One Size Doesn’t Fit All: Choosing the Right Service Desk Software

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect the perspectives of IIBA.

Selecting a service desk platform can seem straightforward. The business analysis professional can feel they’ve been assigned to an easy project (at long last). After all, service desk software is well understood, with plenty of leading vendors in the market.

The project team can fall into the trap of thinking it’s just a matter of talking with a few vendors and picking software that fits. They may also assume that if a tool works for internal users, it also works for external customers.

Unfortunately, the one-size-fits-all approach can lead to a failed implementation, one that frustrates agents, drives costs up, and alienates end users struggling with ticket logging and resolution. The challenge for the business analysis professional is to identify the nature of the service relationship and use this to help the organization decide on the best fit.

Core definitions

I’ve used some terms in this article to provide generic meanings. The definitions are below.

• Agent. The IT staff, customer service representative, or partner responsible for resolving issues.
• CSM. Customer Service Management.
• End user. The person requesting assistance.
• ITSM. IT Service Management.
• OOB. The Out-Of-the-Box standard software features provided by a Commercial-Off-the-Shelf (COTS) product.
• Service desk. The capability in an organization responsible for recording and resolving user requests.
• Ticket. The record containing the information and actions taken to resolve the issue.
  
  

Choosing between ITSM and CSM service desk software

Dimension	ITSM	CSM
Primary end user	Internal employees	External customers
Relationship model	Employer–employee	B2C, B2B, or B2B2C
Asset/service visibility	Company-owned assets; user sees own tickets only	Purchased services; visibility tied to account and relationship
Identity verification	Directory service / HRIS auto-fill, employee ID	Portal login, security questions, one-time PINs
Channel strategy	1–2 channels (portal, phone)	Multi-channel with omnichannel view (portal, phone, email, chat, walk-in)
SLAs	Often internal, phased in	Contractual, monitored from day one
Licence pressure	User base stable and predictable	User base volatile — can scale fast
Customization risk	Contained internally	Escalates into public arena

The following checklist presents a framework for strategy analysis and solution evaluation, summarizing the typical requirements and constraints a business analysis professional must elicit to help an organization determine its most suitable platform. 

Understanding the fundamental differences between providing service desk software for internal users versus external customers helps you target the most effective course of action and next steps.

1. Identify the audience and relationship hierarchy

The first task is mapping the relationship between the organization and the end user. The relationships are important to understand because if you’re dealing with customers (rather than employees), the tickets typically need to be mapped to associated accounts and/or service contracts. Sometimes this is the only information you’ll need to help you determine if you're looking for ITSM or CSM software.

• Are end users employees in your organization? This typically indicates that you need an ITSM service desk solution.
• Are end users customers external to your organization? This typically indicates a CSM service desk. External relationships come in a few common shapes:
  • B2C. Your organization deals with individual customers.
  • B2B. Your organization handles business contacts that represent a company.
  • B2B2C. A third party (for example, a franchise or partner) manages end-customers on your organization’s behalf.
    
    

2. Identify the asset and service visibility

What can the user see? This is also a strong indicator of whether you’re dealing with CSM or ITSM. When the visibility of the ticket involves multiple people, this starts to indicate that you may need a CSM solution.

Employees see and use company-owned assets (laptops and software). They might also log tickets directly associated with the organization, such as requiring access to one or more buildings. An employee can only view tickets directly related to them. Customers see services or products they have purchased or are entitled to use. There’s also the visibility factor in terms of who can view which service or product depending on the relationship.

For example, Customer A never sees the assets or service names of Customer B. However, in a B2B2C relationship, can the middle partner see only their customers or customers in a particular service area? Can a B2B contact see all tickets logged by their colleagues? 

3. Determine the agent’s needs

What does the agent need to be able to create, view, and manage a ticket? When dealing with external customers, the available features tend to become more important.

Agents require an omnichannel view, ensuring that no matter which channel a stakeholder uses for contact, every interaction is recorded on a single ticket. This is important for both ITSM and CSM but becomes more critical for CSM when more channels are on offer (for example: walk-in, phone, email, web portal, and chatbot).

How many times has this end user contacted the service desk for assistance? The contact history must be easy to view. Again, for ITSM this is useful, but for CSM it’s vital. An agent should be able to quickly locate information about any prior customer contact.

Apart from the name of the end user and information about who they work for, as well as the assets/services associated with them, the agent may also want the ability to add notes about the end user’s behaviour. For ITSM, this is generally not required, as difficult employee behaviour toward agents isn’t tolerated within an organization. However, when dealing with customers, an agent may require the ability to warn other agents. This means that when the customer contacts the service desk, all agents have the information necessary to manage the customer as effectively as possible.

