Top 21 Service Desk Automation Tools to Streamline Your Workflow

Discover 21 effective service desk automation tools to streamline your workflow. Enhance your support process and operational efficiency.

Aug 10, 2024

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Top 21 Service Desk Automation Tools to Streamline Your Workflow

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Imagine a customer facing a serious issue with your product. They contact customer service KPIs, but your team takes a long time to respond. When they do, the reply must be more generic and resolve the problem. After several frustrating exchanges, the customer eventually gets the help they need, but their trust in your business is already damaged. This example underscores the importance of service desk automation. Automating customer support can improve ticket resolution times, leading to better customer satisfaction and experience. This article will discuss how service desk automation can help businesses improve their support operations and customer experience without incurring extra costs.

ChatBee.ai's AI customer support solution can help you achieve your automation objectives. Implementing AI automation for your service desk can optimize ticket resolution times, enhance customer satisfaction, and improve overall customer experience.

What Is Service Desk Automation?

Service Desk Automation

Service desk automation refers to the application of technology to improve and optimize the effectiveness of IT support services. These can include simple workflows to the more enhanced innovations such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML).

By automating repetitive and time-consuming tasks such as:

Ticket creation

Routing

Status updates

Routine troubleshooting

Service Desk Automation reduces the need for manual intervention. This speeds response times and improves overall service quality. Some examples are the following:

Chatbots for initial user interaction

Automated workflows for incident management

Self-service portals that empower users to resolve issues independently

Service Desk Automation aims to:

Optimize resources (human, not-human, costs, etc.)

Minimize human error

Deliver a more consistent and satisfying user experience

Why Automate Service Desk Processes?

Service desk automation aims to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of IT support. It can help organizations manage increasing service demands while optimizing resource use, improving service quality, and enhancing the user experience.

Automation can reduce ticket volume by empowering users to resolve issues independently via self-service portals. These can help users find information quickly and return to normal operations without engaging IT. If there’s an existing ticket for the issue, the system can:

Automatically update it based on the user’s findings

Even resolve the problem without human intervention.

Service desk automation improves processes for both users and IT.

The Benefits of Service Desk Automation

Service desk automation offers a variety of benefits for organizations, users, and IT teams. Here are some of the key advantages:

Reduce Costs

Automating repetitive tasks can significantly reduce operational costs by lowering the resources required to manage IT support.

Optimize Resources

Automation helps organizations better use all available resources, including human and technical. It reduces the dependency on human intervention for routine tasks, enabling staff to focus on more complex issues that require personal attention.

Improve Response Times

Automation speeds up service desk processes by eliminating unnecessary delays associated with manual intervention. For example, automated ticketing can instantly create, and assign tickets to the appropriate personnel without human involvement.

Enhance Accuracy

Another key benefit of automation is its ability to improve accuracy and consistency. Automated workflows reduce the likelihood of human error, helping organizations deliver better service quality and improve user satisfaction.

Deliver a Better User Experience

Service desk automation improves IT efficiency and enhances the user experience. By streamlining processes, issues can be resolved faster, and users benefit from self-service options to resolve problems independently.

Ticket Resolution

Automated Ticketing System

Customer Service Knowledge Base

Slack for Customer Support

Ticket Triage

AI For IT Support

Ticket Handling Best Practices

Automated Email Response Customer Service

AI Ticketing System

7 Major Benefits of Service Desk Automation

Service Desk Automation

1. Enhanced Effectiveness: The Efficiency of Automation

Service desk automation helps support teams save time and money by automating repetitive operations like:

Knowledge management

Incident resolution

Ticket routing

They can concentrate on complex problems and strategic projects, increasing output and effectiveness.

2. Quick Response Times: Improve Customer Satisfaction with Fast Resolutions

Businesses may react to client questions and problems more quickly by automating support processes. Using advanced tools like:

Support chatbots for immediate support

Knowledge base and automated ticket triage

Organizations may quickly resolve issues

Cutting down on wait times and raising customer satisfaction levels

3. Enhanced Scalability: Maintain Quality Support During Rapid Growth

When companies expand and customer service needs rise, manual procedures can become too complex. Automation provides constant service delivery even during peak times by scaling quickly to meet increasing workloads. This scalability allows organizations to adjust to shifting client needs without sacrificing quality.

