How to provide a great service desk experience across generations

So, how does all this impact service management? 

It is vital that we consider these differences when designing a service solution for our colleagues, customers, and other stakeholders. We should consider how different generations want to interact with services alongside other factors, such as changes in working practices, how service desks can impact productivity, and the effects of unnecessary context switching. Organisations must align their strategies with evolving work practices, the impact of service desks on productivity, and the consequences of unnecessary context switching. Asking, 'Are we delivering the most appropriate service to our users to help them maximise their efficiency and effectiveness?'

Let's take a look at six key considerations that will help you answer this question.

1. Maintaining flexibility is key

When it comes to providing exceptional service, flexibility is super important. Whether at the individual, the team, or the organisation level. We're seeing a big shift from office-based to remote work. With this massive shift towards remote work, service management must adapt accordingly. Our survey showed that over three-quarters of respondents think hybrid or remote work positively benefits a business. So, it is crucial that service management supports this shift by transcending physical boundaries and supporting team members,  regardless of their location or time zone.

While Gen Xers and baby boomers might not have adapted as easily to remote working as younger generations, nearly 60 percent of the respondents surveyed don't want to be office-based. We have to move away from people who can go up to somebody at their desk during the office day to get a result. Instead, we must provide services to all employees irrespective of the time of day and where they work. 

As a remote-first organisation, The Adaptavist Group is already reaping these benefits, which means we're perfectly positioned to help other businesses make the shift with their services, too.

2. Prioritising productivity

We should no longer measure productivity based on the Victorian notion of how many hours a person toiled at the factory. According to our survey, over 80 percent of employees think their productivity should be measured (at least in part) by the quality of their work. In the realm of service management, empowering users with self-service options and prompt issue resolution is paramount. This means we must provide the processes and tools that help them deliver quality outputs. 

In a service management context, that certainly includes an element of shifting left, encouraging self-service, and ensuring timely resolution of problems and requests. Again, these solutions can't depend on the user being in an office at a particular time. If someone has a deadline today and requests a tool and has to wait until tomorrow to use it, that's impeding their productivity. 

This is where service-level agreements (SLAs) for delivering these services can greatly impact determining what is important, what needs to be done and when. SLAs can help organisations identify priorities—should tasks that support team member productivity be prioritised over other business processes? Does this change if a team member is being measured on their productivity? Service-level agreements (SLAs) are pivotal in delineating priorities, ensuring that tasks crucial for team member productivity are accorded the necessary attention. Have you reviewed your SLAs recently to ensure they are still valid for your organisation?

3. Embracing diverse communication

Acknowledging the diversity in communication preferences is crucial. Whether it’s a Baby Boomer reaching for the phone or a Millennial resorting to instant messaging, service desks must cater to various generational trends. Multi-channel communication, encompassing email, Slack, or Teams portals, ensures inclusivity and accessibility for all users. 

One of the big things our survey highlighted was that different people prefer different tools, and there are generational trends. I'm a Baby Boomer; if I have an urgent message, my go-to tool of choice is the phone. My daughter is a Millennial; hers is instant messaging and never a phone call. You need to think about how you can service those different generational groups. 

When booking a restaurant, I'm being driven away from my chosen tool—lots of restaurants now only accept online bookings. But when it comes to our service desk tools, they need to be responsive to different hardware, and communication needs to be multi-channel, including email and a Slack/Teams portal, so people can get in touch the way that suits them best. Most service desks don't have automated phone systems, but if you are helping people over the phone, you need a system that accurately captures and logs that information as well.

Accessibility extends far beyond generational preferences—you must be able to service all your customers and employees' needs to ensure you're not excluding any members of your target audience. As your organisation grows, you should continuously monitor your service solutions to ensure they remain inclusive and accessible to everyone.

Whatever communication methods you include should feed into a single comprehensive back-end that ensures everyone receives the same information and level of service.

4.  Streamlining information access

Time is precious; team members shouldn't squander it by searching for information. That information should also be easy to access. Most survey participants said they spent one to two hours a day looking for information. So if you can even reduce that by 50 percent, you're onto a winner! That is a massive amount of time across the year, across all your employees. Spend time now to ensure that information is accessible to the right people, at the right time, in the right way. By optimising information accessibility, organisations can significantly enhance efficiency. Investing in solutions that facilitate easy retrieval of relevant data pays dividends in saving time and bolstering productivity.

5. Minimising context switching

Every tool switch equates to lost productivity. By consolidating services into a single, user-friendly interface, organisations can mitigate the detrimental effects of context switching. It has been widely reported that every time people switch tools, it can take up to 20 minutes to return to being fully productive. Our survey found that 50 percent of respondents lose time task switching, and more tools mean the greater the need to task switch. That is why it is so important for your service desk to deliver everything employees need in one place. To save time, yes, but also to ensure your employees have a single point of interaction where they can go with all their needs.

An example of critical failure in this respect was the recent British Post Office scandal, where two helpdesks were run for Post Office employees: one by Post Office Ltd and one by software provider Fujitsu. When subpostmasters noticed problems with the software (notably, that it was creating false shortfalls in their accounts), they were bounced back and forth between the two desks—forcing them to context switch without anyone taking ownership of resolving the problem. Learning from these failures underscores the importance of a coherent service management approach prioritising the end-user experience. There are many more lessons to learn from the Post Office Scandal, so watch out for a future blog on this topic.

The key here though is a service management solution that works clearly and coherently for the end-user. Consider whether your service tools are set up around your internal team structure or the end-user's experience.

6. Embracing asynchronous work

'Many organisations that embrace a healthy remote work environment tend to favour "outcomes and results" over Facetime and keyboarding time.' – From Productivity is not a place, a special work management report from Adaptavist and ITWC Research.

All of the above feeds into one thing: many organisations have adopted asynchronous ways of working (60 percent, according to our survey). There is no longer that direct connection between two people at a point in time. It is important that we think about how we effectively and efficiently deliver services to our colleagues, customers, and anybody else who needs them—when they need them in ways that support this new workplace landscape.

With asynchronous work becoming the norm, it's imperative to rethink service delivery strategies. Organisations must adapt to this evolving landscape by ensuring that services are available whenever and wherever they are needed, supporting the diverse needs of their workforce.