As we approach the festive season, it’s important to strike a balance between enjoying the holidays and maintaining optimal service delivery. While Christmas time often brings a reduced workload, it’s an ideal opportunity to focus on planning and strategising for the upcoming year.
Let's explore how to best utilise your ITSM solution during this period to keep support processes running smoothly and pave the way for a successful new year.
1. Optimise support processes for the festive period
During Christmas, it's essential to ensure your service desk remains efficient and responsive:
- Update your service desk hours: Clearly communicate any changes to your support hours on your website and automated phone system. Ensure your team's schedules are updated in the ITSM tool to reflect any holiday shifts.
- Manage staff availability: Update staff availability and on-call schedules within your ITSM solution to ensure there are no gaps in coverage.
- Monitor and automate processes: Leverage automation features within your ITSM tool to streamline incident management, request fulfilment, and other critical processes. Monitor systems proactively to address potential issues before they escalate.
2. Use downtime to review performance and identify improvements
The quieter holiday period offers a chance to analyse your service desk's performance and identify areas for improvement:
- Review metrics and KPIs: Use the reporting capabilities of your ITSM tool to review key performance indicators and identify trends. Investigate areas where performance has declined or can be improved.
- Evaluate user satisfaction: Gather user feedback from the past year to understand pain points and areas where users would like to see improvements. Use this information to prioritise enhancements for the upcoming year.
- Enhance your knowledge base: Analyse common queries and incidents to identify gaps in your knowledge base. Use downtime to create and update knowledge articles, ensuring your self-service portal is as useful as possible for end-users.
3. Plan strategies and goals for the upcoming year
With a clearer view of your ITSM performance and user needs, use this time to strategise and set goals for the new year:
- Develop improvement initiatives: Based on your performance analysis and user feedback, develop specific initiatives to enhance your service desk operations, streamline processes, and improve user satisfaction.
- Set measurable goals: Establish clear and measurable goals for the upcoming year. Define key performance indicators and targets for your service desk and individual team members.
- Align with organisational objectives: Ensure your ITSM strategies are aligned with your organisation’s overall goals and objectives. Collaborate with other departments to understand their needs and identify opportunities for cross-functional initiatives.
The Christmas period presents a valuable opportunity to fine-tune your ITSM processes, reflect on your performance, and plan for the year ahead. By maintaining optimal support during the festive season and strategically utilising downtime and change freezes, you can ensure your service desk is well-prepared to tackle the challenges and opportunities of the upcoming year.