4. Improved Customer Engagement: Provide Personalized Support at Scale

Service desk automation improves the customer experience by offering personalized assistance, expedited resolution times, and real-time support. While IT chatbots provide:

Real-time support

Self-service portals enable customers to find solutions independently

Improving customer satisfaction and loyalty

5. Lower Operational Costs: Save Money by Reducing Manual Work

Organizations can reduce operational expenses related to manual support operations by automating repetitive tasks and optimizing personnel allocation. Businesses can save a lot of money without sacrificing service quality by using fewer resources to handle support tickets and emergencies.

6. Efficient Problem Solving: Predictive Analytics for Proactive Support

Automating service desks and predictive analytics helps organizations see possible problems early on and take action before they become serious ones. By analyzing past data and patterns, businesses can improve service reliability by:

Anticipating customer needs

Implementing preventive measures

Minimizing disruptions

7. Reliable Service Quality: Ensure Consistency by Reducing Human Error

Because automation standardizes repetitive, manual processes and removes human error, it guarantees consistency in the provision of services. Regardless of whether the support agent processes the request, organizations may maintain high standards for service quality throughout all user interactions by using preset workflows and automated procedures.

Efficient AI Integration for Enhanced Support Operations with ChatBees

ChatBees focuses on optimizing Real-Time Agent Guidance (RAG) for internal operations, such as customer and employee support. The software boasts accurate responses and easy workflow integration through a low-code, no-code approach.

ChatBees' agentic framework enhances response quality, enabling operations teams to handle higher query volumes without needing DevOps for deployment and maintenance.

Boosting Response Quality and Efficiency with ChatBees' Agentic Framework

This improves predictability and accuracy, enabling these operations teams to handle more queries. No DevOps is required to deploy and maintain the service.

Try our AI customer support software today to 10x your customer support operations. Get started for free, with no credit card required. Sign in with Google and start your journey with us today!

10 Service Desk Automation Ideas for Better & Faster Performance

Service Desk Automation

1. Automated Ticket Routing: Get Support Tickets to the Right Agents Faster

Does your business need help manually assigning tickets among agents? Are your

support agents assigned tickets that should have been assigned to someone else?

If all these situations seem like a typical day at work, you must go for an automated service desk. With automated ticket routing, support tickets are assigned to relevant agents most capable of handling them.

Streamlining Ticket Management with Automated Assignments for Improved Efficiency

Automated ticket assignment ensures that every support ticket is in safe hands. Technical support issues are assigned to agents with the expertise to manage them, and billing or returns related tickets are assigned to agents with relevant knowledge about return policies and procedures.

Most service desks use the round-robin ticket assignment feature to automatically assign tickets to available agents. This ensures that tickets are evenly distributed and not piled up with a single customer service agent.

2. Enable Email Forwarding: Merge All Your Customer Support Emails

As a business, you might have multiple customer-facing email accounts like:

Support@

Info@

Contact@

You need the right service desk software to merge all these email inboxes into a single dashboard. Whether you use email services like:

Gmail

Yahoo

Outlook

Office 365

For your business, you can set up email forwarding to your service or help desk inbox. With email forwarding, all your customer support emails will be automatically redirected/forwarded to your help desk inbox.

Once you have all your support requests under a single platform, your customer service representatives will easily prioritize urgent support tickets, add tags or labels, and ensure no single ticket remains unresolved.

3. Automated Alerts & Notifications: Keep Everyone in the Loop

To automate support and offer seamless customer service, you need to notify your agents and customers. What is the purpose of notifications in a service desk?

Notifications are predefined automated alerts, messages, or responses sent to customers and staff members when a certain condition is met. They can be sent as emails or text messages and enable users to track the progress of a ticket.

