KEY STRATEGIES

FOR REDUCING
SERVICE DESK
CALLS

 by Craig Whytock |  Aug 2, 2022 | 

Estimated reading time: 13 minutes |  in
assyst Blog |  tagged assyst, IT Service
Management, ITSM, service desk

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The service desk plays an integral
role in IT service management. It’s
the single point of contact between
the service provider and end-users,
as defined by ITIL. Being a crucial
part of IT processes, it’s therefore
important that the service desk
teams are working at their best. But
how is this possible when they’re
constantly bogged down with
unnecessary calls?
We look at some strategies for how
organizations reduce repetitive calls and free up
time for service desk teams to tackle the more
complex issues.

Why is reducing service desk calls

important?
Service desk teams often have to deal with a lot
of work with little resources, so looking for ways
to relieve the pressure is essential to ensure
high-quality support to end-users. One of those
ways is reducing the number of calls the service
desk receives. Here are four reasons why this
is crucial.

1. Cost of service desk calls

increases exponentially
When it comes to the service desk, the largest
expense is the personnel. It costs a lot of
money to provide phone support and the more
time spent on the phone resolving one issue,
the higher the cost. Furthermore, if the issue
isn’t resolved on the first level, escalating the
problem to the second and third levels, etc., will
exponentially increase the cost as the time
taken to resolve lengthens.

2. High loss of productivity

In addition to the direct IT cost, you’ll also need
to factor in the loss of productivity. If all service
desk inquiries go through the phone, it makes it
difficult to prioritize more urgent issues and
agents can be stuck dealing with repetitive
inquiries that take time away from other calls
that need their technical expertise more. Let’s
not forget the loss of productivity from the end-
users’ side as well. Time spent waiting their turn
in a busy support line to resolve their issue
could’ve been better spent in more productive
activities.

3. Inefficient way to resolve issues

Another reason why it’s important to reduce
service desk calls is that phone support is
simply inefficient. Carrying out issue resolutions
over the phone often leads to one-to-one
training, as the agent directs the end-user on
how to fix the problem they’re having. This
becomes a very ineffective way of training
people over time. When more than one end-
user faces a similar issue, the agent will end up
having to repeat the same training over and
over for each person.

4. Unable to cater to changing

needs
Over-reliance on calls to resolve problems
prevents organizations to accommodate the
end-users’ changing needs. What people look
for when it comes to support changes over time
and can differ between different groups. This
can change based on the type of people or the
age and experience level, all of which would
have different viewpoints, perspectives, and
needs. For example, while older age groups
might consider picking up the phone as the go-
to for support, younger age groups might
consider it as the last resort and opt for FAQ
articles instead to solve the issue by
themselves.

5. Increased risk of burnout and

high staff turnover
Looking at it from the perspective of the service
desk analysts themselves, they’re under a lot of
pressure. They put the phone down from one
call and it rings for another call and their day
continues like so. This can have a knock-on
effect, leading to burnout and high staff
turnover, with 64% of organizations struggling
to recruit and retain service desk staff. The
service desk having one of the highest turnover
rates across the business functions means
organizations lose trained agents, making the
service desk less effective in dealing with
issues until new recruits get up to speed.

What are the demands service

desks are faced with?
To curb the number of service desk calls being
made, we should understand what is being
asked from them. The service desk can receive
all sorts of demands, which can vary from
company to company, but they largely fit into
these three broad types: failure, information,
and value.

Failure demand
Failure demand is when something has gone
wrong and can often involve incident
management activities. For example, it can be
that there’s a problem with the end-user’s
device, they can’t access a service, or a tool
they’re using has stopped working. They can
come in a call disgruntled, as whatever the
issue is has had a negative impact on their
work and productivity. These will be urgent for
the end-users and something that they’d want
to resolve quickly.

Information demand
Information demand is often overlooked but is
another type of demand that the service desk
often receives. This is when an end-user is
looking up information related to the services
provided. This happens when information is
hidden and the end-user is trying to expand
their knowledge on a certain topic, such as best
practices for a tool or where to find a specific
functionality. While not often discussed,
information demand calls are where the one-to-
one training that was mentioned previously
often happens.

