Given that IT service desks account for around 4% of the average company’s total IT spend, there is a lot of pressure on leaders to justify their use of resources. But due to the widespread impact your ticketing systems have on daily operations, it is difficult to quantify the true return of any service desk software investment.
This article helps IT leaders create a more accurate measure of their service desk ROI – and identify how to set up their ticketing system to produce more value for the organization.
Expect to learn:
- How end-user experience impacts your service desk ROI
- Why integrations can be as important as the software itself
- What the easiest way to increase ticketing adoption is
How to Measure the ROI of Your IT Service Desk Software
The standard equation for ROI is:
Net Return minus Initial Investment times 100 = ROI
But this calculation fails to capture the true ROI of your IT service desk software for two basic reasons.
First, there are multiple complicated quantitative factors which are routinely overlooked. These include:
- Labor costs: The number of techs you need varies depending on the efficiency of your ticketing software and the size of your organization.
- Implementation costs: These can include both labor costs associated with the onboarding process and downtime due to disruptions.
Second, there are several important factors that are difficult to quantify. These include:
- Overall productivity impact: Does your software facilitate faster use of technology? How would productivity be affected if you switched providers?
- Employee experience: How does your system affect how long end-users wait for tickets to be resolved and the level of communication they receive? Does it encourage higher ticketing adoption?
- Tech experience: What is the net impact on techs’ experience of the ticketing system? Does it affect retention and productivity?
- Opportunity costs: What other solutions and features are you missing out on? And how would those features impact everything else we’ve discussed thus far?
Ultimately, this leads many IT organizations to overlook several important aspects of their service desk software when calculating ROI – and therefore miss out on opportunities to maximize its value.
3 Underappreciated Factors for Service Desk ROI
1. Future-proofing
From technological innovations to changing workforce requirements, there is always something new to consider when designing your IT service desk. But many ticketing solutions are unable to adapt to these changes – forcing you to either miss out on these new possibilities or change your entire system.
Adaptability and future-proofing should therefore be important considerations when choosing your IT service desk software.
2. Integration
Many ticketing systems can integrate with other apps and programs to unlock new features and create a seamless user experience. This can fundamentally change the way both techs and end-users interact with the service desk – and therefore alter the level of value provided.
3. Analytics
Reporting is a key part of any effective IT system, but most ticketing systems provide relatively limited data. With the right analytics integrations, you can generate more granular data and produce actionable insights that enable greater efficiency throughout the entire IT ecosystem.
4 Ways to Improve Service Desk ROI
1. Emphasize tech experience
From reducing churn to improving the level of service your teams provide, even a small improvement to your tech’s daily experience can have a big impact. A few simple ways to achieve this are by introducing automation features, embedding SOPs in your tickets and utilizing smart integrations to make communication quicker and easier for your techs.
2. Empower end-users with self-service portals
Many of the most common problems IT services desks face can be solved by introducing a self-service knowledge base. This lessens the burden on techs and reduces your ticketing queues, while also empowering end-users to solve their own problems and get back to work faster.
3. Increase end-user adoption
The fastest way to increase the total value produced by your IT service desk is to encourage more employees to use it. While this might require extra education for your employees about how and why tickets are used, in most cases the best way to increase adoption is simple: make it easier to issue a ticket.
4. Accelerate ticket resolutions
Few things are more indicative of the overall ROI of your service desk software than the speed with which tickets are resolved. From reducing IT-related downtime to increasing ticketing adoption, finding software that enables you to accelerate ticket resolution and address IT issues sooner is the single best way to ensure you are achieving maximum ROI.
Deliver Deeper Value for Your Organization with DeskDirector
From automating your ticket routing to unlocking unique integrations with Microsoft Teams, DeskDirector enables organizations to improve employee and tech experience, access unrivalled data analytics and consistently introduces new cutting-edge tech.
The result? 20% higher ticketing adoption, 4x faster ticket resolutions and an IT service desk system that directly improves your organization’s bottom line.
Want to try it for yourself?