Essential Notifications in Automated Help Desk Software for Efficient Communication

Automated help desk software provides multiple conditions for sending and receiving email notifications. Here are some popular types of notifications:

Auto-response to Customers on New Ticket Creation

Alert to Customer on User Response

New Ticket Notification

Alert to User on Customer Response

Alert Received by users on Internal Note

Ticket Assignment Notification.

4. Escalate Incidents Automatically: Resolve Complex Issues Faster

Every customer wants their issues resolved at the first contact by a single agent. Given the complexities of some issues, it is only sometimes possible.

Your agents must escalate tickets to higher reps when they need more expertise, knowledge, or authority to handle a customer issue alone. Manual ticket escalation can create more problems than it solves.

Automated Ticket Escalation: Streamlining Issue Management and Ensuring Effective Resolutions

Your agents might not know the steps to take to escalate an issue or to whom they should escalate it. It is imperative to have an automated process that escalates major support incidents to the right people.

You can create ticket escalation rules that automatically escalate tickets to the appropriate members in your operational hierarchy. If a customer requests a refund, it can be automatically escalated to the customer service manager with the authority to initiate refunds.

5. Leverage a Knowledge Base: Help Customers Help Themselves

Creating a self-service knowledge base is one of the best service desk automation ideas. The knowledge base is a centralized hub for creating, storing, and sharing relevant customer information.

According to a Microsoft study, around 77% of customers have used a self-service portal to resolve their issues. A knowledge base can boost your customer service process in the following ways:

Customers can resolve their primary issues on their own

It can help you reduce your ticket volume and save the valuable time of your agents

Ensure customers have a smooth and delightful self-service experience

To further improve the customer experience, you can optimize your knowledge base for keywords

This will help users easily find self-help articles or FAQs related to their issues. Automatically recommending help articles based on their search history will enhance the self-service experience.

6. Use Canned Responses for Faster Replies: Improve Team Efficiency

Drafting a fresh response for similar customer requests can be a productivity killer. An automated service desk allows you to create thousands of canned responses to save valuable time. But what are canned responses?

Canned responses are predefined messages customer service agents use to respond to similar customer issues. Your agents can:

Type the responses once

Save them

Reuse them

To offer swift assistance to customers. Modern help desks come with pre-created canned responses that you can edit for convenience and requirement. Agents can:

Add a title to each canned response

Choose the inbox

Search for particular canned responses in the search box.

7. Automated Updates & Backups: Keep Your Data Safe

Are you constantly worried about the security of your ticketing system? How do you ensure you are using the latest version? Automation holds the right answer. Web-based or online help desk systems are known for their automated security updates. This means you do not need to look for security updates online or worry about buying an updated software version.

Automated Security and Data Backup: Ensuring Continuous Protection and Reliability

Security and software updates are automatically installed without any downtime. With regular security updates, your business can rest easy knowing your valuable data is always protected. Crucial data, such as:

Customer communications

Customer information

Ticket History

Shared responses and others

8. Emails for Ticket Rating: Measure Customer Satisfaction Automatically

Sharing automated emails for ticket ratings is one of the best automation ideas for the service desk. What exactly are ticket rating emails? As the name suggests, ticket rating emails are shared with customers to rate the service they have received.

Benefits of Ticket Rating

Such emails are automatically shared with customers once a ticket has been marked as closed or resolved. Here are some top benefits of ticket rating:

Assists in capturing valuable customer feedback

Helps in measuring the quality of customer service

Helps in identifying the proficiency of your agents

Users can draft the email message and specify the time period after which the survey will be sent to customers. For super responses, you can also check out some customer service email templates.

9. Measure Performance With Automated Reports: Get Accurate Insights

Manually measuring the performance of your team can lead to:

Unavoidable errors

Biases

Improper analysis

Key Metrics for Help Desk Performance

With help desk automation, you can gather the right metrics and get a holistic view of your team's performance. Users can choose to receive automated reports on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis to track progress and improve performance. You can receive insightful reports on key aspects such as:

Total Ticket Volume

Number of Open Tickets

Average Ticket Rating

Average Resolution Time

First Contact Resolution.

