From communication to reporting:
What often goes wrong with the help desk

Install a help desk and bang – no more ticket jams, no more unhappy users, no more frustrated supporters. Unfortunately, it’s not quite that simple in reality. Nevertheless, good support software can save you a lot of headaches. It can create clear processes, prioritize tasks and relieve the support team.

And what about you? Is your help desk up to scratch, or is there still room for improvement?

Typical problems in Help Desk Management

Frustrating for users and stressful for support teams – problems in the help desk affect both sides. Problems often start with ticket creation and continue through to inadequate team training and insufficient communication. Let’s take a look at the most common obstacles:

It starts with the ticket

Already the ticket creation determines how efficiently and precisely problems can be solved. Tickets are often created incorrectly and then categorized and prioritized wrong, which leads to delays and misunderstandings.

No clear communication with end users

Users often do not know the status of their requests or what steps are being taken to solve their problems. Unclear instructions and sporadic updates lead to users feeling in the dark and losing patience. This can not only affect the trust in support, but also negatively impact the overall user experience.

Acceptance of the software

One of the most common challenges is getting users to accept the software. If employees find the new platform complicated or confusing, they tend to fall back on old, proven communication channels such as email or phone. This shift back to less efficient methods can significantly reduce the effectiveness of the help desk and result in the software not achieving its goals.

Lack of request prioritization

If all tickets are treated as equally important, critical problems get lost in day-to-day business. Consistent prioritization ensures that critical problems are solved quickly and that all issues are processed in a structured manner.

Fear of automation

Many help desk teams do not sufficiently use the potential of automation. Manual processes lead to support teams being overloaded with repetitive tasks.

No integration with other ITSM processes

Support is often isolated and not sufficiently integrated with other IT management processes such as configuration or change management. This leads to a loss of information and a fragmented view of the IT environment.

Insufficient documentation

Poor documentation makes it difficult to identify and solve recurring problems efficiently. If employees cannot access previous solutions, they often have to reinvent the wheel, which costs time. Additionally, this can also make it difficult to train new employees as they encounter a lack of knowledge.

Data management and use

Help desk tools generate a huge amount of data that you can use to optimize processes. However, without clear strategies for analyzing and using this data, the potential remains untapped. Even if the system offers powerful reporting and analysis functions, the responsible teams must actively work on evaluating the data and making targeted process optimizations. This is the only way to exploit the full potential of the software.

Help Desk Struggles? 🥴 We have a solution

REALTECH’s Help Desk (SmartITSM) is an outstanding help desk solution for IT teams. End users enjoy simple ticketing in familiar working environments (e.g. Microsoft Teams), while supporters benefit from all the functions of a comprehensive ITSM solution. Integrated workflows optimize the prioritization and assignment of requests – now also supported by AI. The AI integration transforms the help desk into an intelligent assistant that automates processes and maximizes efficiency.

Thanks to the CMDB connection, supporters always have access to all the necessary information on the ticket solution. SmartITSM also offers extensive reporting options for monitoring service desk performance.

SmartITSM is specially designed for IT support and serves as a central point of contact for employees to report incidents, find solutions or make use of services. You can also extend the help desk to external customer sites if the application scenarios allow this. As a cloud solution, it offers the flexibility to also provide external customers with access to submit tickets or inquiries.

4 tips for providing a helpful Help Desk

Want to know how to make your Help Desk efficient? Because even if you have great Help Desk Software, it won’t do you any good if your Help Desk doesn’t take the following 4 tips to heart.

1. First impressions are crucial

Your employees should experience outstanding service quality right from the start. A clearly structured and appealing interface is the first step in building trust. Make sure that the user interface is intuitive and that the most important functions are easily accessible. In addition, the first interaction with the support team also plays an important role. Fast response times and friendly, competent communication make a positive impression. Of course, the service tone and nature of the service itself needs to be in line with your brand and industry, but friendly service always pays off regardless of that.

2. Inform users about ticket status

One of the most frequent complaints from help desk users is uncertainty about the status of their tickets. If users do not know whether their request is being processed or how far the solution to their problem has progressed, they feel left in the lurch. You therefore need to regularly inform users about the progress of their requests, even if your support team is very busy. Automated status updates can provide valuable support here.

3. Benefit from past inquiries

If a user has already submitted tickets, it is worth checking whether this is a recurring problem. With proper help desk software, you can quickly view the history of tickets and interactions so that employees don’t have to start from scratch every time and customers don’t have to wait unnecessarily long for a solution.

4. Speed is important

Users want quick solutions to problems. Even if some issues take time to resolve, it’s important that your technicians and support staff have the time and resources to solve complex problems quickly. You shouldn’t have to deal with simple requests over and over again. Provide your employees with tools such as self-service portals and knowledge databases to reduce the number of recurring requests.