Since the last few years, the world has been switching from traditional approaches to its digital counterparts at an alarming rate. Digitization and process automation has seeped into all almost every process carried out by every business belonging to every industry.      

Naturally, this has resulted in the modernization of ITSM over time.      

Looking at the evolving needs of the employees and the ever0increasing need for personalization, it is really difficult for an organization to sustain itself and grow in the industry using the traditional ITSM techniques.      

The modern approach to ITSM involves the use of an integrated employee service desk with conversational AI to provide personalized solutions to the problems faced by your employees. Apart from providing seamless employee support, the modern service desk helps users in automating workflows, knowledge management, training employees, and providing a range of other services that are way beyond the scope of the traditional employee support system.      

Today, we will discuss important statistics revolving around the need and relevance of modern employee service desk, ITSM and Knowledge Management to cater to the needs of all employees belonging to all departments within an organization.     

Employees And Time Management

Whether they are working remotely or in a physical workspace, it is important for employees to manage their time well to ensure an optimum level of productivity.     

An article by Bloomfire discusses how employees spend their time at work. It stresses the fact that while they spend only around 40% of their total time actually performing the tasks assigned to them, more than 60% of their time is spent on other chores.     

Here are the statistics in detail:     

1. Employees spend 14% of their time in internal communication and collaboration  

According to the article, the minimum share of their time goes in interacting with other employees (and/or management) and collaborating with them for getting some basic questions answered and issues resolved.     

2. 19% of their time is spent on researching and gathering information  

Almost 20% of the employees’ time is spent looking for valuable information and collecting the same for specific purposes, such as giving a presentation, doing an assignment, or simply getting answers to their questions.     

3. 28% of their time is spent in reading and answering emails  

This may not come as a shock to a working professional! The majority of an employee’s time is spent in the inbox of their mailing platform. This may refer to the time spent in sending follow-ups, receiving email updates, reaching out to senior management for support, and performing other relevant activities.     

Employee Engagement Statistics

One of the major reasons behind the need for modern ITSM and ESM in 2021 is to increase employee engagement. Gone are the days when employees were satisfied with decent remuneration and regular appraisals. Employees in 2021 need an ideal work-life balance, an flexible work environment, and a seamless service desk to get their issues resolved.     

Here are some of the major employee engagement statistics:     

4. 85% of the employees are not engaged in their workplaces  

An alarming report by Gallup’s State of The Global Workplace stated that only 15% of the employees have engaged with the work they. This implies that the majority of professionals either find their work uninteresting or are not motivated enough to carry on with the same.     

5. 81% of the employees would leave their jobs for the right offer  

A 2017 report by Hays showed that even if they are not actively looking for another job, 81% of the employees are ready to quit their jobs for the right offer, taking a major dig at the employee retention efforts made by companies across the world.     

6. Reduced employee engagement may cost companies in the US around $450-500 billion every year (Source: The Conference Board)  

7. Companies with high employee engagement are 21% more profitable  

A meta-analysis report by Gallup states that higher employee engagement is directly connected to higher profitability. This is essentially because motivated employees tend to work harder and aspire to achieve more.     

8. Good company culture increases an organization’s revenue by 4 times (Source: Forbes)  

9. 1 in every 3 professionals leave their jobs because of boredom at the workplace (Source: Korn Ferry)  

10. 37% of the employee give the most importance to recognition at the workplace  

A study by Octanner showed that 37% of the employees feel that recognition is the most important reason for their engagement at work. On the other hand, 12% of the employees preferred more autonomy, 12% preferred more inspiration, 7% preferred higher pay, 6% preferred training, and only 4% gave importance to promotion.     

11. 43% of employees prefer receiving recognition privately by the senior management (Source: Red balloon)  

12. Only 29% of the employees are satisfied with career advancement opportunities provided by their employers (Source: SHRM)  

13. 87% of millennials give importance to development in a job (Source: Gallup)  

14. A boat part manufacturing organization managed to increase its production capacity by $3.8 million by collecting and acting on employee feedback (Source: Emplify)  

15. Employees who are able to find passion and purpose at work are more than 3 times likely to be retained by their organization as opposed to those who are not able to do so. (Source: New York Times)  

16. Companies with higher employee engagement have 89% more customer satisfaction and 50% higher customer loyalty (Source: Hay Group)  

17. Customers are willing to pay 16% more to companies whose employees are more friendly (Source: PwC)  

Knowledge Management Statistics

Knowledge management plays arguably the most important role in ITSM in 2021. The use of AI-driven employee service desks allows you to automate knowledge management to provide personalized answers to the questions asked by your employees.     

Modern ITSM platforms provide knowledge as a service. They help organizations use their enterprise knowledge base to tailor their employee support across the board. Also, seamless knowledge management allows organizations to keep a track of the support provided to their employees for understanding the context of the questions asked.     

Overall, automated knowledge management helps you improve the speed, accuracy, and precision of support provided to your employees.     

