The future of service desk management is all about harnessing zero-touch automation. This drives efficiency, scalability, and enhanced service quality, transforming how organizations manage and resolve issues.
Zero-touch automation leverages advanced technologies to perform tasks and resolve issues without human intervention. This transformative approach is revolutionizing service desk management. It allows human resources to shift from repetitive, reactive tasks to proactive, complex tasks that require creativity and empathy.
For MSPs, this automation means enhanced customer satisfaction, lower operational costs, and support for exponential growth.
Defining Zero-touch Automation
Terry Irons
Traditional service desk automation relies on static workflows or scripts that need specific conditions to function effectively. With zero-touch automation, automated processes and workflows operate without human interaction to complete tasks or resolve issues.
This minimizes or eliminates the need for human intervention. Instead, it uses advanced technologies like AI, machine learning (ML), and natural language processing to autonomously handle tasks and resolve issues.
For example, in traditional service desk settings, a script might handle password resets based on predefined steps. However, if a user encounters an unexpected issue, a human agent intervenes.
Zero-touch automation, on the other hand, can use AI to understand the context and resolve complex issues without needing human assistance.
Key Benefits for MSPs
By implementing automation, MSPs can unlock several significant advantages that transform their service desk operations.
- Enhanced Customer Satisfaction: By eliminating the human factor in routine tasks, the consistency and reliability of the service desk operations improve. Automation reduces response and resolution times, and decreases errors. Issues are resolved swiftly and accurately, creating a more positive customer experience.
- Lower Operational Costs: Reducing the need for human involvement is more cost-effective, and automation lets service desks handle a higher volume of tasks without proportional increases in staff. Resources normally dedicated to manual task management can be redeployed to optimize workforce efficiency.
- Supporting Exponential Growth: Service desk operations typically require a linear increase in human resources to match the growth in service scope. Automation allows these operations to support exponential growth with the same human resource capacity. As the demand for services increases, the automated systems can handle the additional load without more personnel.
Real-world Examples
A common challenge in service desk operations is ticket triage. This is where human resources assess incoming tickets and get them to the right teams in a timely manner to meet service level obligations. Often assigned to less-experienced personnel to manage costs, this process can suffer from delays and errors. This means it can negatively impact response times and customer satisfaction.
Meanwhile, zero-touch automation uses AI to eliminate delays and reduce errors for more efficient and effective service delivery.
For instance, AI-driven systems can automatically categorize and prioritize tickets based on content and urgency and are available 24×7 with instant response. AI-driven systems can triage the ticket at first call. Then, these systems can perform diagnostics and remedial tasks to increase first-call resolution rates, reduce resolution times, and reduce the cost per ticket. Plus, these systems can learn from historical data and change conditions over time to improve accuracy and efficiency.
Future Outlook
Automated systems predict potential problems based on patterns and trends. In this way, they result in proactive issue prevention rather than reactive problem-solving. A proactive approach is a hallmark of zero-touch automation.
As AI and ML technologies evolve, the capabilities of automation will expand. This will result in more sophisticated and nuanced handling of service desk tasks. For example, natural language processing can facilitate more intuitive and accurate interactions with users to improve user experience and reduce the burden on human agents.
With advancements in technology, service desk operations will increasingly rely on automation. This will allow skilled workers to focus on complex tasks requiring creativity and empathy.
In this new era of service desk management, zero-touch automation offers a strategic advantage for MSPs by enhancing customer satisfaction, reducing costs, and supporting growth.
Terry Irons is chief operating and information security officer at Pia, an AI-led automation platform for MSPs and IT service desks. He is a seasoned technology expert with over 30 years of experience in IT technology and services organizations.
Featured image: iStock