With the right service desk tools, managers can automatically receive in-depth reports on their email addresses, while agents can get a quick snapshot of their performance from their dashboards.

10. Get In-depth Customer Feedback With Automated Surveys: Go Beyond Ticket Ratings

We have already discussed how sharing automated emails for ticket ratings can help you measure your service quality. But in the long run, is that enough? Sometimes, you need to capture in-depth customer feedback to improve your process further. Many help desks, such as:

ProProfs Help Desk

Have an in-built survey maker that allows you to design

Create

Share surveys with customers

Popular Survey Types for Measuring Customer Experience: CSAT and NPS

While the possibilities for sharing surveys are endless, most businesses use two popular types of surveys: CSAT and NPS. Customer Satisfaction Survey (CSAT) A CSAT survey can measure how happy customers are with your customer service process or with your company.

Such surveys can help you understand user pain points and build long-term relationships. Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys use a single question to measure the likelihood of customers recommending your business, product, or service to their friends and family. They use a 0-10 rating scale to help you gauge customer loyalty.

AI Customer Service Software

Ticketing System Workflow

Help Desk Process

Hubspot Ticketing System

AI Customer Service Agent

Real-Time Agent Assistance

Ticket Management System

Digital Customer Service Tools

Slack Ticketing System

Customer Service Automation Software

Help Desk Analysis

Help Desk Automation

Automated Customer Support

Top 21 Service Desk Automation Tools to Streamline Your Workflow

Service Desk Automation

1. ChatBees.ai

ChatBees' agentic framework enhances response quality, enabling operations teams to handle higher query volumes without needing DevOps for deployment and maintenance.

Boosting Response Quality and Efficiency with ChatBees' Agentic Framework

This improves predictability and accuracy, enabling these operations teams to handle more queries. No DevOps is required to deploy and maintain the service.

Try our AI customer support software today to 10x your customer support operations. Get started for free, with no credit card required. Sign in with Google and start your journey with us today!

2. Zendesk AI

Zendesk AI is specifically pre-trained in IT and customer service ticket data so you can use it immediately—no technical resources are required. Generative AI is built into agents' workspaces to provide them with helpful insights to speed up resolution times, such as:

Similar tickets

Relevant macro suggestions

Ticket summaries

Intelligent ticket routing ensures questions get sent to the right team. AI chatbots and intelligent knowledge bases help keep ticket queues manageable.

3. Help Scout

Help Scout is a service desk software solution that IT and customer support teams use. Help Scout’s features include multichannel support, allowing businesses to handle customer inquiries from different channels within the shared inbox. Users can also create prewritten responses for commonly asked questions to help agents respond to inquiries.

4. Jira Service Management

Jira Service Management is Atlassian’s cloud-based IT service desk software designed for:

Legal

Other internal support teams

Features include:

Conversational ticketing

Automation

Self-service

Incident management

Native knowledge base integrations.

A Confluence subscription is required to access the knowledge base integration.

5. Vision Helpdesk

Vision Helpdesk’s cloud-based service desk software allows service agents to plan, structure, and handle customer and IT support. The system is designed to automate service desk functions, including:

Change

Security

Service-level management

It also allows teams to automate ticket handling based on rule-based criteria.

6. Salesforce Service Cloud

Salesforce Service Cloud is a service desk solution on the Salesforce CRM platform, focusing on IT support and customer service. Agents manage customer requests from various channels—such as:

Phone

Social media

In a centralized workspace. The service desk uses Einstein, Salesforce's AI platform, to help Salesforce Service Cloud with:

Case routing

Sentiment analysis

Knowledge base suggestions

7. Hiver

Hiver is a service desk solution that integrates with Google Workspace and operates within the Gmail interface. This software allows teams to manage shared inboxes directly within Gmail.

The service desk application offers a ticketing system, enabling users to convert emails into tasks and collaborate within email threads. While email is the main feature, Hiver can integrate with other Gmail channels (like live chat or chatbots). Automated workflows handle tasks such as ticket routing and follow-up emails.

