The phone rings and it’s Carol from accounting. She can’t run payroll because her password isn’t working. And then there’s Jim from marketing. He’s got a big presentation to deliver in 20 minutes and he can’t access his file. Daniel in sales can’t get to the shared directory to snag the collateral he needs for a pitch. These problems are simple to solve, yet urgent and time consuming nonetheless. How do you help these people help themselves? Through enterprise password management and active directory password reset software.
If you’ve worked in IT you know that the vast majority of calls and tickets you receive involve solving painfully simple, minor problems for your business users — and an unbelievably high volume of these simple problems involve password management.
Computerworld’s April 2012 article titled “5 Annoying Help Desk Calls — and How to Banish Them” cites password reset as the #1 thorn in the IT department’s side. In fact, an HDI survey showed that many support centers reported that in excess of 30% of their tickets were related to password reset. And this is despite the fact that nearly 70% of these business users had access to tools to allow them to reset their passwords without assistance from the help desk.
So why don’t business users choose to help themselves? Because they follow the path most familiar to solve their problems, and usually the most familiar path involves a call to the IT help desk. What can you do to pave an easier path for your business users and empower them to leverage your password management software?
Start with a fully automated password reset process. If you’re getting pinged all day with one-off password reset requests, it’s time to invest in a password reset tool that includes self-service password reset capabilities. The password manager you select must be simple enough to use that your business users — gulp — actually use it.
Remind yourself that you have chosen a career in IT because you’re technologically savvy, and that others in your organization aren’t similarly inclined. In order to make your password management software work for your business users, it’s critical to understand what’s tripping them up and how you can help them help themselves.
Train you help desk to train callers. Educate them that it’s faster and easier to handle their own password management. And, instead of making it optional, automatically register everyone in your company for your self-service password reset tool. If they still call the help desk, gently remind them how much faster and easier it is to reset their passwords themselves.
You may not totally eliminate password management calls, but you will significantly lower the volume. And when you lower the volume, you streamline operations, save money, and free up time and focus for other important projects.
Automation is the answer, and an intuitive interface is the key to organizational integration. Convince your business users to empower themselves by thinking how they think, and you will reap great rewards.
Watch the video to see how senior security analysts at Gwinnett Medical Center discuss their active directory password reset success:
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