Top ITSM Automation
Strategies That Are
Redefining IT Support

The pain of manual ITSM operations goes something like this:

Users wait hours for an IT issue as simple as a password reset.

If it is beyond typical ITSM issues, a service desk attendant takes more than usual to analyze logged reports and identify the problem to escalate to the right person. So much more is wasted between understanding the problem and handling the issue to the right person for a solution.

Most days, users report the same issues, running the same ITSM cycle for resolution. Unfortunately, things can be overwhelming for service desk agents, and downtime can stay longer, which causes productivity issues.

ITSM automation can help transform how you handle your current ITSM operations processes.

Natural language processing is a highly competent machine learning technology that expands automation capabilities and helps massively redefine IT support.

Those who want to start with ITSM automation for their IT support initiative need some essential strategies.

Ours is a detailed article on top ITSM automation strategies to help you redefine IT support in 2024.

Here is a rundown on why ITSM automation is significant for your business:

ITSM automation trends 2024 - ITSM automation benefits
  • Improved employee experience - ITSM automation provides end-to-end automation solutions with the right predictive analytics to help resolve issues at scale. Users and the service desk can feel relieved and leverage productivity gains.
  • Reduced IT time - A TOPDesk article says IT support spends 30%-50% of their calls for password reset. For a mid-sized company, password management for a user per year costs $250. AI and ML help improve password management with automation. For many such IT support tasks, ITSM automation can reduce the time to handle an issue and offer improved uptime.
  • Better first-call resolution - IT support providers can better understand the requester’s problems and offer accurate fixes to eliminate the issue or never allow the same ticket to return. They can also restrict the ticket to travel to the next tier and provide first call resolution on the first attempt using ITSM automation.
  • Cost-effective ITSM - Mostly with any ITSM vendors, self-service automation comes as a facilitator to augment autonomous problem-solving for users, reducing IT ticket escalation to the agents. As a result, organizations can save costs on agents and tickets.
  • Decreased average handle time - AI, ML, and now integration of Generative AI give more profound insights into a case history, actions taken, and results delivered. Based on these analytics, a service desk can build a better strategy to minimize ticket handling time, yet offer better results.
  • Rapid incident diagnosis - AI, ML, and Generative AI-driven ITSM automate incident diagnosis at a faster scale by using NLP capabilities that help detect user-logged reports easily and make the right decision to tackle the issue.
  • Increased adherence to SLA - The service desk can follow the steps to provide the right solutions to its people through self-service enablement or agent handoffs. ITSM automation helps ensure a company meets SLA effectively and delivers user satisfaction.
  • Reduced MTTR - With ITSM automation, especially a Generative AI-backed chat interface, users can get accurate information to handle a query without initiating a voice call or writing an email. This helps reduce the mean time to respond and provides enhanced user experience.

As you picture this, automation brings many potential benefits to your ITSM operations to help you stay user-centric and gain business value.

We know a service desk is integral to your business processes, so let’s keep in mind one thing — automation is critical.

To start with your ITSM automation initiative, it is essential you build the strategies that can help you redefine IT support in 2024.

Top ITSM Automation Strategies

ITSM trends for 2024

ITSM Automation Strategy #1 - Evaluate ITSM automation for your service desk processes

It is no longer a secret that HR or IT support spend more than five hours per week doing repetitive tasks.

When you plan to implement automation in ITSM, find out areas in which workflow automation is necessary to alleviate your team’s workloads and bring much more flexibility for everyone. Generally, organizations are grappled with mundane processes, which are repetitive and labor-intensive.

Such are consequences that cost you growth.

  • Repetitive tasks drain energy and prompt mistakes.
  • Some tickets with the same issue show up.
  • ITSM works on the break/fix model.
  • Resolutions are short-lived.

Concerning that your ITSM can be too irritating for your users, you can choose to automate some processes such as,

  • Password management
  • Account unlock
  • User provision
  • Employee profile management

Getting your team to discuss what is necessary for your service desk to automate is significant to making one informed decision and validating your strategy.