Identifying the end user also effectively divides the ITSM and CSM solutions. For an ITSM solution dealing with employees, the internal user details can be picked up from a directory service (such as Active Directory / Azure AD) or HRIS systems and automatically included on the ticket. They may also only call on a dedicated phone line with a private number and use identification that includes information such as their employee ID. 

For external customers, even if they’re recorded in your CSM service desk software, you’ll still need some way to verify that person’s identity. This may be through the customer logging into the web portal, but you'll also need stricter identification procedures when other channels (such as the phone) are used. For example, this includes challenge or security questions, coupled with one-time verification prompts or PINs pushed to their phone.

4. Produce a list of KPIs and SLAs

Define what success looks like. In some cases, an external customer relationship may involve service level agreements (SLAs) being monitored as part of a formal contract. This would require much more attention to ensuring KPI- and SLA-related requirements are implemented from day one, whereas an internal service desk could implement monitoring later.

5. Review the channel strategy

Identify how your organization wants end users to contact the service desk. The channel choices are typically web portal, phone, email, and live chat. For external customers, you would typically provide multiple channels. For the internal service desk, it may be only one or two (for example, phone call and an internal portal). The number of channels, the relationships, and the associated costs will also help to determine if you’re dealing with ITSM- or CSM-focused solutions.

• Portals are cost-effective and support 24/7 self-service. They’re ideal for B2B, B2B2C, or employees.
• Phone and email can produce high overhead and, in the case of a phone channel, high costs. Self-resolution is easier than picking up the phone. However, when dealing with external customers, most will automatically defer to a phone call or email if finding the information is too difficult or the information is out of date or incorrect.
• Live chat is only useful if the chatbot or AI can effectively answer questions and doesn’t drive traffic to the service desk. For live chats with agents, the agents can run the chat from the open ticket that’s been created for the end user. Organizations typically only use live chat when dealing with external customers.
  
  

6. Emphasize that a knowledge base (KB) is crucial

The knowledge base is critical for self-service and for providing timely information to the agents. KB articles are essential for all users. However, articles for employees are usually only accessed from within the organization’s portal, whereas external customer articles may be a combination of public availability on a website with other articles available with a login.

For both sets of users, the requirements are:

• Articles can be tagged as internal only (for agents) or for end users
• The agent can convert a resolved ticket into a draft KB article
• There’s a dedicated KB feature inside the service desk software
• There’s a specific role for maintaining the articles in the KB
  
  

7. Avoid customization

This applies to both ITSM and CSM service desks. Modern platforms are built on industry best practices. It’s doubtful that your organization is any different from the rest of the world in terms of how it manages the ticket workflow. Although most service desk software lets you configure different workflows, that workflow can become unnecessarily complicated and take time and money to implement.

Wherever possible, implement standard OOB workflows. Explain to the agents before implementation that you would like to leave them as standard for one to two months and then change them after they’ve been used for a while, rather than changing them before the service desk software is live. In most cases, the agents will be fine with a standardized workflow, and you’ll rarely need to start modifying it. If the workflow is complex, it’s more likely that it’s identifying service desk processes that are problematic rather than the standard workflow being unable to cater to your situation.

This is especially important when dealing with external customers. For an internal user base, workflows can be changed, and problems with that workflow are restricted to the organization. For external customers, workflows should be changed with caution and with the understanding that any problems may escalate into the public arena.

8. Do the math on the licences

Licenses are typically either per agent (a fixed subscription for the people resolving the issues) or based on end-user metrics, either tiered by total user counts or consumption-based by tickets or portal transactions.

End-user-based licensing can look cheaper on paper but only holds if your user base stays flat. The same applies to consumption pricing when portal or KB usage stays low. Although the per-agent cost (the subscription model) can seem prohibitive, these licences typically allocate a certain number of end users to an agent for free. Depending on the number of agents, this can allow your end user base to scale without affecting your costs. 

You’ll need to determine if your end user base is likely to increase or if the end users are likely to exceed the allocated amounts in the contracts regularly. For internal users, this tends to be a straightforward calculation as the user base tends to remain the same and may never increase (or only increase slowly over time). External customer bases never remain static; they can decrease, remain stable, or rapidly increase. 

Conclusion

While this list is extensive, I hope this article helps your organization decide on a service desk platform that accounts for an organization’s growth and sets up the right structure for the right audience. The rule of thumb is that when dealing with external customers, you’ll need to account for more complicated issues such as service contracts or account visibility, business relationships, ticket visibility, channel strategy, and agent ease-of-use.

Although an ITSM service desk solution also has its own challenges, it generally won’t be set up to deal with the complexities of managing external customers, and it tends to work with more straightforward issue logging and resolution management with a clearly defined user base.

 

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