Service Request Management: An Introductory Guide

Business is becoming increasingly collaborative, with companies everywhere needing to eliminate silos between customers, end users, and departments. Clear communication is critical for resolving issues and keeping workflows moving. As such, service request management is in high demand across all verticals, including technology, e-commerce, retail, healthcare, finance, and manufacturing.

Look at any efficient and well-oiled company, and you’ll find a streamlined approach to service request management. That said, many businesses are still in the dark about this critical technology.

By the end of this article, you’ll know what service requests are, why they’re essential, and why it helps to have an optimized service request management system.

What Are Service Requests?

A service request, or ticket, is a user-generated correspondence for assistance or support. Service requests may originate from internal or external stakeholders.

When submitting a service request, a user or customer expresses their problem or question and transmits it via email, phone, web form, social channel, or self-service portal. In most companies, the request flows to a help desk for processing and then goes to a qualified support agent or worker for a resolution. However, service ticket distribution tends to vary across companies and industries.

What Are Some Types of Service Requests?

There are several different types of service requests you need to know about. Here are a few examples of incoming requests that businesses receive daily:

• Product information requests may ask for pricing, features, updates, and details about benefits. Product information requests often feed into sales and marketing pipelines, making them critical communications. They are also essential components of customer experience and satisfaction.
• Technical support requests focus on troubleshooting technical issues. Business users may issue support requests when having difficulty accessing software, hardware, or cloud accounts. 
• Billing requests have to do with financial matters like invoices and payments. For example, a vendor or employee may submit a billing request to clarify a payment issue. 
• Security requests center around cybersecurity and access issues like malware, ransomware, account takeovers, and lockouts. 
• HR requests may involve questions about company policies or benefits, worker complaints, or requests for training or other services.

"Service request management refers to receiving, processing, responding to, and tracking incoming messages for users and customers. It encompasses the complete request lifecycle, from when a request comes in until the final resolution."

What Is Service Request Management?

Service request management refers to receiving, processing, responding to, and tracking incoming messages for users and customers. It encompasses the complete request lifecycle, from when a request comes in until the final resolution. In addition, service request management involves tracking requests over time and generating reports to uncover trends and patterns. 

Companies can streamline resolutions and ensure optimal experiences for employees and customers through effective and efficient service request management. 

Why Is Service Request Management Important?

At first glance, a service request management system may not seem like a big deal. As it turns out, it’s critical for various needs like optimizing internal operations, enhancing service delivery, and maximizing efficiency. With that in mind, let’s explore some of the more popular ways companies can use service request management systems to improve operations. 

Complying and tracing audits 

Companies in regulated industries must maintain a documented audit trail for service requests, including their resolutions and actions. A service request management system allows for recording interactions and maintaining regulatory compliance with different standards and frameworks.

Communicating and collaborating

Customers and workers expect transparent and efficient workflows. Service request management keeps stakeholders informed about service requests, reducing miscommunication and complaints while streamlining delivery from end to end. 

Allocating resources

Businesses must exercise caution when responding to requests to conserve resources and ensure they’re deployed strategically. Service request management systems help allocate resources strategically, ensuring proper resource utilization and avoiding bottlenecks.

Becoming data-driven

Businesses across the board are trying to become more data-driven and optimized. A service request management system will offer performance tracking and improvement, enabling companies to identify areas of improvement and refine their delivery models. 

The Benefits of Service Request Management 

Service request management has several exciting benefits, from boosting internal operations to enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty. Here’s a look at some of the transformative advantages of using a service request management system.

Improved scalability

Growing businesses must have a system in place for managing incoming service requests. This becomes vital as companies scale and have more customers and employees. 

Avoiding overloading employees

It’s easy for tickets to pile up without a reliable service request management system. When this happens, it can be challenging for IT service desk agents, HR representatives, finance teams, and other employees responsible for receiving and responding to requests. A service request management system streamlines the process by alerting team members and strategically routing messages to individuals based on their availability and experience. 

Reduced downtime

When software and hardware stop working, productivity grinds to a halt. This negatively impacts technology ROI. With a service management system in place, companies can minimize downtime by quickly getting workers back up and running. This leads to more substantial output and greater returns. 

Positive experiences 

Today's businesses are under pressure to provide positive experiences for employees and customers with digital platforms and services. Making people wait for responses and failing to follow through with resolutions leads to negative reviews and reputational harm. By using a service request management system, companies can reduce wait times and generate better outcomes for customers and employees. 

What Tools Can You Use to Manage Requests from Users?

Until recently, companies handled most service requests via email. But recent advancements in service request management provide more flexibility when it comes to how businesses implement and manage incoming messages. Some common examples include collaboration platforms like Slack and Teams, productivity boards like Monday.com and Trello, social media platforms like Facebook, and messaging applications like WhatsApp.

Many businesses also integrate service request management platforms with other popular tools, such as customer relationship management (CRM), analytics and reporting tools, monitoring and alerting systems, and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.

Key Goals and Priorities for Service Request Management 

It’s important to use caution when implementing service request management. After all, a service request management system will play a big part in your business’s daily operations and workflows. Use the following tips to implement a service request management system that delivers optimal results. 

Find a platform that’s easy to use

The platform must be user-friendly and require little to no training. Otherwise, users may resort to using alternative channels when submitting service requests. This can frustrate team members and lead to miscommunication. 

Support your customers

Companies sometimes overlook customer support quality when purchasing service request management systems. Make sure the product you select offers responsive and helpful customer support to help whenever issues arise. 

Align your platform with your workflows 

Matching your platform with your company’s preferred communications workflows is a good idea. For example, if your team uses Slack to collaborate, it probably makes sense to use it for service request management. 

Use Wrangle to Enhance Slack

While Slack is an excellent option for service request management, it has one big drawback. Slack requires users to sit on the platform and monitor individual channels, which is a problem for today’s busy, distributed workers who might not always be active or in front of their machines. 

Wrangle is a ticketing and workflow automation tool built for Slack. Unlike traditional tools, your team can manage requests and IT ticketing directly in your company’s Slack workspace. 

Wrangle is the perfect tool to deploy if you want to manage internal tickets or requests in your Slack workspace. The no-code platform allows you to create and manage tickets, build automated workflows, and report on business KPIs. Automate complex processes such as:

• IT Help Desks
• IT Access Requests
• Procurement Processes
• Marketing Collateral Approvals
• Employee Onboarding and Offboarding
• Customer Onboarding
• Contract Approvals 

All you need to get started is Slack admin privileges. To experience Wrangle’s modern approach to ticketing, request a demo or, better yet, add the tool to Slack and get started today. 

This post was written by Justin Reynolds. Justin is a freelance writer who enjoys telling stories about how technology, science, and creativity can help workers be more productive. In his spare time, he likes seeing or playing live music, hiking, and traveling.

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