Did you consider a self-service helpdesk? If not, your reluctance to adopt an advanced help desk self-service can worsen things for your support leaders and routine support fulfillment for IT or HR. Help desk level 1 tickets take about 20-25% of the average resolution time of the help desk. 

In addition to this, your level 1 support only needs 15-20 minutes to solve them. However, they are the most basic and routine employee queries. At the same time, L2, L3, and L4 are more complex and time-intensive. What happens if you can deflect L1 tickets to self-service? You would help your support teams free from mundane and repetitive tickets while allowing them to tackle more complex tickets and reduce the volume of backlog tickets.

Not only does this help reduce the number of incoming tickets to the help desk, but the self-service help desk can also cut down the cost per ticket to only $11 by reducing support agent and resource involvement. 

According to a study, 75% of HR leaders believe that self-service software systems are crucial for employee engagement. While the data indicates the need for self-service at the help desk, self-service is also vital for employee retention and improved support teams’ efficiency and productivity. Let’s learn everything about self-service help desks to showcase how your organization can unlock outstanding outcomes for business growth.

Just by looking at the phrase, it is clear that the self-help tool that allows users to leverage necessary tools and resources to solve a problem for the help desk is a self-service help desk. 

Leveraging a self-service portal, a service desk, or an IT help desk can deflect L1 support tickets, empowering employees to handle their routine problems independently and autonomously while helping agents address more complex tickets. 

According to help desk statistics by Financeonline.com, 91% of end users would prefer to adopt an integrated online knowledge base tailored to their needs. Suppose you want your employees to solve their routine IT queries. In that case, you can build knowledge bases on IT issues related to troubleshooting guides or common IT issues such as password resets, software installs, etc.

A self-service help desk helps automate repetitive queries to significantly reduce the escalation of L1 tickets to support agents. This provides several benefits, such as enhanced agent productivity, reduced operational costs, improved service desk adoption, improved FCR, and increased satisfaction among employees and customers. 

Let’s discuss the benefits in detail: 

Enhanced agent productivity

A self-service help desk enables employees and customers to resolve their basic queries independently. This shift reduces agent burnout and gives agents more bandwidth to focus on resolving urgent issues.  

Reduced operational costs

Automating L1 queries eliminates the need for extensive human intervention, so support teams need fewer resources to resolve repetitive queries.

With this approach, enterprises can eventually save significant hiring, training, and infrastructure costs. They can then reinvest these savings in other business areas, generating greater ROI. 

Improved service desk adoption

One of the significant challenges with legacy helpdesks is their unintuitive support interface. Employees and customers have to face a lot of friction when accessing support, making them more reluctant to adopt support systems. 

Employing self-service in the helpdesk means providing an intuitive, user-friendly interface that enables users to access support seamlessly. As a result, employees and customers will adopt self-service helpdesks.  

Improved FCR

Self-service automation coupled with a well-structured knowledge base means that most queries can be resolved the first time a user seeks support. When users are provided with immediate and accurate solutions, the need for multiple follow-ups is reduced, saving time and resources. 

Increased employee and customer satisfaction

Traditional service desks operate only during specified business hours, so users from other geographical areas must wait long hours to access support, causing frustration among users. 

A self-service helpdesk operates 24/7, enabling users to access prompt support anytime an issue arises. By providing swift automated responses, the helpdesk significantly minimizes wait times, empowers employees and customers to resolve problems independently, and improves overall satisfaction.

A self-service help desk should enable employees to resolve their queries independently by providing instant and accurate answers. To do this, the self-service helpdesk requires multiple features in place:

Self-service portal

A self-service portal is the frontline of your help desk support. It gives users the autonomy to look for solutions on their own, without waiting long for a support executive. A study reveals, 73% of users prefer to solve issues independently, which makes this feature a must-have. 

Omnichannel support

An omnichannel approach allows employees to access support from their preferred platforms, such as MS Teams, Slack, and the website. It integrates all queries into a single platform for support teams, enhancing accessibility while providing a unified platform for support agents. 

Canned responses

Canned responses refer to the pre-written responses to common queries like “How do I connect to the VPN?” or “How to connect to the printer?”. So when employees submit a routine query, they get instant and accurate answers, saving time for both employees and support agents. 

Knowledge management

The self-service helpdesk you choose must seamlessly integrate with your knowledge base. This will allow employees and customers to quickly search information and resolve issues independently.

Additionally, integrating AI into your knowledge base ensures that your IT team and employees always have access to the latest information. AI constantly learns from interactions and updates your system's data with new information.

Workflow automation

App workflows available through marketplace apps help automate different business workflows as a part of the chat conversation. For example, in the Workativ self-service IT helpdesk, you can raise an IT ticket through an ITSM app.

The idea of integrating self-service into the help desk is to reduce employee reliance on support agents, enable employees to quickly access support, save time, and improve employee productivity. To achieve this, here are some examples of how self-service help desks can be employed to strengthen employee support:

Knowledge base

A knowledge base is a centralized repository of organizational information. It has two types: an internal knowledge base designed to help employees and an external knowledge base for customer support.

A knowledge base consists of structured information such as how-to guides, troubleshooting documents, and product details. Its primary purpose is to store and organize knowledge to facilitate better accessibility of information and efficient query resolution. 

Gen AI Chatbots 

Generative AI chatbots utilize the power of LLMs, ML, and NLP to answer common employee queries in natural language and automate workflows to resolve common issues efficiently. You can integrate the chatbot into your company’s intranet or knowledge base to generate quick, personalized responses and auto-resolve queries. 

