Last year brought unprecedented changes to the workplace. However, no aspect of the business world was impacted more by these changes than the field of IT. More people than ever are either working from home full-time or at least part of the week. This requires IT solutions that give these employees the tools and services they need to stay productive.
With every new tool and service your company integrates, the demand for IT support grows. As a result, help desk trends go hand in hand with most IT trends. So, how have the latest developments affected IT support trends in 2021?
Current Help Desk Trends in 2021
In a way, 2020 allowed many IT service desk providers to reassert their value to organizations and employees. IT support staff helped their clients migrate to home offices, and technicians helped workers understand and troubleshoot their new solutions. In short, managed service providers were vital for business resilience in 2020.
But what’s different in 2021? Here are the future help desk trends we’ve seen so far this year.
Help Desk Services Need To Be Optimized
Going forward, there needs to be a change in the ways support is delivered. Vendors need to reflect on how to provide better, faster, and cheaper support. Additionally, IT support has to be about more than just efficiency and cost savings as workplace technology changes. All of this can be accomplished if managed service providers (MSPs) optimize their services to fit the new work-from-home landscape.
More Proactive Resolutions
One of the leading managed service provider trends in 2021 has been an increased focus on the internet of things (IoT). This refers to a network of devices embedded with sensors, software, and other technologies that allow for connections and data sharing with other devices. With these, support teams can monitor performance and catch impending issues before they cause downtime.
Improved Employee Experiences
Just like how your clients want great customer experiences, the same is true for your employees and IT support. The better support your team receives, the more productive they can be. The need to maximize the potential of the workforce on both ends is expected to shape help desk services in the coming months. Specifically, it requires IT service desks to be optimized in a way that allows for fast response times and quick resolutions.
Service Evolution
The more technology takes a central role in your business operations, the more help desk providers need to evolve to satisfy your needs. Traditionally, the help desk is associated with actions like resetting passwords or installing programs, but that won’t be enough to solve modern IT challenges that involve remote work issues. As a result, we are seeing a push to expand the type of services IT support offers.
More Personalized Service
Everywhere you look, businesses are implementing consumer-centric practices that make their services feel customized. It’s only a matter of time before clients expect the same equal quality of service from their IT support. Given the situation, we’re seeing more vendors leverage technologies, like artificial intelligence, to create a more personalized service experience that’s consistent across all channels.
Increased Use of Insights
Reports and analytics have always been a vital part of help desk operations. The more the technician knows, the better the solution they can provide. Currently, many help desk providers are starting to leverage big data technology.
By definition, big data is large data sets that are analyzed computationally to reveal patterns, trends, and associations. Big data technologies are the tools that capture these immense data points for analysis. The ability to study a higher volume of data generated in IT operations empowers IT teams to make more informed decisions, helping you achieve optimum performance levels.
Inclusion of Cognitive Automation
Automation is often used to alleviate workloads by automatically performing simple repetitive tasks. Going a step above simple process automation, help desks of the future may start relying on advancements in machine learning technology to implement cognitive automation.
Cognitive automation is the application of machine learning technologies to automation. This is a solution that can take over duties that would otherwise require manual labor. As a result, cognitive automation speeds up the time it takes to identify and solve your IT issues.
A Growing Need for More Advanced Skills
Technical changes to the workplace mean new skill sets are required to meet modern business demands. Whether you want to switch to a new cloud platform or you’re having an issue with your business phone, you expect your help desk technicians to have the knowledge to help.
This is forcing MSPs to provide support that can handle more advanced tasks. At the same time, as more routine duties become automated, the people behind the desk are freed up to take care of more sophisticated tasks.
Get the Help Desk Services You Need At CTMS
Whether you’re a small or medium-sized business, CTMS delivers the affordable, industry-leading IT services you need to keep your business running. With our cutting-edge technology and innovative solutions, we help you overcome any IT challenge. As your partner, we’re dedicated to helping you achieve your goals.
If you need IT support, we’re ready to help. We treat every request as a top priority, and we won’t stop until the job is done. Rest easy knowing you have a team of experts who are committed to your success.
Contact us today to learn more.
