Navigate the challenges of remote work with the help of Jira Service Management conversational ticketing.
The shift to a remote workforce
It’s hard to believe we’re already over two years into the global pandemic that completely transformed the modern workplace. Amid the remote work surge, digital-first firms globally grew fast and hired extensively.
These changes are not a passing fad. In fact, distributed, global workforces are here to stay. Consequently, technology has taken center stage in enabling teams to support employees from afar.
HR And Operational Challenges
This hybrid-remote workplace shift has put employee and IT support teams at the heart of successful organizations. They bear the weight of adapting to new work methods amidst technology, engagement, and collaboration challenges.
Back when employees worked from a central office, important HR activities such as onboarding, orientation, and off-boarding took place in person. For example, If a new employee had an IT issue when setting up their laptop, they walked over to the IT service desk for in- person help. And, if they had questions about their benefits package, they had a quick face-to-face meeting with the HR team.
Now these interactions happen across digital channels, requiring entirely new processes.
Speed (days to hours for resolution)
Productivity (faster resolution = increased efficiency)
Reduces Volume (fewer overall tickets)
“Working remotely definitely put a big burden on our IT team, especially our help desk. However, the burden was not just on the IT team; it was also on our people systems team and our financial systems team.”
Increasing Help Desk Complexity
Many teams tried to establish a virtual help desk to handle these requests. But, they’re often a siloed, confusing, and burdensome experience for both employees and agents. An IT leader at one major global enterprise described having six different portals at his company for IT, business systems, financial systems, and people systems. Each portal had separate sign-ons, separate forms, and could have up to 10 different screens. For remote employees, navigating this system was inefficient and time-consuming.
With traditional, standalone solutions for service desk setups, help-seekers need to know exactly where to look and in which portal to ask their questions. Employees regularly turn to Slack or Microsoft Teams to get help. Ultimately, bombarding IT and People Ops teams with requests scattered across DMs and various channels, without an efficient way to track and manage them. Meanwhile, employees are used to other digital services and experiences, expecting fast assistance and resolution.
That’s where Jira Service Management conversational ticketing comes in.
A Typical Help Desk Environment Looks Like:
- Multiple help desk portals with multiple sign-ons employees must remember.
- Multiple lengthy forms to complete, with different forms for each service type.
- Highly siloed; seemingly every part of the organization has a different intake process.
Conversational ticketing with Jira Service Management:
An effective solution for remote workers
What Is JSM Conversational Ticketing?
Conversational ticketing is support that happens in real-time between a support professional and a user on a chat platform. For example, Slack or Teams. It’s fast, human, easy and it makes getting support feel less like a hassle. It’s also sometimes known as conversational support, conversational service, or Slack ticketing.
JSM Conversational Ticketing: Meet Your Team Where They Already Work
Businesses utilize Jira Service Management’s conversational ticketing to enhance service desks, streamline virtual communication, and boost employee satisfaction. Available in all paid Jira Service Management Cloud plans, the conversational ticketing chat feature includes the ability to:
- Capture Jira Service Management requests directly in Slack and Microsoft Teams.
- Bi-directionally send and receive internal comments and public replies between Slack or Teams messages and Jira Service Management.
- Edit ticket fields and transition tickets from your conversations.
The Benefits Of Conversational Ticketing In Jira Service Management
- Simplicity: Simpler and easier for employees to access help due to single sign-on and no context switching; mobile device access further improves ease of use.
- Speed: Much faster resolution of tickets. From days to hours.
- Productivity: Faster resolution of tickets leads to increased employee productivity.
- Satisfaction: Faster resolution of tickets leads to increased employee productivity.
- Volume: Fewer follow-up tickets, meaning fewer overall tickets.
The more empowered and the better the experience we provide to our employees, that’s going to help them from a productivity standpoint.
JSM Conversational Ticketing Case Study
During the pandemic, this large hightech enterprise company rapidly shifted its workforce from in-office to remote work and increased hiring to meet demand for the company’s products. The company had significant needs for onboarding and other HR related activities.
While the company used Slack widely, its IT and help desk activities were not linked with Slack, making it hard to create tickets or resolve requests quickly within the chat tool. By integrating Jira Service Management with Slack, the organization dramatically simplified and improved its:
- Help desk support for remote employees.
- Automated workflows
- Request resolution speed..
It [integration of conversational ticketing with Slack] was a perfect solution for our business case.
Going Beyond IT
The high-tech company in the case study above started with conversational ticketing in IT. But, has since expanded these service desk practices to other areas of the organization such as, HR, finance, and business systems. Throughout the organization, employees love having the ability to ask questions and get help directly from the place where they’re already working.
Best Practice: Provide An Enterprise-wide Solution
- Pick one area, such as IT, for proof of concept.
- With success, expand the solution to provide one universal solution for the entire enterprise. Including HR systems, financial and business systems, and more.
- One simple solution provides a seamless, satisfying employee experience.
Get started with conversational ticketing
Reduce complexity and meet work where it happens. Integrate your service desk with chat tools to improve simplicity, speed and satisfaction.
To learn more how Jira Service Management and conversational ticketing works, contact an Atlassian Solution Partner.
Get a no-obligation initial assessment
Whether you’re trying to solve technical problems, implement new technology tools and strategies, or improve efficiency, SPK and Associates can be a key part of your strategy. We can provide a free, no-obligation initial assessment on almost any technology or engineering situation. Contact us today at (888) 310-4540 or info@spkaa.com.