For example, a chatbot can help employees reset passwords, install software, check leave balances, and apply for PTOs without depending on IT or HR teams. 

Gen AI chatbots' ability to provide human-like interactions round-the-clock and reduce repetitive queries makes them critical for self-service in helpdesk systems.  

Community forums 

Community forums serve as a platform where employees can ask questions, share expertise, and find solutions. These forums are especially useful when employees seek solutions to queries that may not have been covered in the knowledge base or FAQs. 

By encouraging interactions between employees, organizations can tap into collective knowledge sharing, and gather diverse solutions and perspectives to improve problem-solving capabilities. 

FAQ pages 

FAQ pages are valuable resources for self-service support. They offer frequently asked questions along with their corresponding answers. Compared to a knowledge base, FAQ pages provide more concise information and are helpful for employees looking for a straightforward answer to common queries. 

One of the best practices to follow while curating FAQ pages is to provide concise answers to commonly asked questions and link them to more comprehensive articles for employees seeking in-depth information. 

Intranet

An intranet is an organization's private network used for employee communication and collaboration. It is a central hub for employees to access company news, resources, policies, and collaboration tools.

By integrating various self-service options into the intranet, organizations can create a seamless experience for employees seeking information or assistance.

If you want to implement a self-service help desk, it's better to follow a set of best practices to ensure smooth adoption, efficiency, and employee support. By focusing on key aspects such as knowledge management, user experience, and continuous adjustments, you can build a solid self-service helpdesk for your enterprise. 

Here are 6 best practices for implementing a self-service help desk:

Choose a user-friendly tool

The first step is to choose a tool with a user-friendly interface that offers customizable features, intuitive search functionality, and compatibility with your existing HR and IT tools. 

Choosing a user-friendly tool will make it easier for employees to navigate, reduce the learning curve, and increase adoption. 

For example, Workativ offers an intuitive chatbot interface that enables employees to communicate queries effortlessly through platforms like MS Teams or Slack. This reduces the friction from switching different platforms and improves user satisfaction. 

Create knowledge base

Having a comprehensive knowledge base significantly increases the value of self-service systems. So, gather all the FAQs, company documents, HR policies, troubleshooting guides and reports. Ensure these resources are structured in a clear and simple format, and add visual aids like product screenshots and videos to make the information more effective.

Integrating generative AI into your knowledge base would add even more value in terms of breaking down complex documents to generate easy-to-digest information. Plus, you don’t have to worry about manually updating the KB, AI will regularly monitor and make continuous updates.

Integrate chatbot functionality

Integrating an AI chatbot would significantly reduce the workload on your support teams and the costs of hiring, training, and additional resources.

AI chatbots extend a helpdesk's capabilities by providing instant answers, 24/7 support, and escalating complex queries to appropriate support agents. This helps ensure that employees get the right support.   

Setup self-service workflows

Self-service workflows help you automate repetitive tasks and enable you to deflect the majority of L1 queries. After integrating an AI chatbot, you can incorporate custom workflows to automate common employee queries, such as resetting passwords, submitting expense claims, or requesting PTOs. 

Ensure that you clearly define the triggers and outline the steps for the workflow.

Deploy, monitor, and optimize

Once you’ve integrated the self-service into your helpdesk, deploy it across all communication channels like Slack, MS Teams, and the website for better accessibility. 

Constantly monitor the self-service helpdesk’s performance and track resolved, pending, and unanswered queries. This helps to identify knowledge gaps and measure metrics like MTTR, FCR, and make improvements to enhance self-service options.

Workativ is a support automation platform that enables enterprises to empower employees by promoting self-service. Our platform offers tools to build conversational AI chatbots, automate workflows, manage knowledge bases, and provide live support. 

Workativ integrates with over 100+ applications, including popular IT and HR tools like Jira, ServiceNow, Workday, and BambooHR. Enterprises can leverage this to design custom workflows to automate up to 80% of their IT and HR tasks.

Our Knowledge AI feature accelerates knowledge discovery by providing employees with quick and accurate answers. Your employees can easily find answers related to troubleshooting PCs, connecting the printer, resetting passwords, applying PTO, or claiming expense reimbursements. 

GoTo, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider of  cloud-based remote work tools for collaboration and  IT management products, leveraged our platform to automate IT support functions. 

Workativ helped GoTo improve metrics like MTTR and FCR, reduce downtime, automate repetitive tasks, provide omnichannel support, and improve overall employee satisfaction.

Want to see how Workativ can elevate your enterprise's helpdesk with top-notch self-service experiences? Book a demo now. 

What is a self-service helpdesk?

The self-service helpdesk refers to the platform that enables independent issue resolution and access to information, reducing reliance on support agents and improving productivity.

What is an example of self-service?

An example of self-service can include using AI chatbots that help employees rest passwords, apply PTOs, or raise IT tickets directly from platforms like Slack and MS Teams. 

Why do you need a self-service helpdesk for employee support?

A self-service helpdesk is a must-have because it enhances agent productivity, reduces operational costs, improves service desk adoption, improves FCR, and increases employee satisfaction. 

What are the features of self-service helpdesk?

Here are the features of self-service helpdesk: 

1. Self-service portal

2. Omnichannel support

3. Canned responses

4. Knowledge management

5. Workflow automation 

Can a self-service helpdesk handle complex employee queries?

A self-service helpdesk excels at handling routine employee queries through AI chatbots, knowledge bases, and automated workflows. It can also help escalate complex problems to live support agents. Advanced platforms like Workativ facilitate this process by providing support agents with the full context of the query, ensuring a seamless transition and faster resolution.