8. Freshservice

Freshworks offers a service desk called Freshservice, which assists teams in managing and resolving IT and customer requests. The service desk provides a shared inbox and enables teams to tag and collaborate on IT tickets.

Freshservice’s features include task automation, such as:

Outbound ticket notifications

Status updates

Hourly scans for action items

The platform supports native apps and integrates with third-party tools.

9. SysAid

SysAid offers a service desk solution for small and large enterprises. The service desk application features a modular design, allowing businesses to choose functionalities as needed. It has an interface for both IT agents and end users. Copilot's feature uses generative AI to automate tasks and personalize service experiences.

10. ServiceNow IT Service Management

ServiceNow IT Service Management is an IT service delivery platform for businesses. It aligns with the ITIL framework and has integration capabilities to create a custom IT ecosystem. Some of ServiceNow’s features include incident and problem management to minimize downtime and disruptions, change management for IT changes, and service request management for workflows.

A self-service portal allows users to solve problems independently, while chatbots automate basic requests. Performance analytics offer insights into IT service performance, and capabilities include:

Automation

Machine learning

Mobile Accessibility

11. Spiceworks

The Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk is free IT help desk software for small and medium-sized businesses and IT departments. Features include a ticketing system to manage user-submitted tickets, asset management to track IT assets, and a knowledge base.

12. GoTo Resolve

GoTo Resolve offers ITIL service desk software. When fully implemented, GoTo Resolve features a self-service portal where employees and customers can find the needed resources.

13. SolarWinds Service Desk

SolarWinds Service Desk offers a cloud-based solution for ITSM to improve IT support and workflows. The service desk application aligns with the ITIL framework, providing incident, problem, change, and release management approaches.

It features asset management to track:

Hardware

Software

IT assets

It also has service catalog management to define IT services for employees.

14. HubSpot Service Hub

HubSpot Service Hub is part of HubSpot's CRM platform and focuses on customer service. It features conversational ticketing using a shared inbox so agents can manage interactions from various channels. The platform integrates with the CRM to provide agents with customer context, such as interactions and purchase history.

15. HappyFox

HappyFox offers a service desk designed for customer support teams. It includes a ticketing system and shared inbox that captures requests from:

Voice calls

Live chat

Messaging apps

Social media

Web forms

Other channels

16. ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is an IT service desk platform from Zoho. Its on-premises and cloud-based IT services management system can help IT support teams manage IT services and IT assets. It features a ticketing system, a configuration management database (CMDB), and issue reporting through email, web portals, or mobile apps.

17. Desk365

Desk365 delivers a robust cloud-based ticketing system known for its user-friendly interface and seamless implementation. Packed with features like:

Efficient ticket management

Collaborative tools for teams

Automation

SLA capabilities

Desk365 empowers businesses to optimize their customer support operations, guaranteeing swift attention and resolution for every ticket.

18. Zoho Desk

Zoho Desk ticketing system facilitates seamless interaction between users and support teams via email, streamlining the process of ticket management within a shared inbox. This system empowers teams by providing tools to prioritize and promptly address customer inquiries. With features like progress tracking, Zoho Desk ensures efficient monitoring of ticket resolution.

19. ProProfs Help Desk

With the support of the ProProfs support desk's fantastic automation tools, your team can do more in less time. You can automate various processes to increase productivity and lighten the workload of your agents, from ticket routing to notifications and alerts.

A knowledge library that offers solutions through FAQ pages, guides, video tutorials, and more helps automate your support processes.

20. JitBit

JitBit is an IT help desk solution you can install on-premise or access via the cloud. The feature set is fairly basic and includes a shared inbox to manage incoming requests. It also includes some basic reporting and automation options.

21. Rezo

Rezo is a service desk add-on that can add functionality to an existing service desk. It can analyze voice and text-based conversations and help build automations to improve your customers’ experiences, all while saving your team time. It also has several tools geared at improving and tracking agent performance through AI.

