7 tips to effectively promote your service desk

Why promote your service desk?

     Service desk implementation is a huge project that includes vendor selection, pilot experiments, and go-live process. This demands a lot of investment in terms of time, effort, and budget. It is imperative that IT support members plan for service desk launch activities well ahead of time. Service desk implementation demands behavioral changes in the way users generally communicate with the IT team. This, therefore, makes it essential in order to realize true business value, for overall IT success.

     A major challenge, however, is getting people to use the tool.  Moreover, the investment doesn’t receive sufficient support and recognition from the management. Therefore, it is crucial to promote the service desk to internal customers and plan for a big bang launch. Businesses usually take a lot of effort on designing and implementing the service desk but they often miss out on marketing it. Lack of awareness and preparation are the top reasons for the service desk failure.

     Marketing is a game changer for any product. It is critical to the internal success of IT Support. This post highlights the top 7 things you can do to promote your service desk effectively.

Internal IT marketing

1) Think of the service desk as a product

Prepare a Go-To-Market (GTM) plan before the launch. Service desk promotion is similar to Product Marketing which includes a list of GTM activities such as pre-launch, launch, and post-launch action items. It is important to understand your audience, their preferences, and the challenges they encounter before deciding on a promotion plan. Perform Beta Testing by selecting a specific user group to pilot the service desk. Select a service desk solution that is intuitive and easy to use for end users.

2) Prepare an awareness & communication plan

Communicating IT’s contribution to the business and employees is crucial. A proper communication plan enables effective marketing of IT. Set up a clear service desk mission & vision statement and communicate it to your users. Be available where your users are already present. For example, your intranet, enterprise social networks such as Workplace by Facebook, Yammer, etc. Announce major IT updates during your company’s All Hands meetings. Similarly, management buy-in is significant for IT’s success. This simplifies the approval process for infrastructure-related investments.

3) Publish collaterals

Prepare a service desk handbook for users to understand what it is used for, what the primary objectives are, and what benefits they will see. Promote the service desk in your internal newsletters, and distribute flyers and brochures. Create a slogan and logo for the service desk to promote it across your organization; this helps in better brand recall among employees. Prepare a service desk launch party by gathering all the employees. Work with the Internal Communications team to effectively promote the service desk.

4) Conduct training sessions

Set up demo booths to showcase your service desk’s capabilities. Agent and end-user training sessions improve the adoption rate. Prepare a productivity hack handbook with tips and tricks that make their jobs easier. Conduct workshops that include topics such as IT trends and thought leadership content. Easy-to-set-up service desk solutions like Freshservice do not require much external training. However, it is recommended that agents collaborate and learn from each other for effective ticket resolution. Let the service desk be accessible and available across popular channels in your organization.

5) Post-launch activities

It is the responsibility of the service desk team to share metrics and improvements across the organization. Share service desk success stories and end-user testimonials. It is recommended to review Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for continuous improvement. Sharing monthly status reports with the management highlights key projects and updates like the number of tickets received, tickets resolved and improvements. This provides transparency on what the IT team’s initiatives and goals are. Service reviews and customer surveys are conducted regularly to collect feedback regarding service satisfaction and service priorities.

6) IT catalog services

Publish a consolidated service catalog for the users to avail of relevant services seamlessly. A Service Catalog delivers an e-commerce shopping cart experience for the employees. As soon as new hardware or any IT service is added, employees get immediate visibility. An IT catalog facilitates marketing your service desk efficiently.  It provides a snapshot of services with a description, image, cost, and availability.

7) Brand your service desk

Putting a meaningful brand name on an IT initiative will help the IT team communicate the value in a memorable way. “CIO survey revealed that branding specific IT projects or services is among the most effective and popular marketing practices.” Branding the service desk builds positive associations in users’ minds and builds goodwill. Create a logo, brand message, or a slogan to increase awareness and gain attention from users. Brand building exercise is a continuous project that improves awareness and adoption over a period of time.

Summary

Every IT team member should also have a career in marketing. Often, the concept of marketing is overlooked by businesses and the IT function but marketing has to be an integral component of every internal department. Communicating your service offerings is crucial to achieving overall IT success. If you’re not already investing time in marketing within your department, start doing so immediately. Market your IT service desk for better results.