IT Service Desk can be completely transformed thanks to Virtual Agents.

IT Service Desk transformation with Virtual Agents

While most companies focus on navigating through their digital transformation, providing a good service desk has never been more important. But human and financial resources are stretched thin. 

IT specialized Virtual Agents  are therefore showing their value in helping to reduce the cost of support, improve IT service management agility and increase employee productivity. Here are examples of how IT Virtual Agents  (that go beyond simple chatbot capabilities) can help you turn your IT Service Desk challenges into Business opportunities.

From drowning in the digital transformation wave to sailing it

According to IDC, Digital transformation-related software spending will total $253 billion in 2019. IT Service Desks now have the responsibility to absorb these new service desk software deployments linked to the massive digital transformation strategies. 

As a result, ticket volume is soaring (61% of support organizations saw an increase in ticket volume in 2018 – HDI report) and are impacting the cost of ticketing and the IT service desk (estimated to more than 300 € per business user by Econocom, a large IT Service Provider).

Virtual Agents  can make the IT service Desk leaner and more agile to help end users not only to stay afloat but sail that technological tsunami. Virtual Agents, loaded with specialized IT service Desk Knowledge bases and self-service portals, can reduce the volume of calls to support operations (-30% on average for Konverso’s clients), save budget through automation (-30% again) and improve the employees’ satisfaction (+80% according to our 2019 surveys). 

Our Virtual Agent  is accessible from traditional channels such as phone (in this case we talk about Callbot) or digital channel like Microsoft Teams (in this case we talk about Chatbot). Access through phone increases the ROI as 70% of employees still contact their IT Service Desk via phone, despite the availability of digital self-services (according to a survey performed by Konverso).

IT service desk transformation with virtual agents

AI, automation and Virtual Agents  are also a way to implement the best practices recommended in the ITIL framework, to aligning Information-technology service delivery with business goals: “Resources of all types, particularly human resources (HR), should be used to their best effect.

Eliminate anything that is truly wasteful and use technology to achieve whatever it is capable of. Human intervention should only happen where it really contributes value.”(Source: AXELOS, “ITIL Foundation, ITIL 4 edition”, 2019)

From password pusher to productivity enabler

When events turn to incidents and snowball to problems, the value of the IT helpdesk lies in its ability to serve the users quickly and protect the company’s bottom line. But password-related calls are costing too much time and energy from top-skilled employees. 

According to Gartner, a staggering 40% of help-desk calls relate to password reset or account lockout. A self-serve password reset solution can save 70% to 90% of the help-desk costs related to passwords.

Self-services are not only demanded by office workers but also welcomed by IT professionals. Not only could callbots remove the password burden carried by Service Desk specialists, but also be proactive to teach end-users the best security practices and guide them to training materials.

Virtual Agents : more than just for ITSM

As our client Computacenter summed it up, “ a standalone chatbot doesn’t bring a lot of value, the bot needs to be part of an ecosystem in order to deliver real business benefits.” (full Computacenter testimonial). 

A pure player Virtual Agent  solutions like Konverso’s gives you an out-of-the-box solution pre-loaded with API connectors to other ITSM platforms (ServiceNow, Serena, GLPI…), RPA solution (AutomationAnywhere), Digital Workplace suites like Office 365, SSO, Knowledge Management and more.

And because interconnecting Virtual Agents  will make them even more effective and relevant, Konverso has joined the Alliance for Open Chatbot, a working group whose ambition is to lead the development of open-source chatbot interface. With this Open Chatbot approach, your IT Service Desk will always be one step ahead of what the next digital technology waves might bring!

Finally, ITSM licences costs also follow a growing trend that forces IT professionals to look for solutions to maximize the investment in those tools while keeping all their future technological options open. Integrating a Virtual Agent t solution to your existing ITSM solution is not only a way to extend the capacities of the ITSM with automated support, it is also the right approach to get value beyond the ITSM.