An Expert Guide to Optimizing ITSM in Jira
Learn from ITSM Expert, Kate Pawlak, how to optimize your ITSM operation
The following article is a summary taken from the key points presented at a workshop with ITSM expert Kate Pawlak from award-winning Atlassian Marketplace vendor, Appsvio.
Why do we need to optimize our ITSM operations?
Over the past few years, the Atlassian community has been fast to jump onto benefits of integrated ITSM features that have been brought to Jira.
However, many organizations have been so busy getting going with ITSM, that they have not taken a step back to review and optimize what they've implemented.
This leaves a big opportunity to improve customer service and make the lives of your service agents easier and less complicated.
Table of Contents
- Watch the Webinar 📺
- Building a Knowledge Base
- Enhancing Customer Experience
- Optimizing Service Agent's Work
- Managing Customer Information
- Leveraging Templates for Efficiency
- Have You Optimized Your Security? (from Revyz)
Building a Knowledge Base
One of the core themes of the webinar was the importance of knowledge in customer support. Building a self-service portal with a robust knowledge base can significantly reduce repetitive queries and empower customers to find solutions independently.
Confluence was highlighted as an excellent tool for creating and managing documentation, ensuring that customers have immediate access to the information they need.
Enhancing Customer Experience
To enhance the customer experience, it's crucial to provide comprehensive information on customer portals. This prevents unnecessary back-and-forth and speeds up the resolution process.
Announcement banners can be used to keep customers informed about wait times and other important updates.
Additionally, explaining workflows to customers helps them understand the status of their requests, and allowing them to edit requests enables them to correct mistakes and provide additional information without hassle.
“Be careful when using banners during self-service that you remember to switch them off and don't set false expectations of poor service
Stu Lees- during Q&A
Takeaways:
- Implement announcement banners on the customer portal to update customers on wait times.
- Provide detailed explanations of workflows to help customers understand the process.
- Allow customers to edit their requests for greater accuracy and efficiency.
Optimizing Service Agents' Work
The webinar also focused on optimizing the work of service agents.
Organizing service queues based on team priorities and skills ensures that the right issues are addressed promptly. Managing and defining queues precisely allows for efficient management of service requests.
Automation rules can merge similar tickets and manage incidents effectively, enabling agents to respond to multiple customers simultaneously during common issues.
Takeaways:
- Invest time to create precisely organized service queues based on team skills and priorities.
- Implement automation rules to merge similar tickets and manage incidents efficiently.
- Create templates for common responses to save time.
Managing Customer and Organization Information
Efficiently managing customer and organization information is critical for providing high-quality service.
Collecting and storing customer information allows agents to access relevant data quickly. Internal notes help teams share crucial details, and solutions like the "Customer and Organization Management" app facilitate the efficient storage and retrieval of customer data.
By allowing customers to provide additional information through the portal further streamlines the process.
Takeaways:
- Use the Customer and Organization Management app to store and manage customer information
- Enable customers to add additional information through the portal.
- Utilize internal notes to keep teams informed of important details.
Leveraging Templates for Efficiency
Creating response templates for common queries can save significant time for service agents. Issue templates ensure that all necessary information is captured in tickets, reducing the need for follow-up questions. Templates can be defined for entire hierarchies, from epics to subtasks, making it easier for agents to create detailed and informative tickets.
Takeaways:
- Develop response templates for frequently asked questions.
- Create issue templates to ensure comprehensive ticket information.
Summary
Optimizing ITSM processes is crucial for delivering exceptional customer service and improving agent efficiency. By leveraging both native features and additional apps, organizations can enhance their JSM experience.
Effective communication and a smooth flow of information between service agents and customers are key to achieving success in ITSM.
We encourage you to explore these strategies and continue learning about ITSM best practices.
To explore the apps and solutions mentioned in the webinar, check out the following link:
Appsvio on the Atlassian Marketplace
Follow the Appsvio journey on LinkedInWatch the Webinar: Optimizing ITSM in Jira
Final Word - Have You Optimized Your Security?
There is no doubt that the impressive growth of the Jira cloud environment brings a huge amount of capability to the modern IT service desk. With the end of life announcement of server products, the past few years have been a 'mad rush' for organizations to migrate to cloud and get their operations settled in.
Along with the opportunities identified to improve your service levels, customer experience, and the overall experience of your employees, there is another big opportunity that is commonly forgotten about.
That opportunity is to improve the security and resiliency of your ITSM environment. This is covered a little by our host, Stu Lees, in the webinar, where he brings up the following challenges with Jira cloud;
1. Jira Cloud Data is not automatically and regularly backed up - it is the end customer's responsibility to do this.
2. Attachments in Jira Cloud are not scanned for Malware.
These issues leave ITSM environments exposed to potential catastrophe from threats such as accidental deletion all the way to the ever-growing threat of cyber-attacks.
A Robust Security Platform for ITSM
Revyz offers a robust and enterprise-level security platform for your ITSM environment with the most comprehensive and deep backup and recovery available, as well as the incredibly useful features of;
- Configuration Management and Cloning
- Malware scanning of all attachments in Jira at time of backup
- Interrogation of your site configuration, deleted items and clean-up tools for your site
Jira Cloud does not support automated backups. Currently, you can perform data-only backups (which exclude attachments, avatars, and logos) at any time. When you create a backup that includes attachments, avatars, and logos, you will need to wait 48 hours from the last time you created a backup with attachments.
Source: Jira Software Support
