Emerging Technologies And Trends Transforming IT Service Management
Krunal Patel is the head of TeamViewer's India and South Asia region business. He has more than 14 years of sales and business management experience. He has held key positions in several renowned companies in the technology and enterprise software industry such as SAP, Gartner, itelligence, and Esri.Consumerstoday expect modern day IT Service Management (ITSM) to consist of streamlined processes, faster turnaround and better service quality available 24/7. Employees desire consumer level service experiences from their company because it is how life is for them outside work. According to a survey by ITSM tools, only 25 percent of ITSM professionals think that their IT organization meets employee expectations better than consumer world companies.
Companies should incorporate digitization and technologies that can elevate ITSM and that are both cost and time efficient. Emerging technologies are making it possible for companies to deliver better and consumerized ITSM experiences while increasing the productivity of IT service teams.
Emerging ITSM Technologies and Trends to Watch Out For
Automation
ITSM automation helps streamline processes by proper prioritization and governance, eliminates repetitive and redundant tasks and improves organizational productivity. By automating manual ITSM functions, organizations can reduce service costs, offer high quality service, and in turn improve customer & employee experience. Companies must focus on automating simple, redundant processes such as ticketing, resolution of common issues, customer information collection etc. in order to free-up the human workforce so that they can focus on more important tasks. ITSM workflow automation can be categorized into three forms automating incoming tasks in the ITSM tool, automation inside the tool and automation of outbound activity.
Incoming Automation - Automates simple incoming processes such as ticketing and incident reporting to detect minor issues.
Inside-the-tool Automation - This includes automatically assigning SLAs, tickets and incidents to the respective technicians for processing.
Outbound Automation - This automates outbound activity from the ITSM system, such as sending out relevant prompts and information when a user logs in or sending an automated email during downtime, service maintenance etc.
Augmented Reality
Remote support is an important element of ITSM. Augmented Reality(AR) takes remote support to the next level. AR projects or overlays virtual objects on the real environment in order to help users visualize how they might look in the real world. AR provides users an interactive, 360 degree and 3D experience, enabling realworld objects to be fused with a digitally created vision.
With the help of an AR remote support app like TeamViewer Pilot, customers/employees can show the issue to the IT service agent using their smartphone camera, instead of trying to explain what the problem is. The service agent, in turn, can quickly observe and understand the problem and guide the customer on how to fix it. AR allows support staff to add 3D tags and markers to real world objects, thereby helping customers effortlessly and accurately see what is being referred to. AR also helps offer quick, expert IT support to field agents. For example, a field agent who is trying to set up a router can use AR to get the necessary guidance from an expert in a remote location.
Since AR enabled support is provided in realtime, customers/employees looking at help no more have to wait around for service personnel to show up. Instead, the support team can act almost immediately to fix breakdowns and issues remotely. The reduced response time helps in building a positive and lasting customer/employee experience.
AI Chatbots
According to Gartner, 60 percent of service leaders indicate that bots and VCAs will become more important in the next two years.
Chatbots are intelligent conversational platforms that are enabled by AI, NLP, and machine learning, making them sophisticated enough to understand the 'intent' behind user queries and successfully simulate human like conversation. Chatbots can be used to handle routine employee issues like password reset quickly. They can be used to detect and solve low value helpdesk tickets, instead of having human agents spend time on solving simple issues. In ITSM, chatbots can be used as the first line of support, with 24/7 availability. The deployment of chatbots in IT support can reduce cost per ticket, improve CSAT, ESAT and agent productivity. Since chatbots are AI-powered, they constantly evolve and learn from their past conversations.
Mobility
We are currently living in times in which business and IT leaders are increasingly mobile and are constantly on the go. Mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets are increasingly being used to access data and get work done while on the move. Hence, ITSM service tools that can be offered to employees and business users in a responsive design and multidevice formats, are gaining momentum. IT analysts should have remote access to data and must be able to request services, review and assign tickets, report incidents and handle ticket escalations from the convenience of their smart devices.
Conclusion
The world of ITSM is fast changing. Traditional ITSM tools and processes, as well as slow and antiquated responses, just don't cut it in the competitive business market. Employee adoption of traditional ITSM tools is fast reducing and in turn increasing helpdesk call and email volume. In fact, according to a survey by Espressive, about 56 percent of ITSM professionals agree that employees' number one complaint is that it is easier to call or email the helpdesk rather than using the existing ITSM tool. IT leaders need to quickly adopt emerging technologies and modernize their workflows to deliver stellar service experiences whilst reducing costs and increasing productivity.
Remote support is an important element of ITSM. Augmented Reality(AR) takes remote support to the next level. AR projects or overlays virtual objects on the real environment in order to help users visualize how they might look in the real world. AR provides users an interactive, 360 degree and 3D experience, enabling realworld objects to be fused with a digitally created vision.
ITSM automation helps streamline processes by proper prioritization and governance, eliminates repetitive and redundant tasks
With the help of an AR remote support app like TeamViewer Pilot, customers/employees can show the issue to the IT service agent using their smartphone camera, instead of trying to explain what the problem is. The service agent, in turn, can quickly observe and understand the problem and guide the customer on how to fix it. AR allows support staff to add 3D tags and markers to real world objects, thereby helping customers effortlessly and accurately see what is being referred to. AR also helps offer quick, expert IT support to field agents. For example, a field agent who is trying to set up a router can use AR to get the necessary guidance from an expert in a remote location.
Since AR enabled support is provided in realtime, customers/employees looking at help no more have to wait around for service personnel to show up. Instead, the support team can act almost immediately to fix breakdowns and issues remotely. The reduced response time helps in building a positive and lasting customer/employee experience.
AI Chatbots
According to Gartner, 60 percent of service leaders indicate that bots and VCAs will become more important in the next two years.
Chatbots are intelligent conversational platforms that are enabled by AI, NLP, and machine learning, making them sophisticated enough to understand the 'intent' behind user queries and successfully simulate human like conversation. Chatbots can be used to handle routine employee issues like password reset quickly. They can be used to detect and solve low value helpdesk tickets, instead of having human agents spend time on solving simple issues. In ITSM, chatbots can be used as the first line of support, with 24/7 availability. The deployment of chatbots in IT support can reduce cost per ticket, improve CSAT, ESAT and agent productivity. Since chatbots are AI-powered, they constantly evolve and learn from their past conversations.
Mobility
We are currently living in times in which business and IT leaders are increasingly mobile and are constantly on the go. Mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets are increasingly being used to access data and get work done while on the move. Hence, ITSM service tools that can be offered to employees and business users in a responsive design and multidevice formats, are gaining momentum. IT analysts should have remote access to data and must be able to request services, review and assign tickets, report incidents and handle ticket escalations from the convenience of their smart devices.
Conclusion
The world of ITSM is fast changing. Traditional ITSM tools and processes, as well as slow and antiquated responses, just don't cut it in the competitive business market. Employee adoption of traditional ITSM tools is fast reducing and in turn increasing helpdesk call and email volume. In fact, according to a survey by Espressive, about 56 percent of ITSM professionals agree that employees' number one complaint is that it is easier to call or email the helpdesk rather than using the existing ITSM tool. IT leaders need to quickly adopt emerging technologies and modernize their workflows to deliver stellar service experiences whilst reducing costs and increasing productivity.