Value demand
Value demand is when an end-user requires
something new, whether that’s a service, app
access, or device, which they believe will help
them work better and more productively. Each
call of this type effectively represents a chance
for IT to add significant value. So, getting it right
can do nothing but increase the satisfaction of
the end-user community. In which case, this is
the area where you don’t necessarily want to
decrease demand. Instead, you would want to
increase it, as well as have more time to deal
with this type of demand.

Top-level strategy: reducing or

diverting demand
Now that we know the different demands
occupying service desk agents’ time, what can
be done next to better manage these
demands? As previously mentioned, we’d want
to encourage and make more time for value
demand calls. This means reducing or diverting
the calls for failure and information demands.

Reducing demand
To decrease incoming failure demand calls, it’s
important to get things right the first time round
or solve them before they hit. Successful
service desk management means working
beyond firefighting mode. This boils down to
improving your problem and change
management processes, providing employee
training, and ongoing systems monitoring. By
having your finger on the pulse of all things IT
services, you can prevent issues from cropping
up in the first place. And in the case they do
happen, active monitoring can help IT teams to
spot and resolve the issue before the end-user
notices. Fixing your processes and fine-tuning
your IT infrastructure give little space for
failures, so the number of related calls will be
reduced.

Diverting demand
For the less urgent, common, or simple issues,
this is where self-service can prove particularly
useful. An IT self-service portal can provide
end-users the resources they need to solve
issues by themselves without having to wait to
speak to an agent. There are many tools IT can
use to achieve this: service catalog, knowledge
base, peer support forum, and more. And with
automated routing integrated into these tools,
solutions can be found quickly and easily
without human intervention.

By implementing processes and systems that

help reduce or divert demand, service desk
teams can then focus on the more critical
issues, preventing headaches for everyone
involved.

The strategic matrix: demand type

vs strategy
So, we know the different types of demand as
well as how to reduce or divert demand. But
what strategy works best for each type? This is
where the strategic matrix comes in.

The strategic matrix puts the different types of

demands against the approach you’d want to
use for them. This matrix reflects what service
desks face pretty well, as well as the tools they
can utilize for each area. Depending on how
many calls you get for each demand type, the
matrix can prove useful in determining which
area you should prioritize and what strategy to
implement.

For example, as you can see from the diagram,

the tools are stacked over towards the failure
demand side, which goes to show that getting it
right the first time is so crucial in relieving the
burden on the service desk teams. So, if the
majority of calls are falling in the failure demand
category, you should explore how you can fix
your processes.

What IT does affect the volume of

service desk calls
Decreasing the volume, as well as time spent
on service desk calls, doesn’t just rely on the
service desk teams themselves, but also on IT
as a whole. From the service design to service
transition and operations, how these various
activities are carried out will have an impact on
the number of calls that fall to the service desk.

Starting out right

Throughout this article, we’ve mentioned how
getting it right from the beginning can save
everyone time from fixing issues later down the
line. It’s important to design and deliver the
service that the business wants, make it robust,
and make it accessible and easy to use to
reduce friction.

Bringing services online

Too often when rolling out a new service, it’s
usually done in a hurry, making it so easy to
overlook things that can go wrong. Careful
planning of service implementations enables IT
teams to minimize disruptions not just in the
new service but also to other systems/services
which are often the source of service desk calls.

Handling day-to-day demands

Without strategies designed to handle the
different types of demands – failure,
information, and value – it can be all too easy
for service desk teams to be swamped with
calls every day. When it comes to reducing
calls, prevention is the best solution. Rooting
out the causes of these calls and resolving
them through problem and change
management while diverting demand around
the service desk helps everyone to work at their
best with minimal interruptions.

