Although IT service desks now form the backbone of the digital workplace, organizations rarely design them to operate remotely before the pandemic. However, with the inevitable rise of remote work, IT service desk analysts and the business consumers they serve are forced to adjust their traditional support networks.

The pandemic provides an excellent opportunity for infrastructure and operations (I&O) leaders to upgrade the evolution of IT service desks and drive innovation and development. Even if we slowly return to the office, the new IT service model will enable enterprises to fully embrace the hybrid workplace of the future.

I&O leaders can respond to the future in four main ways, ensuring that important IT support channels remain open, while the service desk evolves and adapts to changing company needs.

In the case of lock-in types, on-site collaboration is more complicated—or even impossible—IT service desks must be staffed in new ways. Therefore, your main goal is to build a remote version of the IT service desk analyst workstation.

For IT service desk analysts working remotely, they need to:

In general, IT supports service level agreements (SLAs) that lack flexibility. Generally, the target response and resolution time for high-priority requests is 1 hour, while the target response and resolution times for medium and standard requests are 4 hours and 8 hours, respectively.

Despite limited resources, business consumers who use remote services and home devices often need more support. However, with increasing demand and limited employee availability, they are struggling to support unfamiliar applications and devices, and SLA goals are often not achieved.

Rather than focusing on target resolution time, it is better to provide a new interim SLA describing the response strategy that the I&O support organization will adopt.

Reconfirm and determine the key business functions and IT services they use, and clearly define which business consumers will use them.

Finally, make sure that your IT service desk fully understands this information and is ready to use it to correctly prioritize incidents and requests—whether they are working remotely or in the office.

Inevitably, the introduction of new services and technologies has led to a sharp increase in the demand for IT support. Although it may have soared when the pandemic began, demand is expected to remain strong, especially when workers return to the office.

Providing users with multiple level 1 contact channels—such as real-time chat or email for low-priority issues—is an effective way to reduce the demand for phone-based channels. In addition, this method helps to keep the phone lines open to solve critical problems. They are also easier to access remotely.

You can further reduce the pressure on the IT service desk by initiating or accelerating level 0 contact channel programs (such as self-service and peer support). One of the main benefits of getting peer support through a collaborative platform is that the entire organization can access questions, answers, and answers—it becomes a source of knowledge written in business languages. This approach also alleviates the needs of the IT support team by transferring repetitive questions from level 1 support.

Consider the long-term and anticipate changes brought about by the changing work environment. Ultimately, the IT service desk will need to resolve the backlog of low-priority tickets that have been shelved-this puts long-term pressure on its ability to resolve and keep up with upcoming issues. As flexible work becomes the norm, bring your own device (BYOD) will also become commonplace.

This provides an excellent opportunity for companies to introduce peer support programs, as employees will rely on other support channels when they return to the office and may be more self-sufficient in solving IT problems when working remotely.

In the past few years, peer support channels have become the most popular support channels. However, I&O leaders have been slow to catch up with this trend. Those who have launched collaborative support programs are better prepared to deal with the effects of the pandemic. I&O leaders must embrace emerging trends by investing in ITSM’s collaboration capabilities, and plan for upcoming changes in business consumer needs when using and accessing IT support.