependency on staff.
Not being able to reap the benefits of service desk software best practice processes for handling Incident, Problem, Change and Service Level Management.
Inaccessible incident information which can cause lost time for fixing issues.
Integration issues with external third party applications and data sources e.g. Asset Discovery products, Microsoft Active Directory, Centennial Discovery and Microsoft SMS.
Limitations in the variety of services they can offer for example not providing end-users support via automated emails or web access for logging and checking the progress of support requests via a Self Service Web portal.

If organisations introduce service management software many limitations inherent in-house systems can be addressed.

Business Benefits

For organisations that use in-house developed IT support applications advantages can be gained by utilising service desk software with professional services for deploying the Service Management software. The business benefits can be categorised into three areas including:

Service Desk Staff

Incidents are resolved quicker and in larger quantities.
Call volumes are reduced through better informed users and knowledge sharing.
Increased first-time fixes through access to the service desk software Knowledge Base and existing Problems, Known Errors & Workarounds.
Faster response times and the support provided is more effective.
Workload is more effectively distributed to the available resource.

End-Users

Better informed; improved customer satisfaction.
Faster, more accurate IT support by staff having access to all the information they need
from the central IT service desk software.
Reduced downtime therefore increasing productivity.

Management

Comprehensive, easily accessible reporting including Service Level Agreements (SLA) at all levels of the business.
Increased visibility and understanding of the service delivery via reporting in the service desk software.
Highlight bottlenecks in the support process and identify problematic IT equipment.
Using service desk ITIL software to gain best practice service support.
Identify training requirements for support staff and end-users.
Establish appropriate staffing requirements.

SupportDesk

SupportDesk service desk software is designed to assist organisations with their service desk software needs to improve the effectiveness, speed and quality of service support delivery to staff and the company. This is achieved through a set of features and best practice processes including the ITIL service desk framework for IT Service Support.

Key Features

Powerful integration

External Data Integration with MS Active Directory for Computers & Users.
Ability to launch from within the Service Desk software PC Remote Control packages.
Live link to Asset Discovery data including MS SMS and Centennial Discovery databases.
External Data Integration (XDI) to OLE DB compliant data sources.

Comprehensive Reporting

60 plus report templates which can be personalised by IT Support staff.
Quick-access comprehensive report reporting.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) with drill-down to individual incident level.
Fast identification of equipment issues and training requirements for staff and service desk delivery employees by analysing call patterns.
Live graphs & charts which can be exported.
Customer Satisfaction Surveys - automatically collecting feedback from customers to analysis the performance of the service desk

Easily Configured and Low Maintenance

SupportDesk service desk software is configured through a single set-up console and is very easy to change and maintain without the need for additional external consultancy enabling the service support software to be rapidly deployed.

Simple Licensing Model

Client licence incorporates all modules required by companies to successfully deploy IT service desk software
End-user web Interface licence provides unlimited user access to the SupportDesk Self Service Portal.

Based on the Service Desk ITIL Framework

“ITIL Made Easy” means that service desk software functionality can be enabled and disabled allowing organisations to take a phased approach to best practice service management software implementation.
ITIL processes included as standard are Incident, Problem, Change, Configuration and Service Level Management.

Competitively Priced

SupportDesk service desk software has over a decade of development experience based on industry best-practice and real-life customer experience and requirements. This provides a number of advantages over other ITIL best-practise compatible customer service desk systems, including:

Rapid deployment following a proven methodology, typically resulting in a fully implemented service desk in a matter of days.
Very easy to use, with minimum training requirements for the service desk staff.
A straightforward licensing structure with no hidden extras for server components, reporting modules, service desk components and processes or integration with Active Directory, business applications and company data sources.