ITSM Automation Strategy #2 - Talk to various stakeholders about the benefits of ITSM automation

Any change takes time to be effective for an organization.

It involves communicating with different stakeholders and getting their nod for the project.

As a CISO or IT leader, you can talk about the benefits of ITSM automation to stakeholders and tell them why workflow automation in ITSM can bring immense value to your business.

To prepare your list for the PPT presentation, refer to the ITSM automation benefits section in this article.

ITSM Automation Strategy #3 - Narrate roles and responsibilities for your people

ITSM automation trends 2024

IT service management automation holds significant promise for your organization to streamline repetitive tasks.

But things can be tricky and overwhelming if they set high expectations from this automation project.

Significantly, you set clear goals for your team about their roles and responsibilities.

Know one thing: ITSM automation can effectively automate simple or common IT or HR support tasks.

In this case, self-service is a suitable medium for users to solve their problems. But, rarely, they can always tackle their issues autonomously. You must ensure that your agents know this industry standard and have enough knowledge and resources to help users guide them appropriately to a perfect resolution.

ITSM Automation Strategy #4 - Design self-service specific to your business needs

ITSM automation trends 2024

Every business has different ITSM needs. Your IT service management needs also differ. So, do your self-service use cases for IT or HR support.

There are so many processes that work for your team without automation.

Say attendance or timesheet automation through a self-service portal.

This is a compelling use case for any organization that needs to be automated.

But if you have more compelling business needs, i.e., employee profile update in the HRIS system, PTO inquiry, user provision, etc. — prioritize them first and design your workflows for self-service automation.

For example, Workativ conversational AI is a perfect AI and ML solution with deep NLP technologies and capabilities to help implement your self-service workflows without the need to write a single line of code.

Plan which use cases are highly essential for your business processes and keep them on a priority list.

ITSM Automation Strategy #5 – Consider Generative AI for ITSM automation

ITSM automation trends 2024

Generative AI does look like a buzzword — but it isn’t.

Given the facts, Generative AI can perform many NLP-related tasks with its ability to generate unique content; it can also help augment how automation works in most scenarios.

An existing self-service automation can help users know how to work with a company-specific CRM tool – but by allowing them to read through a long article.

With Generative AI-powered self-service, users can generate consolidated answers and automate knowledge discovery efficiently — by retrieving answers in a bulleted point or with some diagrams or steps that help absorb knowledge fast.

While searching for an efficient IT service management tool, consider Generative AI for a seamless user experience.

ITSM Automation Strategy #6 – Get your people ready for change management

When you implement something new, a change tends to cause discomfort for your employees.

They choose to continue with the old method of handling work and avoid using the new tool.

The best ways to get your people to hold on to new processes of ITSM automation follow below:

  • Train them to use various modules or features effectively.
  • You can hold training sessions occasionally and let them visualize the best IT service management automation efficacies.
  • Another beneficial way that can work for you is to send out reminders for them and encourage them to use the automation tools or self-service portal.

Change is inevitable, but getting your people to adapt to it is essential.

ITSM Automation Strategy #7 – Focus on release management

ITSM automation project needs end-to-end visibility to ensure it aligns well with your business objectives.

As an IT leader of the automation project, keep track of a few essential things—

  • - Plan every step of the project by ensuring project deadlines, timelines, estimated delivery of resources, etc.
  • - Design and develop specific components and features for your ITSM automation initiatives.
  • - Test and trial to see if your design workflows work as expected or if they still need some improvement or revision.
  • - Review your ITSM workflow automation before putting it live. It is essential to ensure that the projected plans are executed.
  • - Deploy workflow automation as you find your project scope is achieved. However, make sure you have enough resources to guide your people.

Release management is essential for a project to be successful. When ITSM automation is your priority, focus on release management.

