12 Service Desk Automation Ideas + How to Implement Them

Automation is a game changer. Being able to relieve your team of the chore of carrying out low-level, repetitive tasks frees them up to tackle more complex issues and drive the business forward. In fact, two-thirds (66%) of small and medium-sized organizations say that automation is an essential element of running their business.

The key is to get users back to work as quickly as possible after they discover an issue, preventing dips in productivity. And automation can help achieve this. 

To harness the power of AI, it is important for your organization to look at processes that it can automate. This provides a range of benefits, including: 

• Gaining a competitive advantage in the market
• Improving productivity and efficiency
• Reducing costs 
• Increasing employee satisfaction
• Minimizing human error. 

And your internal service desk is one of the most automatable areas of the business. With this in mind, this article contains a range of service desk automation ideas and ways in which you can fit them into your processes to benefit from some or all of the automation benefits. 

Service desk ticket automation ideas

Automate ticket creation

To save time and reduce the risk of user issues getting lost in email chains and internal messages, you can implement a process to automatically create tickets as soon as a user makes contact. 

Instead of requiring your support team to scour multiple messages for the pertinent details or sending users to another app, the automation extracts the information from their message and turns it into an official ticket as part of a streamlined workflow. 

Wrangle’s hands-off automations perform this task when users add messages to support channels in Slack, creating trackable tickets that your team can start working on.

Custom forms

Instead of the agent asking questions to understand the specifics of the situation, you can create custom forms to collect the context of the issue. Using text, drop-down options, attachments, and other features, the user provides as much detail as possible. This means you can more effectively route the ticket to the right department and find a solution more quickly. 

Assign tickets automatically

Your team receives numerous support tickets every day and these need to be assigned to the most appropriate service desk agent, depending on their expertise, workload, seniority, and other criteria. Being able to automate this process ensures that incoming tickets reach the correct agent without someone having to handle all of the logistics and means that it is more likely to be resolved without having to be passed on again. 

To implement this ticket routing functionality, set up rules for the different topics and subject areas, as well as details of availability, so that the program can route the ticket to the right agent. An example is the round-robin approach, where agents receive an even share of work. You can also set working hours to take into account when your team is working to assign tickets in a way that ensures they will be resolved within the acceptable timeline. 

Auto-tagging

Tagging tickets is a beneficial practice to help you understand the content, urgency, and complexity of the issue at hand. You can assign a team member to manually tag each ticket as it comes in, but using auto-tagging enables your system to pick up on words within the ticket and create a relevant tag. This can be based on an exact match, such as GSuite, but you can also add additional related trigger words that also generate the GSuite tag, such as ‘Google’ and ‘Gmail.’

This also helps you understand the common types of tickets your team receives, helping you create solutions to regular problems.

Automate ticket escalation

There are many reasons why service desk tickets need to be escalated, whether it is because an agent with a higher level of authority must handle that issue, it requires specialist expertise, or any other reason. Instead of going to Tier 1 agents, just for them to then pass it up the chain of command, automating this process makes sure it reaches the desk of the right person straight away. 

Set rules for the automation in your service desk software so that it understands where to escalate tickets based on subject matter, status, urgency, time limits for resolution, and any other relevant parameters. 

Set automated reminders for unresolved tickets

When tickets remain unresolved, it is detrimental for the user who is relying on the problem being fixed. This is why it is important to set reminders that automatically make agents aware of pending tickets after they have been dormant for a set amount of time. You should do the same for those that are reaching the deadline and about to breach service-level agreements (SLA). With this information, your agents can prioritize their workload accordingly. Ensure you set a rule to automate these reminders for every ticket. 

Integrate communication channels

To create a more intuitive workflow, you should integrate your communication channels into your ticketing system to centralize your efforts and make it easier for agents to track and manage tickets. This helps make it easier for users to access support, as it takes place within the apps they use for their daily work. 

Slack is a good example of a communication channel you can use as a base for a service desk. Millions of people in countless businesses across the world spend their days interacting with colleagues within Slack, thanks to its usability and the fact that you do not need to be technically minded to make the most of it. 

However, it can be a noisy environment where it is possible to lose messages if you are not properly tracking them. The good news is that there are platforms built into Slack, such as Wrangle, that create secure and robust workflows for accepting, managing, and resolving tickets. Add Wrangle to Slack to allow users to access support in the popular messaging app. 

Integrate self-service portals

Often, users have common and easy-to-remedy issues that do not require your team’s time to resolve. Given the right information, there is a relatively simple solution that the user can implement by themselves. You have a couple of self-service options for implementing this functionality:

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Create real-time monitoring and alerts

Get ahead of users by understanding when they have technical support issues before they even contact your IT support team. Real-time monitoring and alerts help you manage IT issues proactively, which improves your system reliability and reduces downtime. 

This alleviates some of the pressure on your IT team because problems can be resolved before users even notice them and raise a ticket. Implement monitoring tools that trigger alerts when they detect problems that have passed critical thresholds. 

Create clear pre-configured workflows for different cases

Pre-configured workflows ensure consistency and efficiency in the way your team manages tickets. They guide them through the necessary steps for different types of issues. To implement this functionality, map out the most common scenarios your team faces and configure the system to take into account step-by-step procedures, approval processes, and escalation paths for each different case type.  

