Some notes and resources form the round table discussions

1. Round table discussions

2. Knowledge Management - is crowd
sourcing the answer?

3. • For almost all organisations at both round tables, the biggest obstacle
seemed to be time
• Emphasis on time saving in the long run, although initial investment needed
• Template knowledge item can be made to save time and thinking power!
• Training is vital, currently many organisations do not invest in knowledge
training
• Coaching is also vital to keep the momentum going. Assign coaches or knowledge
champions in each team
• Template knowledge item also can aid with training, make it fool proof and straight
forward
• Trust in operators needed as a foundation. This is cemented through
training and coaching
• Make knowledge sharing a habit
(cont.)

4. • Common mistake made by organisations, knowledge management is a
separate process from BAU
• Integrate knowledge into every process, starting with incident management
• Involve every operator in the process
• A knowledge base is never complete, perfection is not always possible!
• Allowing many people to work on knowledge base as possible helps it remain as
current and up to date as possible
• Idea of sharable knowledge created by end users discussed – ultimate
crowdsourcing
Further reading:
The changing roles and responsibilities of the Knowledge Manager
Practicing what we preach - how we implemented Shift Left

5. Staying customer-focused in a
cost-centred world

6. At the roundtable there was a good balance of private and public sector organisations. We
discussed doing the following:
• Create standardised processes for everything you do. This leads to an increased level of
visibility both for your Operators and your end users.
• Everyone in the service desk teams should answer the phone the same, be professional.
Some customers actually ask the same question at the end of every telephone call, such
as “are you satisfied with the service you received today?”
• Customers also use ideas such as dedicated feedback forms and using the feedback
boxes at the bottom of each ticket. This is a fast, cost effective way of finding out what
you’re doing well/not so well and allows you better visibility into things you can change to
make the service you provide better.
• Customers also hold regular drop-ins which allow them to ask questions about how to use
the Self-Service Portal/to inform them of the services on offer within the portal. Be careful
that these don’t turn into a chorus of “please will you help me fix this?” though.
(cont.)

7. • You could also send feedback forms to Managers every so often (e.g. once a month) to
attain both qualitative and quantitative feedback from your end users.
• A low-cost way of demonstrating the services you offer to your end users could also be in
the form of a visual map of where everything is on the portal. Or, you could ask members
of the service desk that have a keen interest in making videos or promotional materials if
they’d like to try their hand at putting together informative content.
• Some customers have even created a survey software specifically for TOPdesk. If you’re
a larger organisation who can invest in this resource, it could be very worthwhile in the
long-term. You could alternatively use a free tool like Survey Monkey, or, TOPdesk’s
Survey Management module.
• A proactive way of training operators is to use the Knowledge Base to create specific
articles that will guide analysts on how to do things in a ‘train the trainer’ manner (whereby
the knowledge is passed down from the author of the knowledge item).
(cont.)

8. • Some customers do prioritise who they will respond to first (VIPs) but do try and be
democratic on the whole to ensure a fair level of service is given to all. Most end users
just accept that there will be a bit of hierarchy.
• A key point we noted during the roundtable was that making yourself available to your
customers is very beneficial. Sometimes, the more open you are about your availability,
the less your end users will feel the need to contact you.
• Finally, make sure you’re measuring your Customer Effort score, which is an indication of
how loyal our customers are.
Further reading:
What’s Your Customer Effort Score? (Gartner)
6 ways to improve your Service Desk customer service

9. Continual Service Improvement
with limited resources
Further reading:
Best practices for your IT Service Management department

10. Implementing a Service Catalogue
Further reading:
Making your IT Service Catalogue customer centric

11. On-boarding new departments and
Shared Service Management
Further reading:
How to implement Shared Services for HR, IT and FM

12. Some resources from the workshops:
Mapping Customer Journeys for a better Service Desk user experience
Agile Service Management: the complete guide