Improving services
Continual service improvement shouldn’t be
forgotten either. How can the service desk be
better? What tools can be used to further
improve the resolution process? Improving your
services isn’t a one-time deal; it’s an ongoing
process that should be ingrained in the
organizational culture. And knowing what to
improve isn’t really possible without tracking the
right thing. If you don’t measure it, you can’t
possibly control it. If you can’t control it, you
can’t manage it. And if you can’t manage it, you
can’t improve it. Likewise, there’s no point in
measuring things you can’t do anything about.

Having all these considerations as you create

your IT and service desk strategies all
contribute to reducing service desk calls.

How you can leverage self-service

portals to manage demand
With all the technology available to us, it’s no
surprise that there are tools that can help users
find solutions without having to rely solely on
the service desk. Self-service portals where
people can just log in to find answers to their
inquiries are one great way to curb demand.
But proper design and implementation of such a
tool are crucial, otherwise, you could end up
with tools that are left unused as they’re not
meeting the needs of your end-users. Here are
some things to consider on how best to
leverage self-service portals.

1. Make sure solutions are visible

You might have a portal complete with the
solutions for the most common issues, but
when an end-user can’t find the answer they’re
looking for, they’ll still turn to the service desk.
This defeats the purpose of having a portal in
the first place. It’s important that you have a
user-friendly portal that is easy to navigate and
find the tools and services relevant to the end-
user.

2. Track activities and

performance
Monitoring how users interact with the different
parts of your self-service portal gives you an
insight into what can be improved. For example,
how many people are going into a particular
FAQ article and then contacting the service
desk afterward? A high number of users doing
this could indicate that the article is not solving
the issue they have, and you may need to
revise it or write a new article.

3. Keep the Service Catalog

business-friendly
Some end-users might not know what services
and tools are available to them simply because
the terminologies used in the service catalog of
their self-service portal are too technical. The IT
team is providing services to the rest of the
business, so the language used should be
aligned with what makes sense for the different
departments. Otherwise, these can be easily
overlooked, and the service desk will receive
the call instead.

4. Automate service fulfillment

You can enhance the end-user experience by
creating automated workflows for your
predictable services. For example, when
onboarding an employee, they would need to
be provided with equipment, logins, etc. An
employee onboarding request can be easily
sent via the portal and automated routing will
set off various activities and assign
tasks/approvals to the right people. This makes
the whole process simpler and much faster to
complete.

5. Enable users to track

information relevant to them
You can help reduce service desk calls even
further by enabling end-users to not only find
but keep track of information that is most
relevant to them. Whether it’s an incident or
outage status update or answers to a forum
article, end-users can track these changes
through the self-service portal by signing up for
alerts. This makes it easier for them to plan
their day and minimize interruptions in their
daily work.

What NOT to do when curbing

demand
We’ve covered several best practices and
approaches to take when looking to reduce
service desk calls, many of which are focused
on making continuous improvements to how
services are delivered and how the service
desk works. It can be tempting, however, that
before the benefits for those are realized
organizations would opt for “quick wins”.
Unfortunately, in many cases, these can do
more harm than good.

Here are some things you should avoid doing

when throttling demand.

1. Stop picking up the phone

One of the easiest ways to reduce service desk
calls is to not just pick up the phone! But this is
the most infuriating method that you can do to
end-users. Making support inaccessible,
especially when an issue is urgent paints a bad
picture of the IT department.

2. Promoting the other channels

when already on the call
Just as frustrating as a non-response would be
if an agent picks up the phone, only to be told to
send an email or log a request on the portal
instead. Redirecting end-users to another
channel gives off the wrong impression that the
service desk is not looking to solve the users’
issues and can make them look unreliable and
unhelpful.

3. Charge business units on a per-

call basis
Charging business units for service desk calls is
a sure-fire way to disengage the rest of the
business. Not only would it hurt IT’s relationship
with the rest of the business, but it can hinder
the effective exchange of information between
different departments, e.g., reporting of
incidents.

Take the stress out of the service

desk
Need help in reducing service desk calls in your
organization? With IFS assyst, you can divert
up to 80% of calls from the service desk with
easily accessible service tools. Expand your
service desk capabilities without adding
pressure on your team. Why not get in touch to
learn more?

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