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White Paper: Transforming workplace support
Conversational AI and Process Automation to modernize employee (IT & HR) support
Background
There is a rapid uptake in the digital transformation of customer service due to an ever-increasing competitive battle to acquire and retain new customers. For A-level customer service, digitization is necessary for which companies do not see the budget as a constraint as any modernizing initiatives are associated with costs and stakeholder priority.
The internal customer(employee) should have equal importance, if not more, than an outside customer. Successful leaders in organizations drive a culture with the belief that if you take care of your employees well, they will provide better customer service, and in-turn help companies grow. What is essential is to understand is that any user of a service, whether internal or external, expects quick, simple and efficient access to service.
If there is one takeaway for business from the recent pandemic (Covid-19), it should be that the focus should shift from high monetary budgets for providing excellent customer support to providing the same exemplary service to employees as well. The back-office services for employees have become highly relevant during the pandemic to not only keep the lights on for business but also ensure growth of the business. Having the workforce produce results, working remotely, without prior preparation is no small feat and what's astonishing is how companies are prepared to face this new way of working. A system that reinforces timely support is of priority, and businesses would be wise to maintain the balance and construct of providing excellent support for internal employees. They would, in turn, be able to support external customers wholeheartedly.
Employees see a gap in workplace support
IT decision-makers are unable to make the cause for an active digital transformation initiation in the internal help desk. Companies see IT support as a cost center; therefore, there is a reluctance in business to provide a more significant upgrade in technology and tools, to what is believed as a cost-center in the organization. The gaps in support may also have an attribution to the lack of change in the mindset of the decision-makers who fear and are skeptical about the performance of a new model and the difference that it would bring to existing processes. The downside of this way of thinking is that most workplaces have an influx of the Gen-Z workforce, and outdated technology and centralized processes hampers employee experience as it does not cater to the new generation workforce who have adapted to the latest technology in their personal lives.
IT support models have been designed decades ago and continue to exist in systems. Over the years, as the culture changes, the models cease to be effective and need a reconstruct to cater to the new cultures that come into workplaces. Teamwork is only as effective as the tools and process that enable them to do more in less time.
Lack of new solution decelerate productivity and act as barriers, impairing task handling effectively, and causing frustration. Support agents have tremendous pressure with the volumes of tickets to process, and the teams are understaffed to handle high volumes. The time taken to resolve issues causes friction between support and the end-user, causing a dip in productivity.
Businesses have only focused on external customers for many years. Companies have only adopted to customer needs but not employee needs. It is imperative to put the line of business first if they want employees to deliver and meet customer expectations. Organizations typically believe support services are working, and their users are happy, but users view IT services as slow, frustrating, and less than helpful.
Studies reveal that organizations that create good employee experience gain the advantage of retaining engaged employees who are also satisfied with their job. Engaged employees take positive actions toward achieving the organization’s goals and interests. Organizations should make the shift from calculating metrics based on merely output and SLAs. A well-thought and delivered experience may be the key to accelerated productivity and a spike in output metrics.
The workplace needs change
The challenges that many organizations face today are manifold. There is an over-reliance on traditional tools that do not scale outside of companies, tools that did not collaborate with each other, clear business continuity rules, culture, and reliance on heavy centralized delivery model. The presence of tools in the workplace seemingly makes work easy but is causing more problems due to the archaic construct of these tools. Traditional tools are proving to be ineffective in this new world that has dawned on workplace.
One such causality from all these is workplace support, specifically IT & HR Help desk. The goal of the traditional IT help desk was only to restore services as quickly as possible, resolve and manage incidents, coordinate resolution and handle calls, questions, complaints and remarks through conventional support channels such as phone calls, and emails. The Help Desk continues to function on disconnected processes, increasingly complex service lifecycles, and ineffective management of critical operations. Disconnected systems that do not speak to each other is a setback for organizations when they are on the path to growth.
It’s safe to say that Help Desk operated in a rather reactive model. It was also largely due to the mind set of keeping the lights on rather than pursuing radical innovation or digital transformation. It is imperative that to scale support, teams need technology solutions with modern capabilities, and the ones that can adapt to a progressive mind set. Many IT organizations are yet to ditch the use of heavily standardized technologies that lie in the opposite spectrum of employee needs.
The change must happen, but technology alone is not the answer. It’s just a start.
At the workplace, beyond IT, the HR and other functions are gaining authority in providing employee support. HR applications are no longer standalone tools and are integrated into the more complex systems in the organization to facilitate overall business governance. HR challenges mainly lie in the areas of adoption of new systems, developing streamlined processes, and user-friendliness of self-service portals.
Whether for IT or HR, the need to switch to new way of getting things done quickly and swiftly is evident in the digital era. Still, most software vendors cater to the elite companies that can match high purchase costs and setup and maintenance of these tools. With the arrival of cloud services, enterprise-grade software is available to small and mid-size companies as well. IT support plays a significant role in workplace support, and companies can leverage the benefits of cloud software to meet the IT support needs without having to invest in much of the underlying infrastructure.
