How to Build a Successful Service Desk with Jira

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Customer support is an essential part of the success of any business. No matter what the business’ objectives are, it always depends on a consumer to succeed. So, it goes without saying that ensuring consumers are happy is a vital part of any company’s business plan. Meaning, you absolutely need to set up a successful service desk.

Only, what is a service desk and what role does it play in customer support? Not to mention, how do we go about setting up a successful service desk? Well, that’s what we’re here today to explain. We’ll start with some basic information, then go on to how to set the plan in motion.

What is a ‘Service Desk’?

Naturally, the first question to answer here is, what is a service desk? A service desk or help desk is a virtual space where your customers can go to get support. This is typically done by setting up a simple and specific portal for the end-users, i.e., customers, to access without getting lost or confused. This is what is referred to as a customer portal, which is a website or single point of access designed to share relevant information or services with your customers.

What type of support will you need?

While it might be impossible to implement a flawless support system, especially on a low budget with limited personnel, you can at least focus on putting the right systems in place. To do that, you’ll need to determine what type of support you’ll be needing most, and they usually fall under one of five categories:

1. Incident management: resolving an incident as soon as possible.
2. Problem management: taking preventative measures to stop problems before they happen, eliminate recurring incidents, or limit the impact of those you can’t prevent.
3. Service request management: providing easy access to the IT services they need to get them back on track with work.
4. Knowledge management: providing a database of knowledge and information that can offer quick solutions.
5. Change management: putting in place a system that prevents great impact when monumental changes need to be made.

What makes for a successful service desk?

To answer this, here's a list of questions you need to answer to help you perform a checklist of how prepared you are and what is missing. 

What service desk tool will you use?

Before anything, you need to find the right tool to help you create a service desk. While there are many out there, the most ideal solution for Jira users would be Jira Service Management, as the integration will be quick and seamless. Jira Service Management is an ITSM tool that helps facilitate communication between your team and their customers, as well as, manage and stay apprised of the status of their tickets. On the customer end, they get an intuitive portal, taking them straight to where they need to go. Whether it takes them to services they’re on the lookout for, or to check up on the status of their tickets. On the agent side, they get a structured ticketing system to manage issues much more efficiently. 

What types of support will you offer?

Will your support system simply be text-based via tickets? Will there be times when you need to see the issue in action, like with TeamViewer, to solve it? Or will the issue require a face-to-face conversation, such as on Zoom? These are things you should factor in.

How well-trained is your team?

Your agents can make or break any system you put in motion, so you need to ensure they are helpful, well-trained, and efficient. They shouldn’t let problems lie or leave them out for long, as that will leave a sour taste in your customers’ mouths and have them reconsider using your products in the future. Ensure you have a good idea of the amount of work each agent can handle, and that they are not overworked.

Do you have a self-service database?

As much as the ideal solution is to solve each and every issue individually and with a smile, it can sometimes be difficult to give them all your avid attention. At times, even impossible. Particularly when the issues are repetitive, or long, and you have a lot of other tickets waiting. The best thing to do in this situation is to provide a hub of knowledge that you can share with your users when they ask, or even to guide them to it on their own. This can easily be done through a vast knowledge base with support articles, and a wide range of meticulously written canned responses to fit each scenario. One of the tools that can help you not only create a database of information, but also share it easily with users, is Confluence.

Are you able to track metrics and analytics?

We all learn from our mistakes. That is why it’s important to keep track of metrics and analytics in order to generate detailed reports to help you figure out what you’re doing wrong or what you’re doing right. Whether it’s in how long issues took to get resolved or the type of issues your consumers were facing, or the number of repeat customers asking for help over the same issue repeatedly. Not only can this help you determine what you’re doing wrong, but also, what needs to be fixed in your products themselves or should be dealt with in the future.

Did you provide a measure of security?

It goes without saying that providing a secure system is vital here. No one will trust a business that doesn’t offer them a measure of security in something as basic as logging in.

Is your service desk versatile?

Are you limiting your service desk to web use, or will you be offering your agents and customers an alternative way to stay apprised of Jira issues via their mobile phones? With the help of an add-on such as JSMobile, you can bring the Jira Service Management Portal to mobile phones with great ease.

Is your service desk branded?

Customizing your service desk to showcase the business in the perfect light can help will offer a lot of added value and yield positive results in light of consumers and their preferences. Not only can you customize the design, but you can also customize the ease of navigation as well as the information and services you showcase to your customers. There are many service desk integrations that can help you make that happen, such as the branded version of JSMobile. With the branded version of JSMobile, we will create a fully branded app and list it on both the Google Play Store, and Apple App Store. It helps you customize the company name, logo, and colors. That way, customers can reach the company app simply by searching for the company itself. 

Conclusion

Creating a service desk has become par for the course at this point when it comes to any business. Building a successful one is what can get tricky. But with a solid foundation and a good system that includes all those mentioned in the checklist in place, you will be able to provide your customers with the best support.