My AI journey started about two years ago at SupportWorld Live. Speaking with vendors in the space and attending some sessions showed me the value of integrating AI into the service desk, but I was struggling to figure out if the time was right, if my company was ready, if the technology was mature enough and if our service desk operations were mature enough to take it on.
Here are some things I’ve discovered along my journey that may help you, too.
I’ve been looking at two possible use cases for AI on the service desk:
- Virtual agents (agent that interacts directly with your end-users)
- Return on investment is the deflection of “routine” issues coming into the desk.
- There will likely be some one-time costs associated with getting this set up, not only to your ITSM, but also to any other system that you want the agent to access (like your HR system, for example). Be sure to budget for all of these one-time costs.
- You need a solid knowledge base that your end users and the virtual agent can access to get information. In my organization, this is a separate non-technical knowledge base written in a way that my end users can understand it. It is not the same knowledge base that my service desk agents use.
- Think carefully and strategically about how you’re going to roll this out and how your end users will interact with it. For example, most of my end users are in restaurants, which means that they are not tied down to a PC in an office. For them, they need the agent loaded on a tablet so that they can carry it with them to the source of an IT problem as opposed to desk workers that could just access the agent using their own PC. This means that I also have to budget for those mobile devices in my plan.If you roll a system out and it does not work as you intended or your end users don’t find it convenient to access or the agent doesn’t meet their needs, they simply will not use it and you will have wasted a lot of money. You only have one chance to get it right!
- Internal facing AI (interacts with your service desk agents)
- Return on investment is a lowering of incident handle time by having the agent point your service desk agents to relevant knowledge articles, draft communication to end users, assist in summarizing long incidents and proposing next steps in their resolution.
- You need a solid and up-to-date technical knowledge base for your service desk agents to use.
- We’re going to pilot this before we fully sign up with a vendor. I want to verify my return on investment criteria and make sure that my agents find this helpful before we make a long-term commitment.
For either way you start, be sure to understand from your AI vendor what administrative work is required to maintain their system, how much time it takes on a regular basis, what skillset is needed to do the work and if there are any extra charges for ongoing maintenance. Then, add all of this into your cost model so you aren’t surprised later.
Lastly, there are data privacy and security concerns here that need to be closely examined before you start. As an example, hooking one of these systems into your HR system potentially exposes Personally Identifiable Information (PII) data that, if it gets in the wrong hands, could be a real disaster. Additionally, look at how the AI vendor intends to use (and possibly store) queries sent to ensure that any data it has of yours is well-secured and you know what they are retaining. I recommend getting your IT security and Legal experts engaged early before you get too far in the process.
There is a lot of potential for AI use in the service desk environment. However, you have to do your homework, speak with multiple vendors in the space and know what you’re getting into so that your implementation goes smoothly, your end users are happy and your company receives its return on investment.