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Imagine an employee wants to download software onto her work computer. The company offers a protocol for the installation procedure as it takes care of the necessary approvals and initiates the installation.

This would require the employee to access the service catalog but instead, she contacts the service desk help agent for the information who redirects her to the service catalog.

The single request doesn’t seem like a significant impact on the agent but these little interruptions have a huge impact on the service help desk agents and their productivity as it interrupts their focus.

If there was a portal for the employees to auto-resolve their queries; the IT team and service desk agents would be able to focus on more complex issues. But how do you make them auto-resolve?

Auto-resolving queries such as software installation, on-boarding processes, password reset, unlocking accounts, etc. require a self-service portal that can execute the procedures seamlessly.

For a self-service portal to work and integrate into the current system effortlessly, it should encompass the following features:  

• Intelligent routing: which brings the employee queries to the perfect agent to solve rather than going to multiple agents and numerous re-directs.  
  

• Conversational A.I: The next most important step in the process of evolving into a self-help workplace.  
  
  

Conversational AI is an artificial intelligence module that recognizes speech and text with the help of natural language understanding (NLU), deep neural networks, and automated speech recognition (ASR). It makes use of machine learning algorithms and provides relevant and accurate information quickly.

1. Virtual personnel assistant: Clears the demands and queries on the go with AI and automation. It handles requests at a higher volume and cost-effective. The feature of cross-channel adaptability gives it an edge over others.  
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2. A.I automated integrated systems: Automates the repetitive and recurring queries completely in various fields of the organization such as I.T, H.R, etc.
    
3. ‍Seamless onboarding procedures: Assists the new employee to access the necessary credentials to align with the team of their department.  
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4. Incident management: Makes it easier to report the incidents which assist the communication system.  
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5. Email autoresponders: Leads to faster solving and fulfilling of queries, permissions, and requests.  
   

Many studies show that around 55% of employees surveyed want automation to replace repetitive aspects of their daily work. And 76% of enterprises are more focused on improving the self-service experience.  

The benefits of self-service portals go beyond simple access permissions

• It removes endless permission loops
  
  
• It provides another layer of encryption which improves the security with access controls
  
  
• It provides a secure hybrid app workflow which helps in better and smooth working.
  
  
• Provides a seamless communication system for better working
  
  
• It provides faster ticketing resolutions.
  
  

Another crucial factor for the success of a self-service portal is the usage of the portal itself. If the portal is available but the employees don’t use it then it becomes worthless.

The following steps could be beneficial:

• Expand - which means to automate and expand the service to all the fields from I.T to H.R which assists in smooth communication.  
  

• Enable - the access to the self-help portal should be open for all and the technology should not be remote to access. Encourage the use of a self-help portal or using conversational AI such as chatbots to solve queries.  
  

• Educate - about the features, how to use, and benefits as it makes the employees more aware of the availability of the portal and keeps it in an easy to access and employee-friendly interface such as a fully functional site or spot in the office.  
  

The self-service portal has become the most indispensable element of a next-level evolution of an organization into the automated world with faster resolutions and independent employees who auto-resolve!