The digital era poses many organizational challenges. Still, the changes make it worthwhile due to better outcomes such as internal process optimization, employee satisfaction, and visibility and benefits to the company in servicing its biggest asset, its employees.
Conversational AI for workplace support
Conversational AI is the new entrant in the workplace. Workativ Assistant is an AI powered advanced chatbot with process automation combined, that helps employees self- resolve issues without a slip in productivity. This capability enables the assistant to deliver the relevant answers to help users resolve issues on their own.
HR another area Workativ helps. For instance, it can automate onboarding process without the need to involve HR staff. The advanced chatbot can help the HR department collect necessary information about new employees and execute new employee process.
All the essential tasks, such as adding new employee account, provisioning email, password, and giving access to applications, are completed in no time. Faster processing via the chatbot helps onboard new employees within few minutes.
Workativ is the only solution that harnesses AI capabilities combined with automation to offer a complete help desk automation for organizations. The advanced chatbot can become tailored to suit an organization’s needs, and employee user-experience improves when issues and requests get resolved instantly.
Modern workplace support can enrich the employee experience
In the new era, a digital workplace ensures a balance between employees, process, and tools. Cloud applications with AI and automation have become the top priority for organizations that want to leverage technology to support modern work requirements. SaaS applications are beginning to see a wide range of adoption, as they are a lot more agile and scalable. With the recent pandemic situation, the digital workplace is seeing the imperative need to allow the workforce to connect from anywhere with access to the applications used in the workplace.
IT & HR support teams are at the frontline of creating delightful experiences. And teams that have tools that removes hurdles and creates a better experience have highest chance of success. Here are some benefits of using the right tools:
- Removes friction caused by delays.
- Increases employee and staff productivity.
- Improves metrics - metrics such as the average handling time, first-contact resolution rate, and targets.
- Enhances the well-being of IT agents - Based on a survey, majority of respondents feel that working in IT is adversely affecting their well-being. The right technology can remove the weight of repetitive issues and lighten the workload for IT support teams.
Today, IT support can benefit the most from AI and Automation. IT teams are swamped with tickets every day and repetitive requests. An AI-powered help desk can cut out the tedious work, increase the productivity and move the needle towards satisfaction on the job.
The definitive value-add with AI and Automation for help desk teams is to automate mundane, repetitive tasks and deflect tickets away from the help desk with the help of AI.
The AI help desk becomes a two-pronged solution whereby it enables employees to get answers and resolutions faster, and it reduces the number of tickets that reach the IT support team. For example, employees have adapted to looking for answers in documents to 'reset password' to check policies or to troubleshoot an app. With an AI combined with process automation, would be able to resolve the issue itself without going over multiple documents. Having easy access helps them operate at their full potential. The key to a more efficient and IT service experience for employees lies in implementing smart technology for faster resolutions.
AI and automation in the workplace can be a business advantage, primarily when used in the right ways. Organizations see:
- Greater productivity
- Improved Employee experience
- Increased execution speed
- Lower workplace support cost
The flexibility to work from anywhere, equipping employees with the right tools and easy access to solutions, form a foundation for creating a positive employee experience.
Workativ Assistant:
Why it can deliver modern workplace support
No-code software
Workativ is an agile, easy-to-use platform that requires no coding and enables admins to build an advanced chatbot for workplace support in a short time.
Quick deployment
No long hours needed to get the software setup. Being a cloud SaaS software, Workativ brings you AI and Automation solution that you can implement in less than 60 mins. Our 30-day free trial gives you ample time to learn the ropes and have a solution that employees can begin using it right away.
Seamless integration
The advantage of our cloud software is that it is not just a standalone software that is reactive to employee queries. Workativ integrates with all popular applications used in workplaces to create a delightful support experience.
Built-in process automation
With an in-built process automation engine, Workativ can process and deliver an instant resolution of workplace requests. Workativ Assistant is a proactive automation solution having a rich integration with applications that taps into creating workflows to auto-resolve issues.
Marketplace with ready-to-use automations
Delivers a quick jumpstart with one-click downloadable automations, so you won’t have to start from scratch. Workativ does the heavy lifting to ensure that building an intelligent chatbot doesn’t take you much time. Browse the marketplace, and if you don’t find the automation you’re looking for, we create it for you.
Intelligent, conversational
The Workativ platform is powered by AI to help you create an intelligent digital assistant for your workplace requests. The NLU machine on the platform makes the assistant smart, conversational, and interactive. The assistant can identify the intents of a user in a conversation, comprehend its meaning, take the appropriate action, and respond in a language that the user will understand.
Integrates with chat channels
Workativ Assistant works perfectly on your organization’s chat channels like Slack and Teams. There is no other external application, or a separate chat app required to deploy the digital assistant.
With AI and automation capabilities, Workativ Assistant brings real value in terms of being a future-proof, sustainable, low-cost, timely, and automated ticket resolution system for IT support and HR support.
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