Add automated role-based access controls

Running an IT service desk involves handling large volumes of personal data and sensitive information. This requires enhanced security to ensure your agents have appropriate access permissions, based on their roles, to avoid unauthorized access to information. 

Use these permissions to control who can begin and access each case on your ticketing platform. Place agents into roles such as admins or observers to dictate what they can see within your service desk platform. 

Automate periodic reports (including SLA reporting)

It is essential that you meet your SLA deadlines and that you deal with all tickets as efficiently as possible. Tagging your tickets with the correct level of urgency and request type helps you understand how well you prioritize your tickets and how much time you spend dealing with different issues. 

To monitor your performance, you should analyze metrics such as the most common requests, ticket volumes, completion data, and how long it takes to resolve them. Instead of manually extracting the information you need, platforms like Wrangle automate reporting to ensure you always have the data you need at hand to improve and streamline your processes. 

What are the risks of over-automation in service desks?

Over-automation can lead to some negative outcomes for users and service desks alike. These include: 

• Inadequate handling of complex tasks that require human judgment and expertise. Consider which processes you automate and whether it might be to the users’ detriment due to the nuanced nature of some queries.
• When there is excessive automation, it can reduce personal interaction, which might make users feel undervalued and unsatisfied without a route to receiving a full answer to their query.
• There is no room for empathy and emotional intelligence from automated systems, which is sometimes necessary when handling service desk tickets, particularly when users are stressed or angry.
• Employees may have decreased opportunities to develop problem-solving and customer engagement skills when they rely on automation to carry out interactions.

For businesses, automation serves as a powerful tool that employees can leverage to save time, streamline workflows, and ensure repetitive tasks are handled efficiently, allowing teams to focus on more strategic and impactful work. There must also be monitoring of the automation to ensure it works as it should and that the customer experience remains at a high level. 

Service desk automation benefits

• Service desks can achieve faster response times by automating the process of assigning tickets to the most appropriate service desk agent, instead of waiting for a human to share them out.
• Automation reduces manual tasks and repetitive processes, freeing up agents to work on more complex and critical issues that require human judgment and empathy.
• It enables 24/7 availability for IT services, ideal for global businesses and those with employees working night shifts or across time zones.
• Canned responses and set workflows ensure consistent and standardized service to common issues, allowing the company to find the most efficient solution and repeat it across all similar tickets.
• Human error is minimized as automation ensures no tickets fall through the cracks or are forgotten.
• Leaner processes result in cost savings by reducing operational inefficiencies and avoiding the need to hire staff solely for repetitive tasks.
• Automation improves resolution times and satisfaction by keeping cases on track and escalating them when wilder expertise or specialized knowledge is required. 
• Integrations with Slack and other channels eliminate context switching. This ensures more tickets are captured and addressed, even ones that might previously have been missed.
• Scalability is enhanced by handling more tickets per agent and leveraging data insights to determine when to scale up or optimize staffing.
• Automation improves accountability thanks to transparent workflows and data. It allows all stakeholders to clearly understand the status and responsibilities for every ticket.

FAQ

What is service desk automation?

Service desk automation is the process of using technology to perform routine tasks or those where you can set rules and parameters that trigger actions. This includes assigning tickets, escalating cases, and replying to users with canned responses to solve their IT queries. 

Which tasks are most commonly automated in a service desk?

Common automated tasks in a service desk include creating tickets, ticket routing, and sending notifications and reminders of updates to the case or for upcoming deadlines. 

What tasks can't be automated?

Any task that requires human judgment cannot be automated with success. This includes unique cases, complex issues that users have, and any situation in which you need to offer personalized support to the user. 

Conclusion

These service desk automation ideas will help you improve your processes, save money, save time, and better serve your users. However, it is important to find a robust method of implementing them into your workflows. 

Add automation to your service desk with Wrangle

With Wrangle’s service desk software, you can turn Slack messages directly into tickets and instantly streamline ticket management. Our powerful service desk automation keeps everything in one tool, right where your team already spends most of their day. Here’s how Wrangle can simplify your processes:

• Smart ticketing: Create, route, and track tickets within Slack for seamless management.
• AI ticket deflection: Automatically suggest solutions from your knowledge base to resolve common issues before escalation.
• Smart replies: Leverage AI to provide instant, conversational responses to repetitive questions.
• Automated workflows: Customize workflows for processes like onboarding, change requests, and more.
• Tags and auto-tagging: Automatically categorize tickets for efficient organization and reporting.
• Private ticketing: Handle sensitive issues with privacy and control in designated Slack channels.
• Resolution automations: Automatically close tickets with reactions and streamline post-resolution follow-ups.
• SLA tracking: Set response and resolution deadlines with automatic alerts to stay on target.

These features lead to faster response and resolution times for your service desk and expert tracking that ensures no tickets slip through the cracks. Your team benefits from a more streamlined and transparent workflow where they do not waste time on tickets that should be assigned elsewhere. As a result, the company can deal with more tickets, getting your users back online faster. 

Request a demo today or add it to Slack straight away. 

References and further reading

• Wrangle for internal ticketing
• Ticket tagging in-depth guide
• Ticket handling best practices
• Study: The blended future of automation and AI
• Study: Automation in business research

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