Future Trends in IT Service Management: What to Expect in 2025

IT service management (ITSM) describes how IT services are designed, delivered, and managed.ITSM aims to improve a business's use of information technology. Since the turn of the century and, more specifically, the last decade, ITSM has experienced various shifts in its delivery, and we're looking at a way of experiencing ITSM that was previously considered a pipe dream.

In this blog, we will help you:

• Understand the goals and objectives of ITSM.
• Become familiar with the critical aspects of ITSM.
• ITSM trends we can expect in 2025.

The goals and objectives of ITSM

Every business operates with IT. ITSM outlines the practices, processes, and policies an organization will employ to plan, deliver, operate, and control IT services offered to customers.

Now, customers could be those who use and buy a company's products and services or colleagues who rely on their IT system to perform their jobs.

'End user' is probably a better term!

Collectively, these activities constitute an organization's ITSM strategy, which covers their IT service delivery, including the following:

• How a company should respond if there is downtime or a cyber attack
• How a company plans to upgrade its IT systems safely
• How customer tickets are handled and escalated
• Controlling who accesses specific IT systems
• How all physical hardware is tracked

 The above is not a comprehensive list because ITSM is an umbrella term related to all IT activities.

The critical aspects of ITSM

A successful ITSM strategy is formulated based on the following factors:

• Evaluating what customers need and the elements that result in good customer experiences
• Ensuring there's a method to improve IT effectiveness and capabilities continually
• Smoothly implementing and managing end-to-end delivery of IT services
• Ensuring all IT services help achieve business objectives

Historically, ITSM has faced several challenges, such as:

• A lack of clear metrics to demonstrate ITSM's impact on business operations
• A lack of appreciation of how detrimental IT downtime can be for a business
• Overloaded systems struggling to handle service requests

That being said, the ITMS's future looks bright thanks to the following key trends.

Automation and artificial intelligence

There's no debate that artificial intelligence (AI) is this generation's version of the Industrial Revolution. AI is showing scarily good applications in nearly all industries, and ITSM will be no different.

Here's how:

Ticket management

Not all service tickets require immediate and urgent attention. Until now, classifying tickets has been so time-consuming that teams only notice the obvious ones that require escalation; otherwise, most teams use the FIFO method–first in, first out. 

The shift to working from home has significantly increased the volume of IT support tickets–to the point AI has become a necessity.

Intelligent automation enables organizations to automate ticket routing and classification based on content analysis. The AI will 'read' each ticket and organize them by priority, giving teams the most urgent or complex issues first.

If there are commonly recurring tickets or other routine tasks associated with onboarding or offboarding employees, the AI can create FAQs, SOPs, and self-help guides and automatically send them to the user, relieving IT from performing repetitive tasks. 

This would primarily be delivered via an AI self-service portal that can handle various functions, such as answering typical IT queries, guiding users through troubleshooting steps, and resolving simple incidents like password resetting. AI's ability to promptly resolve such requests will increase a business's operational efficiency and improve its customer service management.

The more tickets AI reads, the smarter it becomes in understanding and prioritizing requests via machine learning (ML), which improves efficiency perpetually. 

Service disruptions

If AI can read and learn from current data, it can do the same for historical data.

By analyzing past data and real-time monitoring of current IT systems, AI can establish patterns to help anticipate service disruptions and determine what will be needed to avoid them. As a result, IT teams can prepare in advance and quell a malfunction before it becomes a business continuity issue.

What we've described above is the art of predictive analytics–with the correct data AI becomes a psychic.

The courier industry benefits significantly from predictive analytics by providing couriers with optimized routes based on data on weather and traffic conditions, allowing them to improve efficiency and offer same-day freight, reduce costs, and provide exceptional service to their customers.

Improved customer service

A large portion of ITSM's success is meeting end users' needs. But you can only deliver better services if you know what they need.

That's where design thinking comes in.

Design thinking is a way of understanding what users need by putting yourself in their shoes.

Instead of assuming what customers want, IT teams can research, ask questions, and gather feedback to ensure their services match user expectations. This helps create solutions that work for the customer, improving their experience.

We are also likely to see broader support options. Traditionally, customers raise potential issues through a self-service portal, email, or phone. Many are now managing customer service by introducing AI-powered chatbots that can 'speak' to the customer, understand their needs, and route them to the solution, which could be to speak to a human or read a self-help guide.

Better customer satisfaction and service are all about meeting customers where they are. As a result, it wouldn't be surprising if companies created dedicated support social media accounts where users can raise tickets. Although replies are not always instantaneous, it would allow users to speak to support on the go.

Customer service is most closely tied to business outcomes in hospitality, leaving little room for errors. Hotels, for example, can invest in a property management solution that helps them collect and analyze guest data about their stay and preferences, allowing them to offer personalized attention.

Final thoughts

The future of ITSM is exciting. Organizations from all industries must lean into the latest ITSM trends and invest in advanced technologies like AI and ML to optimize the user experience and maintain a competitive edge or risk being replaced by those who do.

About the author

Arif Bharakda is a versatile writer passionate about marketing, technology, and B2B insights. With a keen interest in personal growth, Arif brings a relatable perspective to complex topics, making them accessible to all readers.