Service Desk Automation as the Ultimate Universal Remote Control

Picture this. You’re sitting comfortably on the couch, ready to enjoy some snacks and watch your favorite program. You grab one remote and turn on the TV. But your viewing experience requires multiple remotes to operate the TV, DVR, and sound system.  Unfortunately, the cable remote is nowhere to be found. After a few minutes of searching, you discover it fell underneath the couch. When the program is over you may decide to play a video game, listen to music, or watch a DVD. They each require their own separate remote control, and they’re located somewhere in your living room – more delays!

If you’ve ever had to juggle multiple devices, you can relate to what happens when you finally upgrade to a streamlined universal remote that manages all of them. You’ll likely discover that the experience is better and faster. In many ways, struggling with multiple remotes is like the exasperating, time-consuming and inefficient experience people have when they need to request services through the service desk that could more easily be accessed through a self-service UI.

Your workforce expects instant and rapid response to service requests. They are also smart enough to use a self-service catalog to request what they need.  You can make that happen with service desk automation. In fact, nearly any service desk request that has a repeatable process can be automated, saving staff time, improving quality and speeding resolution.

Drive Productivity and Automate These Five Common Service Requests
Just as your media experience can improve dramatically with a modern, efficient device, your service desk can be more effective and deliver a better user experience through additional automation of repetitive processes.

Old methods of manually handling service requests or issues lead to high costs and unnecessary delays. Why waste time? Consider how automated fulfillment of common IT-based requests can drive down costs and greatly improve customer satisfaction.

Here are highlights of five common service desk requests that can be automated, removing the need for service desk staff involvement and speeding service fulfillment or resolution.   You can read more details about them in our new ebook.

1. Unlock an account (password reset) easier and faster
   The most common IT problem reported is being locked out of an account. Then users have to call the service desk for help. With automation, users can resolve their own account issues in less than a minute without involving the service desk staff. This leads to higher user satisfaction and saves time and money because no service desk staff are needed to handle this routine task.

2. Automate access to an application with immediate turnaround time
   When a user wants access to a business application, this usually requires raising a ticket. The ticket traditionally gets routed to an admin for approval and this manual process can cause unnecessary delays that can take days to resolve. If the user needs that application to perform a job, the business suffers and the user is unhappy.Service desk automation can streamline this process take less than a minute – improving end-user productivity and satisfaction while lessening the burden on service desk staff.

3. Onboard a new employee quickly
   Onboarding can be very time-consuming, requiring lots of coordination between different teams. In fact, it can take up to two weeks to complete all of the required tasks using typical processes. Fortunately, you can save a significant amount of manual time, effort and coordination and simplify the onboarding process with service desk automation.

4. Install software immediately and easily
   Traditionally, users would call or email a service desk and have to wait at least 24 hours before their requests could be processed. This effort required staff involvement and manual coordination. With service desk automation, software installation can be reduced to two minutes and handled through a self-service request in a service catalog. This process also incorporates governance throughout the workflow to verify that the user is authorized to install that application and that sufficient licenses are available.

5. Provide additional computing and storage resources instantly
   Manually provisioning resources for an IT-based project often involves a long and tedious procurement process that requires several approvals. Additional resources can be procured instantly with service desk automation that encapsulates IT policies and decision making into an automated fulfillment process.

Learn more about how organizations have achieved substantial savings while increasing end-user satisfaction with service desk automation from BMC.  Our ebook explains how customers are using service desk automation to reduce ticket volume, save service desk staff time, reduce costs for handling requests, ensure governance and more. Get the details in this ebook, Automate 5 Common IT Service Desk Requests to Drive Productivity and Profitability.

Oh….and the next time you watch your favorite TV program using a universal remote control, enjoy the experience and think about the benefits of streamlined automation.

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