How to Choose the Right Service Desk Automation Solution for Your Business

Service Desk Automation

Assess User Experience Needs

Choosing a service desk solution shouldn’t start with looking at the available tools and features.

The first step is to assess your organization's user experience needs. Create a list of the service desk's internal and external users.

Identify their pain points and the user experience goals of your service desk solution. If your IT team struggles with low employee satisfaction scores, look for features such as automation and AI capabilities that can help improve the employee support experience.

Evaluate Key Features and Capabilities

Not all service desks are created equal. As you evaluate your options, look for features and capabilities that will solve your organization’s pain points.

If your team receives a high volume of repetitive tickets, prioritize service desks with solid automation and AI tools. To improve the employee experience, look for features that enhance communication and collaboration, such as customizable portals and knowledge bases.

Consider Security and Compliance

As service desks collect and store customer data, it’s essential to consider security and compliance when choosing a solution. Look for service desk solutions with robust security features to protect your data. These features include:

User authentication and access control

Data encryption

Secure data storage

Think About Scalability

As you evaluate different solutions, keep your organization’s future growth in mind. If you choose a service desk that can’t accommodate your changing needs, you may have to switch to a different solution in a few months, which can disrupt your operations and hurt your team’s productivity. Look for service desk solutions that offer flexibility and can adapt to your organization’s evolving needs.

6-Step Guide on Effective Service Desk Automation & Deployment

1. Identify Repetitive Tasks: The First Step to Automating Your Service Desk

The first step to automating your service desk is to identify repetitive tasks that are excellent candidates for automation. If your support reps spend a lot of time responding to the same types of inquiries, such as password resets or product returns, these tasks are a good fit for automation.

2. Define Workflows: Mapping Out the Steps for Automation

Once you have identified the repetitive tasks, the next step is to define the workflows for each of them. This means mapping out the steps to complete the activity, from the initial request to the final resolution.

When a customer seeks a password reset, the process may include:

Authenticating the customer's identity

Resetting the password

Informing them of the updated login credentials

3. Choose an Automation Software: Picking the Right Tool for the Job

There is a wide variety of automation software options, so it's essential to find one that suits your specific needs and preferences. Whatever provider you choose, make sure the platform can create automated workflows triggered by specific events, such as a customer submitting a support ticket or a new user signing up for your product.

The ideal solution is for service desk software to incorporate automation features like Intercom. This way, your team can concentrate all their work in a single tool and provide an excellent customer experience.

4. Integrate Your Tech Stack: Connecting Tools for Seamless Automation

To make the most of your service desk automation software, you'll need to integrate it with your existing tech stack. This means connecting your support ticketing system to other tools, such as CRM, to ensure that data can flow seamlessly between them.

If a customer submits an inquiry, the service desk automation should be able to access their information from your CRM and personalize the response.

5. Train Your Support Representatives: Empowering Humans in the Age of Automation

Even with automation, your support reps will still play an important role in providing excellent customer service. It's important to train them on how to use the service desk software and handle customer inquiries that fall outside the scope of the automated workflows.

To truly maximize the benefits of automation, it’s crucial to ensure that your support reps are equipped with a deep understanding of your software's automation possibilities. By empowering them with this knowledge, they can actively seek out new automation opportunities as they navigate the ever-evolving landscape of customer service. With their expertise, your team can leverage the:

Power of automation to streamline workflows

Increase efficiency

Ultimately provides an even higher level of service to your valued customers

6. Regularly Update and Improve Your Processes: Keeping Automation Fresh

It's important to regularly review and update your processes to guarantee that they are still meeting your customers' needs. This may involve optimizing workflows, upgrading automation components, or integrating new tools into your tech stack. By staying agile and responsive, you can continue improving your service desk and providing customers with the best possible support.

Benefits of Using ChatBees for AI Customer Support

Boosts response accuracy and reduces the burden on your teams.

Empowers operations teams to handle a higher volume of queries without compromising quality.

Integrates seamlessly into existing workflows for a smooth transition with minimal disruption.

Enhances customer support operations without the need for complex coding or maintenance.

Transform Your Customer Support with ChatBees

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