Self-service in the service desk is a win-win
In this article, we will consider the value of self-service in the service desk.
We provide an insight into how to use smart tools to establish self-service services.
As well as how self-service can be used to solve a number of the organization's tasks.
Written by Ronny Michelsen
The value of self-service in the service desk
Self-service in the service desk is a win-win.
As an end user, customer or internal colleague, you will often need to have a service delivered. Be it a complaint, a discrepancy that needs to be registered, a need for information, an order that you want delivered, or any service you want delivered by a supplier, partner or support functions in your own organization.
Having the service performed easily and immediately provides an experience of good and professional service.
On the other hand, case managers work very hard to provide the same experience.
But in the fight against the backlog, many of us have had to resort to weapons. When self-service services take on their share of the workload, caseworkers have a better everyday life and can increase the quality of the deliveries they are expected to make.
The economic and quality benefits are many when often repetitive tasks are solved by the customer/user themselves.
But nothing comes without a cost, and the cost lies primarily in making information available for self-service services.
Let's look at the important role a knowledge database plays.
Knowledge database
By storing descriptions of tasks/challenges along with the solution in a knowledge database, it is easy to look them up at a later time.
It is important that the knowledge articles are used as self-service services in all channels where they are useful, to get the full effect of the work that has gone into creating them.
Let end users/customers access the knowledge through search, in chatbot, as automatic lookups when cases are registered, and for internal colleagues when they work on cases.
In More Service, you can transfer knowledge to the knowledge database with a single click. The topic of the case, the description of the task, and your proposed solution to the case are some of the information that is automatically entered when you create the knowledge article.
You specify whether the knowledge article should be used for services aimed at internal colleagues or end users/customers – or both.
This way, you build up an extensive knowledge database through your daily work that can be used in self-service at the service desk.
Resolve the challenge before the case is registered
When you want to register a case, there may be information in the knowledge database that could give you the answer you were looking for.
With dynamic lookups in the knowledge database while you register the case, information can be presented that solves the challenge here and now.
In addition to providing the reporter with an immediate response, it saves the support team/functions work.
In More Service, we have our own portal for end users with integrated self-service services.
Search
We are all familiar with traditional search options. Many people prefer simple searches to get the answers they are looking for. Regular search should look up the same knowledge database as the other self-service services do.
Chatbot
A chatbot is a computer program that is designed to interact with people using writing or speech.
The dialogue with the chatbot often replaces the direct contact with a live human agent. In this way, the chatbot becomes automatic self-service in the service desk.
It must be clear what a chatbot can do, and it must be able to do it well.
Therefore, it was important for us at More Service to define a number of tasks it should be able to help with.
With the customer in focus, we started with 6 so-called user stories.
Why is digital transformation so important?
Information
Ask questions in a normal, natural dialogue – and the chatbot will provide you with information with text, images and links.
Password
You've forgotten your password, it's expired, or you want to change it with a new one. Let the chatbot do it for you.
Service catalog
The chatbot answers what services and products the organization can offer, and provides detailed information about what you find most interesting.
Report an error
Register a problem, a discrepancy, or a request for a service. Through natural dialogue, you answer questions from the chatbot, and receive a case number when the case is registered.
Order
The chatbot finds the correct order form. Through natural dialogue, you answer questions from the chatbot, which fills out the form and sends it for processing. You will receive a case number when the order is registered.
Your issues
Ask the chatbot to list your active cases and orders. You can see the latest events in each of the cases, and comment or close the case.
A chatbot should have limitations. Otherwise, you will have spent far too much time filling it with content that was little or not used.
When the chatbot encounters its limitations, it is important that the customer or internal colleague is still taken care of in the best possible way. This is best done by the chatbot asking if it can transfer the case and the dialogue to a human colleague via chat, phone or video call.
Many people build a chatbot solution with its own knowledge database on the side of other daily work. Then it will be challenging to fill it with content, and you can end up with hype and not the valuable resource that the chatbot should be.
In More Service, the knowledge database in the solution is linked directly to the Chatbot. So that through the operational daily solutions of cases in the service desk, the knowledge database is fed with knowledge. In this way, the knowledge level of the chatbot is expanded through the daily operational tasks.
This means that in the long term, automatic self-service services will be built up.
Chat
Chat is not a self-service service as such, but can be very effective for solving a task directly in dialogue with an agent. Cases that would otherwise be registered and perhaps remain in the backlog before being resolved.
The backlog
There is a huge cost in terms of resources that goes into just managing a backlog. At the same time, a large backlog causes stress and perhaps dissatisfaction for case managers. In addition, customers and internal colleagues have to wait to get the information or services they want, with the negative consequences that this has.
Read more about how More Service helps you in the war against backlog, and about the services that can help deliver more service in your organization.