ITSM Automation Strategy #8 – Start your automation journey with password reset or onboarding

As every business experiences password reset or onboarding challenges, you can begin ITSM automation with these two use cases.

To start small and see the effectiveness of your IT service management automation, create workflows with a no-code automation tool platform such as Workativ.

For employee onboarding automation, you can create end-to-end workflows, from setting up a profile in an HRIS system to creating an account in the IAM platform to configuring an action for a ticket in the ITSM platform, such as ServiceNow or SolarWinds.

Similarly, you can create password reset workflows and see how they work for your people for internal processes.

ITSM Automation Strategy #9 – Ensure continuous improvement

It is not about just launching and forgetting.

Post-deployment, you need to double down on efficiency to ensure everything about the automation workflows is fine.

Keep an eye on knowledge management resources so that they are updated, and provide the latest information to users for autonomous resolution of problems.

Besides this, ensure your ITSM platform or embedded self-service is easy to manage.

With continuous improvement on the automation side, your team can save time and energy and become productive.

ITSM Automation Strategy #10 – Improve privacy and data compliance

To facilitate your automated workflows in the specific domain, you must follow certain regulatory measurements so your people or users can avoid unintentional compliance violations.

  • - While you train your GenAI or AI model, be sure your knowledge resources contain correct information.
  • - Train your people never to share any confidential information with the models.
  • - Keep your people aware of the severe data implications of compliance violations so that they can handle models carefully.
  • - Provide end-to-end data encryption so messages in one-on-one or group settings remain private and leakage-proof.

ITSM Automation Strategy #11 – Choose your tool wisely

Choosing the right platform to allow ITSM automation is essential.

The market is flooded with a vast number of products. But which suits your budget, domain-specific needs, or offers intuitiveness are significant factors before you zero in on a product.

For example, if you want to start quickly yet seek efficiency, Workativ conversational AI can help.

Workativ is a no-code platform, which means it is easy for non-technical people to use.

With Workativ, IT leaders can implement workflows quickly for industry-leading use cases.

  • 1. Solve problems within business comms channels: Workativ provides a self-service portal within a channel where your people are – Slack or Teams. It is easy for everyone to raise a ticket and solve a problem.
  • 2. Easy hand-off to agent: Workativ ensures your ITSM has a human touch. Your users can connect with a human agent within a business comm channel when self-service reaches certain limits
  • 3. Knowledge AI: Get the best LLM or Generative AI properties embedded within Workativ to achieve ChatGPT-like automation capability for Q&A. Users can get summarized answers, including articles to support the integrity of answers provided.
  • 4. Analytics and report: Workativ provides visual analytics with its intuitive dashboard that displays reportings on time spent on tickets, issues resolved, tickets unresolved, etc. The data gives enough visibility to improve chatbot adoption and performance.

Schedule a demo today if you want to implement Workativ for ITSM automation.

Conclusion

ITSM automation is critical to your business success. Many leaders might think to de-prioritize or otherwise postpone the plan.

ITSM automation comes with practical solutions and potential benefits for your business, so you can help your people reduce time to minimize the impacts of events on your processes while enabling them to handle ITSM problems autonomously.

Other than the legacy system in which agents experience a tough time managing the exact tickets or are overburdened with ticket volume, automation makes their processes less labor-intensive.

If you are looking for a simple yet efficient ITSM automation platform, Workativ conversational AI allows you to gain business objectives and empower your people.

Do you want a free demo? Get in touch with our sales experts.

Auto-resolve 60% of Your Employee Queries With Generative AI Chatbot & Automation.

Deepa Majumder

Content Writer

Deepa Majumder is a writer who nails the art of crafting bespoke thought leadership articles to help business leaders tap into rich insights in their journey of organization-wide digital transformation. Over the years, she has dedicatedly engaged herself in the process of continuous learning and development across business continuity management and organizational resilience.

Her pieces intricately highlight the best ways to transform employee and customer experience. When not writing, she spends time on leisure activities.