A study was conducted by Panopto to understand how inefficient knowledge management can hamper productivity within an organization.      

The study resulted in three conclusive findings:     

18. Employees spend 5 hours every week waiting for answers from their co-workers  

The study shows that employees spend around 5 hours every week simply waiting for their co-workers to help them out with an issue. This clearly indicates that organizations are not using their enterprise knowledge in a way that employees can get instant solutions to their problems.     

19. Employees spend 8 hours every week making futile efforts to find solutions  

When employees do not have a co-worker who can help them out, they spend almost a day’s work time looking for solutions. This often results in employees getting confused and/or getting incorrect information from unreliable sources.     

20. Employees Spend almost 6 hours every week duplicating the work done by other people  

When they are unable to receive a solution that is designed uniquely for their needs, employees end up spending almost 6 hours a week in copying the work done by someone else, without necessarily understanding what they are doing.     

21. More than 50% of the knowledge workers are unable to find the information they need at work  

A report by BusinessWire shows that more than half the employees working in an organization are not able to find the information they need to carry on with their work.     

According to the same report,     

22. 19% of employees are unable to find the required information within their current systems,  

23. 17% of the employees lack appropriate permission within their systems to access the required information, and  

24. 16% of the employees are unable to approach an internal subject matter expert on time  

25. 40% of customer interactions happen only over the web  

A survey by DestinationCRM shows that 40% of all customer interactions take place over the internet, either through mobile/web apps or websites. Over time, customers are reducing their dependence on phone calls and text messages as the internet provides them with a faster and more holistic solution.     

The same survey shows that,     

26. 47% of the companies having a KMS report experienced an increase in sales  

ITSM Training And Development Statistics

Looking at the importance of modern employee service desks and the need for revamping ITSM for increased employee engagement, several organizations are formally training their executives to provide improved ITSM services and switch to using more advanced technologies.     

Here are some of the major ITSM training and development statistics:     

27. ITIL is the most popular certification sought out by service desk employees (Source: SDI)  

28. Companies that spend more time in initial ongoing service desk training have greater first-contact resolution rates (Source: ThinkHDI)  

29. Most service desk employees are provided with 10 to 80 hours of training every year (Source: SDI)  

30. 69% of service desk executives receive additional training for 10 to 40 hours every year. The most popular ongoing training types include security policies and procedures (42%), specific IT skills (63%), product/service related information (68%), and service desk procedures (80%) (Source: SDI)  

Chatbot/Conversation AI Statistics

The use of conversational AI in ITSM allows you to employ virtual assistants who are always available to help your employees. Unlike the support executives, the AI chatbots are never tired and never go off duty. Since your employees log into the service desk, they are assisted by the chatbots until they obtain a satisfactory resolution to their problems.     

Moreover, the use of conversational AI helps you make the ticketing system invisible. This allows you’re your employees to be relieved as the entire process of creating, managing, and closing support tickets is automated by the AI chatbots.     

Here are some of the major chatbot/conversational AI statistics that reflect the prominence of this advanced technology:     

31. The adoption of chatbots could save the healthcare, banking, and retail sectors $11 billion annually by 2023 (Source: Business Insider)  

32. The global chatbot market is expected to reach $1.3 billion by 2025 (Source: Cognizant)  

33. By 2023, the value of chatbot e-commerce transactions is projected to be $112 billion (Source: Juniper Research)  

34. By 2022, 75-90% of queries are projected to be handled by chatbots (Source: CNBC)  

35. 58% of the companies using chatbots in 2018 were B2B companies (Source: Boomtown)  

36. 54% of the customers report that companies need to change the way they interact with them (Source: Salesforce)  

37. More than 50% of the customers expect an organization to be available 24/7 for support (Source: VentureBeat)  

38. 86% of users expect that chatbots should have an option of transferring the case to a live agent (Source: Aspect Customer Experience Index)  

39. 69% of the customers prefer the chatbots to provide instant responses and the same percentage of customers are most likely to use chatbots for service-related inquiries (Source: Cognizant)  

40. 35% of users resort to chatbots for resolving a problem or for getting detailed answers to their questions. Also, 37% of the users prefer using a chatbot for getting timely responses during an emergency. (Source: Drift)  

Are You Ready For Automation of Employee Service Desk (AIESM) In 2021?

Looking at all the statistics, it is clear that the approach towards AIESM is changing in a substantial way. All the categories mentioned above – time management, employee engagement, knowledge management, ITSM training and development, and use of conversational AI – focus on improving the support provided to your employees with the help of the latest technological advancements.     

The modern approach to ITSM makes use of AI and advanced machine learning technology to understand the issues raised by the employees, scan the enterprise knowledge base for answers, and provide them with specific solutions in a format that is easily understandable.     

The statistics clearly denote that several businesses have already made a switch to using conversational AI and the ones using traditional techniques are struggling to keep their employees engaged. If you are willing your team to spend less time and effort in providing employee support and focus more on core business issues, it is high time you resort to modern and evolved ITSM techniques.